New CAD tool for plant design - AutoCAD Plant 3D 2011

Autodesk just released the latest version of its plant design software - AutoCAD Plant 3D 2011. It is an important release for us as this is the first version of Plant 3D distributed also for the Czech market and XANADU is currently the sole authorized reseller of Plant 3D in Czechia.

Plant 3D is an effective tool for designing piping systems, chemical and processing plants. It contains full functionality for concepts, 3D modelling, pipe routing, analysis plus isometrics and documentation of complex plant designs and their support structures. Its equipment libraries contain models and blocks in many industry standards. Like any other "industry-version" of AutoCAD, Plant 3D works with the standard DWG file format, it is based on a familiar user interface and it offers also all the commands and functions of the plain AutoCAD.

AutoCAD Plant is compatible with the 2D tool AutoCAD P&ID (process diagrams and 2D) and Autodesk Navisworks (project coordination, collision detection). In fact you can also receive AutoCAD Plant 3D as a "Suite" (Autodesk Plant Design Suite 2011) bundled with AutoCAD P&ID and Autodesk Navisworks.

More info:
http://www.autodesk.com/autocadplant3d
http://www.xanadu.cz/plant3d

Cloud rendering with Autodesk Project Neon

New web rendering service Autodesk Project Neon is an interesting Labs product employing the "unlimited" computing performance of the internet server cloud.

With this free web application (technology preview by Autodesk Labs) you can easily create photorealistic renderings of views in complex 3D DWG models of your AutoCAD projects. So you can push off the resource-intensive rendering jobs from your computers to the scalable network of Autodesk computers (or probably rather Amazon computers). You don't need to burden your CAD workstations or upgrade their performance parameters.

You can upload your drawing either as a DWG file as an eTransmit ZIP package containing the neccessary xrefs and material textures. The 3D DWG drawing must contain the scene model, light definitions and first of all predefined named views, which you will then select as a rendering parameter.

You can find the Project Neon service on neon.labs.autodesk.com. After you login to your Autodesk account (from your Subscription or from Autodesk discussion forums) you can upload your project drawing, choose the requested view for rendering and the rendering quality. Then you can just wait till the U.S. servers diligently process your project. Depending on the complexity of your scene and the selected resolution you can expect the results in minutes up to tens of minutes. You can let the service render multiple scenes in parallel. You don't have to wait for the results - the service will send you a notification e-mail when the render is finished - then you can pick up (download) the final rendered image (PNG or JPG) from your account.

E.g. the sample scene (7MB DWG) takes about 12 minutes to render in high quality and in the resolution of 1920x1080 pixels.

Cooperation with CADENAS - CADforum Partcommunity portal

In a cooperation with CADENAS, we have started a joint project - the online 3D CAD parts library at cadforum.partcommunity.com

The international CAD portal CADforum.cz by XANADU now offers a free 3D CAD web download library with millions of parts and product data, developed by CADENAS GmbH. This library contains parametric CAD parts from more than 250 world leading suppliers. CAD data is downloadable in the DWG format for AutoCAD, IPT/IAM formats for Inventor and in the neutral STEP exchange format.

All designers using Autodesk CAD products can benefit from this online resource - finishing their designs faster and without errors.

Show what's normally hidden...

No, I am talking about things normally hidden in AutoCAD drawings. Sometimes you just want to reveal more and show data which normally stay hidden.

There are several areas of hidden data, hidden parameters and information deep in the DWG drawing database. And here are some methods how to dig out this data.

1. The most obvious item - the geometry. Reveal hidden layers by thawing and enabling all layers (the LAYER command). Unhide hidden (isolated) objects by the UNISOLATEOBJECTS command.
   
2. Hidden attributes - display hidden attributes in blocks by the ATTDISP command.
   
3. Empty texts - some drawing contain texts with space-only characters. Such texts are not visible until you set the QTEXTMODE variable.
   
4. Hidden face edges - 3DFaces with hidden edges can be revealed by setting the SPLFRAME variable to 1.
   
5. Proxy objects - proxy objects from vertical versions of AutoCAD and AutoCAD add-ons without object enablers can be displayed by setting the PROXYSHOW variable
   
6. Drawing tables - a DWG drawing does not contain only geometry but also non-graphical objects: styles, tables, linetypes, etc. You can list them e.g. through the VisualLisp IDE. Start the VLIDE command and use View > Browse drawing database.
   
7. EED - Extended Entity Data - can contain valuable information. You can list the EED contents for any drawing object with the Express Tools command XDLIST.
   
8. Hyperlinks - if you attach a link (URL) to a drawing object, you may want to show it again. Use the SHOWURLS command.
   
9. Field relationships - you may have a number of dynamically linked texts (fields) reflecting properties of other objects (acreage, lengths, etc.). Use the FIELDLINK utility to draw temporary lines linking fields and their dependent objects (see www.xanadu.cz/download)
   
10. History - the history of a drawing is normally hidden - you cannot tell what was drawn first and what next. With the LISP utility "HISTORY" you can animate the history of your DWG drawing (see www.xanadu.cz/download).
    

NB: You can find all mentioned commands and variables in the AutoCAD commands database on CADforum.cz.

Free AutoCAD and other Autodesk software

Did you know there are several ways how you can get AutoCAD, Civil 3D, Inventor, Mechanical or 3ds Max for free? Yes, Autodesk gives its software for free for selected groups of users.

The major one of these groups are students. In most countries, students can download and use educational versions (fully functional software, EDU banner embedded in the drawings) of the most important Autodesk CAD, BIM and GIS software products. This offer is valid for several years already and the number of students who took this opportunity passed 1 million.

Another group qualified for free Autodesk software (plus training and certifications) are displaced employees - the unemployed. The "Autodesk Assistance Program" helps these professionals to stay in touch with the latest CAD technology and update their skills. This program is valid through January 31st, 2011. See www.autodesk.com/assistance.

Both these groups can now get the latest versions of Autodesk products including:

• AutoCAD 2011
  
• AutoCAD Architecture 2011
  
• AutoCAD MEP 2011
  
• AutoCAD Civil 3D 2011
  
• AutoCAD Map 3D 2011
  
• AutoCAD Electrical 2011
  
• AutoCAD Mechanical 2011
  
• Autodesk 3ds Max 2011
  

Congrats to HC Pardubice - champions of the Czech Hockey League

The new champion of the Czech Ice Hockey League 2009/2011 is the team of HC Eaton Pardubice. The success of this winner of the play-off series is based on its phenomenal goal-keeper Dominik Hasek, well known also from NHL where he played in the teams of Buffalo and Detroit.

XANADU is a proud partner of the HC Pardubice hockey team and we congratulate the new champions!

Revolutionary change in the AutoCAD 2011 user interface

(Prague, April 1st) Autodesk has released a revolutionary simplified user interface in the new AutoCAD 2011. This is an unprecedented deed in the software industry, but other software vendors have already expressed their intentions to follow the same way. What is the matter?

The costs of software localization to multiple languages and the time delays between the release of a new version and its localizations were coming into sharp conflict with the economic requirements for cost reduction in the period of global recession, and with the frequency of launching new versions of AutoCAD. At the same time, the number of AutoCAD users in China and other Asian countries is increasing rapidly. The estimated Y/Y growth is 21% in these regions - and in the year 2035 (the year when Himalayan glaciers should have melted), the users in that part of the world will already make 86.3% of the AutoCAD user base. According to the research study of the Springfield University, the knowledge level of AutoCAD users in the US and in Europe has grown so much that 89.8% percent of them follow only the icons and do not need to read the function names and command prompts. Plus, parts of the Autodesk software development team comes from China. As a logical conclusion from all these effects, Autodesk has decided to develop and deliver only the Chinese version of AutoCAD, with the Chinese user interface.

While all the icons and functions remain unchanged, any average user will be able to quickly navigate in the new AutoCAD. First-time users can make use of a paper template delivered with AutoCAD - by simple attaching this template to the screen they can quickly identify the individual functions in menus and ribbons. Moreover, the new web-based online help in AutoCAD 2011 can employ the Google Translate web tool to automatically translate the documentation to virtually any language - the Chinese version of AutoCAD can so easily get into new language areas where no localized versions of AutoCAD existed yet (e.g. Swahili or Galician). Printed manuals pose no problem as there are no printed manuals.

The initial reactions of users and journalists to this innovation depend on the region. The computer supplement of the Chinese government newspaper Ming Pao calls this Autodesk's decision a "step in the right direction". On the other hand, a reputable French blogger Patrick Merde chooses rather dismissive words in its heavily commented blog post. The reaction of financial markets is rather positive, the Autodesk shares (ADSK) rose after the announcement of about 2.8%. Therefore, we can probably look forward to similar solutions also in other programs.

Have a good April Fools' Day.