Interesting ACAD Links

In the News: MicroSoft has just bought AutoDesk rival Visio Corp for 1.3 billion dollars of stock. Visio will become a department of MicroSoft. We'll see in the coming months how the strong arm of MS impacts AutoDesk. Considering already Visio makes a product that competes against LT, and in many ways is better than LT, including the ability to use LISP.

Andersen Windows has a new web site. Finally there is a window manufacturer that has enough common sense to not only create details that are useful to the building industry, but also set up a method of generating the proper details based upon user input. Considering those previous attempts by Andersen to create something for the CAD industry failed miserably as far as many CAD users are concerned, this is truly a cool tool. When you visit their web site you are asked to choose from a variety of window styles, Metric or English measurements, the size, whether the window is fixed or operating, other pertinent information and choose whether you want a Section, Elevation or Plan of the symbol. For the section detail you actually get to choose which part of the window is being detailed; top, bottom or side. Lastly you are given the option of which sort of drawing format you prefer; DWG, DXF or WMF. Note WMF is not a standard format for CAD drafting, but rather more for pictures and clip art. Depending on your browser you may have difficulty downloading these DWG files. Since there are many plug-ins and 3rd party software to allow viewing of DWG files inside of Netscape, there may be a conflict. I found this to be the case on one of the machines that I use. On a different machine it worked perfectly. My only complaint is that we are still being given details that show how the window is made, not how to include the window in various wall types. To me, this would be the best thing many of these manufacturing companies could do. Give us the detail recommended by the manufacturer on how the window should be installed depending if the wall is wood stud, steel stud, concrete block, brick, or straw bales. We really don't care how you put the window together at the plant, especially not for use in our drawings.

There's a new FREE 3D modeling software program on the net called Minos. If you can't afford a full blown expensive package like Max or Viz but want to play with 3D, this might be a good stepping stone for you. I haven't tried playing with this one yet myself.

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