LD Assistant CAD Training From California to Maryland, LD Assistant Users Came to Murfreesboro, TN Front row left to right: Nickolas Moore, Ben King, Will Ream, Rachel Kelley, Andrew Mackay, Kevin Denzel, Rodrigo Acosta Back row left to right: Allen Nichols, Chris Miller, Chad Beaudry, Roger Greenawalt, Talon Jones, Greg Lundin We would like to thank all of the users that joined us and working their butts off! We've received so much positive feedback and we absolutely enjoyed conducting the class. A special thank you goes out to Kevin Denzel and Andrew Mackay for all their help. AND THE WINNERS ARE At the end of the second day of training the students participated in: The Best of The Best Block Creation. To level the playing field, power users Kevin Denzel and Andrew Mackay did not participate in the contest. Both Kevin and Andrew have been using LD Assistant for years and are considered LD Assistant CAD masters. 1st Place Greg Lundin of ProShows   2nd Place William Ream   3rd Place Nickolas Moore     Greg elected to draw the Martin RoboZap   Both William & Nickolas chose to create a RoboScan

LD Assistant Tips

LD Assistant is multi-threaded in two areas: display driver and rendering. The WhipThread determines if two cores are used for redraws and regens. Render uses as many cores as are available, as reported by the number of squares shown during the rendering processing animation.

Featured LD Assistant Rendering by Sean Tarantino

Autodesk News

Autodesk Releases 123D Make Web App Preview Autodesk releases 123D Make Web App as a Technology Preview. Autodesk has a series of applications based on 3D creation. Several of them came from their Labs Projects and others have made it iOS iPad applications. When released, 123D Make was only available as a free download for Macs on OSX. Now Autodesk has released a preview web based application that is available to those with a web browser. Click here to keep reading

Autodesk Buys Mobile Video Shooting Star Socialcam for $60M - Socialcam, the quick-growing mobile video start-up, has quickly found a buyer. Autodesk, known for its 3-D design and visual effects software, has agreed to buy Socialcam, in a deal worth approximately $60 million, both companies said. They said they expect the deal to close within 30 days. - Socialcam — which had only moved out of shared office space into its own headquarters in San Francisco’s SOMA neighborhood within the past two weeks (it’s in Voxer’s old office) — plans to continue to operate its product mostly independently, now with the backing of Autodesk as a corporate parent. - Socialcam is the No. 1 application on Facebook, with 3.7 million daily active users and 56 million monthly active users, according to AppData. However, those numbers... Click here to keep reading

Articles & How To

Learning CAD: The Good Old Days - by Bill Fane, Cadalyst If you think AutoCAD training is challenging now, you might be surprised to know that it was once a lot worse. My grandmother used to say, "Anyone who longs for the good old days never lived back then." My first exposure to AutoCAD, or any CAD program for that matter, was version 2.17(g) in September 1985. In those days, AutoCAD updates came out every few weeks. One such update consisted of a snail-mail letter with instructions on how to use a DOS program called DeBug to patch ACAD.EXE yourself. Before you worried about education, you first had to get things running. For example... Click here to keep reading

AutoCAD Text Height Automatically by Mark Petrucci, Applied Software - 3 buttons for annotative scaling show current annotation scale, objects for current scale only, automatically adds objects to new scales, What is Annotative Scaling? Annotative scaling gives users the ability to place text one time in a drawing and have AutoCAD AUTOMATICALLY calculate text height at different scales. If you need to show a room name at 1/4" scale and 1/8" scale, there is no need for you to enter the text twice at two different text heights and on two different layers. With this one example, I reduced the time and number of AutoCAD text objects and layers by 50% using Annotative Scaling. In the image to the right, it is important to understand there are three button used for Annotative Scaling. The first is the plot scale. This controls the size... Click here to keep reading

AutoCAD Quick Tip – Create Multileader Style with Right Click Brian Benton, CAD-a-Blog AutoCAD® has an annotation tool known as Multileaders. Their display features are controlled by styles (if you are doing it right that is) in the same way dimensions and text styles control the display settings of their objects. If you find that a multileader has been customized and is no longer controlled by a specific style you can quickly create a new style from it. Click here to keep reading

WiFi for the CAD Workstation, Pt 1: WiFi-N wireless networking technology is 6 times faster than WiFi-G, Curt Moreno, CADspeed So the whole world has gone mobile. Where we once had been tethered to our desks, chained for productivity’s sake, we are now free to roam the corporate wilderness. People are grabbing their tablets and laptops and running out the door to continue working at the job site, in coffee shops, and from home. And thanks to the wonders of wireless networking, you can keep right on working just about anywhere you go. - You are set up for wireless networking, aren’t you? Click here to keep reading

3ds Max: The Learning Curve -by AUGI, AREA community, Dario Passariello, AUGI Library We will explore the some of the options available to develop a comprehensive knowledge of Autodesk® 3ds Max. This can lead to recognized certification to train others and disseminate knowledge on a professional level. One ongoing challenge to the digital artist is staying current with new software versions. Fortunately, there are several communities online and resources in print that contain excellent training information. There are many groups online geared specifically to each field where 3ds Max is used, including media & entertainment, film, AEC, and gaming. The 2012 version of 3ds Max adds... Click here to keep reading

Mix up your CAD Ribbon Panels by Micro Concepts The whole AutoCAD interface is highly customisable, but mostly requires users to delve into the CUI (Custom User Interface) to make changes. An easy, quick change that everyone can use is to move Panels off the Ribbon when you need certain tools or even move Panels onto a Ribbon TAB where you use them more often (more of a drag and drop affair). Simply click on the dark bar along the bottom of any Panel, then drag down onto the workspace. This will detach the Panel and create a Floating Toolbar. Click here to keep reading

Hatch a Plan - understanding hatch creation contextual tab on ribbon, Elvis Sverko, ASCENT Blog Every software package has a number of features and commands that can be used. Some commands are used excessively, and some are rarely utilized. Some commands are quick and easy, while others may be complex with multiple options. But regardless of how often or how difficult a command is, in order to successfully use the software, you should know how to use them all, or at least be familiar with them. So where does someone start when learning the software for the first time? That’s up to the instructor, who needs to plan out the best approach to teaching all the different commands, features and options. There needs to be a specific order to these topics. Whether that order is... Click here to keep reading

Accuracy of AutoDesk 123D Catch? by Jim Chandler & John Fryer, Iboro.ac.uk Aboriginal cave re-measurement using digital photogrammetry- Jim Chandler and John Fryer In April 2011, Autodesk provided access to a free and simple to use package for creating 3-D meshes from user supplied digital imagery (traditionally known as the "photogrammetry"!). Originally known as Project PhotoFly, this has evolved into the current package known as "Autodesk 123D Catch ", but how accurate is it? This brief report outlines an initial approach adopted to answer this question. Autodesk 123D Catch The beta version of 123D Catch can be freely downloaded and is currently free to use for non-commercial purposes. It simply requires the user to supply a minimum of three images of an object, which are then uploaded to a server for processing, presumably involving PVMS methods (Patch-based Multiview Stereo). No restrictions appear to be placed upon camera type or focus setting, so some form of camera calibration is being conducted. Of course, all photographs cannot be simply taken from the same location and consistent/natural lighting conditions generate optimum results. The processing strategy appears similar to the Microsoft Photosynth initiative, in that minimal user input is required other than providing the images. However, 123D Catch appears to offer increased benefits, particularly in the visualisation and options to extract data for subsequent use. Both these packages represent a significant development for those interested in photogrammetry. However, a key question is just how accurate are the data generated by a wholly image based approach that uses no external object control constraints and includes fully automated camera calibration. Click here to keep reading

Hardware for the CAD Professional

Hardware Review: 3DBOXX 3970 XTREME Workstation by Jeff Rowe, MCADCafe - Intel i7 quad core CPU, 20 GB cache SSD, NVIDIA Quadro 4000 video card with 2GB memory, offers impressive design, build quality with high levels of performance, Although generalized, so-called consumer-grade computers have made huge strides forward in terms of performance, some users still need some extra computing horsepower based on the applications they run and the work they perform. In other words, not all computer users need an engineering workstation-class machine, but many still truly do, especially with graphics- and computational-intensive applications, such as Inventor, Alias Design, and 3ds Max. While some relatively high-powered workstations usually come with a price premium, you actually can pay a relatively small price for higher levels of performance, and it is usually worth it. One of the most notable, compelling, and economical premium computers that I've encountered in a number of years is the 3DBOXX 3970 XTREME desktop workstation that offers rock solid build quality and amazing performance for the price. Click here to keep reading

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