Autocad 2007 Tips and Tricks Booklet

Ah, the moment we've all been waiting for since we heard about the latest release:
Lynn Allen has posted her AutoCAD 2007 Tips and Tricks Booklet.
Go check it out! I know that when I get a hold of some of these, they always go like hotcakes at my LUG meetings.

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BIM for Facilities Management... ok, fine... Facility Owners

I do note that this article says ‘Facility Owners’ rather than ‘Facility Managers’… as the Director of my Department likes to say ‘We’re the tail trying to wag the dog’.

While not in a construction field, I do subscribe to AECbytes, as Lachmi Kemlani always has great articles and jumpstarts fantastic discussions from industry leaders on her site.
See below where I’ve snipped out the bits of this particular article that can apply to facility managers, as well as a great bit from her summary at the end. As always, I love to hear speculation about the Future of FM.

The ‘Transition to BIM’ is an issue that any facility owner is going to have to face. Almost all of our construction documents are created by outside contractors. So, a transition here wouldn’t just mean sending me and a couple others off to training. It would mean convincing our contractors to move forward, as well as forcing them to work more closely for increased consistency across their models, which means choosing reliable and easy to use collaboration tools.
Just the thought of that almost makes me want to give up on the whole idea right now.

BUT! Thinking of all of the money that BIM could save during construction is just a drop in the bucket compared to how much it could save us in the long run! According to the deskers presenting at the first FM mixer at AU2004, building a building costs about $200 sq ft, and maintaining costs about $40 a sq ft annually.
Do I have any hard numbers on this?
No. I don’t budget for our maintenance, and I don’t manage the new construction projects… but, I do support the people that do… and I know how important accurate documentation (or heck just HAVING ANY documentation) is.
Her article points out that the discussion brought up the point that there are currently no BIM-FM solutions available... well.. of course, my thought on that is...
Building Systems for FM?
I *AM* the End User
The BIM technology is maturing for Architectural and Structural and Building Systems aren't far behind. We should be building on these programs that are gaining acceptance, not trying to create something entirely new and distanced that we have to face import/export challenges with.

Anyway… for the non-FM’ers here, I do encourage you to check out the rest of Lachmi’s article and see what your customers are thinking about.


Use of BIM by Facility Owners: An "Expotitions" Meeting
The biggest one was that of the transition to BIM, and the overall consensus was that the "pain" was not really in the technology or in learning it, but in the change of the business process that is involved. To put it in another way, 70% of the change that is needed to move to BIM is going to be cultural, while the technology will account for only 30% of it.

Getting back to the owner's perspective—which, after all, was what the event was all about—some felt that owners need to look beyond the immediate benefits of BIM in the design and construction phase and focus on the long-term benefits they will realize in their facilities management and operations processes

what continues to surprise me is the amount of time that is still spent on debating BIM. I see BIM as a logical evolution from CAD, the next technological step for the AEC industry, and very much in tune with the technological advancements happening in other fields and in society as a whole. While BIM may be a complex technology, we should try and avoid making its adoption so much more complicated than it needs to be. We spend far too much time dwelling on the difficulties involved in making the change, and we are constantly trying to look too far ahead to see what benefits BIM can bring down the road. While a long-term perspective is important, the focus should be on what we can achieve with BIM in the near term and trying to find the best way to do it. I think we can only make some serious headway with BIM in the AEC industry as a whole when we start taking it for granted—just as we take CAD for granted now—and focus on the "how" rather than on the "why."
- Lachmi Khemlani of AECbytes

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Survey on Revit Rendering by Revit Team

<>augi forum posting >
We've been very happy with your willingness to answer questions for us in surveys.
If you are a user of Revit Building and produce rendered images, we want to hear your take on Revit's rendering. It will take about 10 minutes or so.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=665082150566
We'll keep it open for a week. Pass it on if you have friends who might be interested and aren't reading AUGI in the next week!
Thanks,
Lynn Cherny
Interaction Design, Revit Product Design
<>

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Article on Autodesk & Facilities Management!

Check out this Augi Hotnews article: AutoCAD & FM: Implementing a CAFM System by Shaun Bryant (FM trainer and consultant).

Looks like this is the first in a series? Keep an eye out for the June edition of Hotnews, where he promises us a peek of Autodesk's newly acquired FM:Desktop.

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What is your CADnerd name?

alright, I got one too many forwards instructing me how to determine my stripper name, so I had to hijack the last one and put my own spin on it...

Find your CADnerd name: Boundary OffsetKey

MY NEW CAD NERD NAME IS IN THE SUBJECT LINE....
forward or not, I don't give a rip one way or the other... See what your CADnerd name will be, and share it with your all of your friends, and everyone you desperately wish would be your friend:
We all need a little stress-reliever! This only takes a minute, unless you are really really slow, in which case, I'll look forward to receiving your reply sometime next fall.

Send it on to everyone you know including the person that sent it to you, because if you don't, Bill Gates won't send me a penny, instead he'll pour Coke all over me, and you know what that can do to a person because of all of the other helpful emails you've gotten!

Sometimes when you have a stressful day or week, you need some silliness to break up the day. And, if we are honest, we have a lot more stressful days than not... personally, I prefer to delude myself into thinking that I've been out fishing all day.

Here is your dose of humour...
A. Follow the instructions to find your new name.
B. Once you have your new name, put it in the subject line of a new email and forward it to friends and family and co-workers and total strangers whose names you've farmed from discussion groups.
C. Don't forget to forward it back to the person who sent it to you, so they know you participated and that they aren't the only dork with no life willing to squander what precious little time we have on this earth.

1. Use the third letter of your first name to determine your new first name:
a = Pline
b = Circle
c = Attribute
d = Ray
e = Mline
f = Donut
g = Spline
h = Ellipse
i = Block
j =Hatch
k = Gradient
l = Boundary
m = Arc
n = Region
o = Wipeout
p = Text
q = Edge
r = Mesh
s = Polygon
t = Point
u = Rectangle
v = Entity
w = Handle
x = Cloud
y = Mouse
z = Key

2. Use the second letter of your last name to determine the first half of your new last name:
a = Open
b = Update
c = Edit
d = Query
e = Extract
f = Explode
g = Burst
h = Modify
i = Calc
j = Load
k = Run
l = View
m = Move
n = Configure
o = Match
p = Clip
q = Rotate
r = Scale
s = Mirror
t = Offset
u = Array
v = Stretch
w = Lengthen
x = Chamfer
y = Fillet
z = Join

3. Use the third letter of your last name to determine the second half of your new last name:
a = Commandline
b = Interface
c = Button
d = Macro
e = Script
f = Application
g = Routine
h = Menu
i = Dialog
j = Definition
k = Accelerator
l = Network
m = Palette
n = Shortcut
o = Key
p = Pulldown
q = Override
r = Display
s = Window
t = Tag
u = Tablet
v = Status
w = Environment
x = Transfer
y = Drag
z = Migrate

Be sure to check out my other nerdy time wasters - "You Might be a CAD Diva If..." and the 2006 System Variable crossword puzzle (page 7)... I am posting an edit here 08/06 to include a link to You might be a Redneck CAD Tech if... from MEP blogger Kelly Swa. Good stuff.

Now when you SEND THIS ON...use your new name as the subject... or use mine... or use 'Hey, look what this dork did, can you believe it?... honestly, just type whatever you want, because it's not like I care, or could stop you even if I did. If you don't send this to 15 other nerds within the next two hours, a boy in Blavlaguccia will be eaten by a one-pound goat named Starbucks... only you can save him!!!

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Embed your DWF

Check out these two tips from Scott Sheppard...

How do I embed a DWF file in an Office document?

How do I embed a DWF file in an HTML page?

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