Free Magazine, 3D and the Rumor Mill

Freebies:

There's a new magazine out called The Autodesk Resource Guide and it's yours free from Autodesk.

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Training:

I was asked the other day about the best way to learn 3D in AutoCAD. Depending on your location, a junior college or a 4 year college is a great place to check. However, if your local schools don't offer this sort of class, and you can't make it to an AEC training session then you might want to check with your local reseller. Many offer free or low cost training sessions. If this isn't an option for you, you might want to look at something like Referentia for AutoCAD. Their 3D course is by well known 3D artist Dave Pitzer (who just happens to teach at our local JC). You've probably seen his space station rendering from Accurender on the back of popular CAD magazines. Their training systems have won numerous awards and allow for training at your own pace.

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3D & Civil:
If you create 3D buildings, you probably are often faced with the chore of building roads, parking spaces, dealing with striping, etc. CAD Easy has numerous programs, including EasySite. This allows you to turn 2D data, including USGS DEM, polylines, scanned data, etc. into a 3D landscape that you can then transpose the 2D roads into to create real world streets in the computer for a reasonable price. They also have a library of 3D signs that have the scanned image of the real signs mapped to them, all according to the specifications of the USDT. If you need 3D models of furniture, windows, doors, etc. they can supply these as well, and they can be linked to a spreadsheet program they have called EasyEstimator. This in turn can calculate your materials, etc. and can then be linked into Quicken to create a bill.

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Rumors:
Last week I had the pleasure of speaking with a fellow who is quite familiar with the current workings at Autodesk. He asked to remain anonymous, but I can tell you he's well known in the local ACAD community. Basically what I learned from him was 4 important items.

First, Autodesk will be bringing out next year a plug-in module for A2k that allows structural engineers to use AutoCAD to design in 3D and test their designs for structural integrity.

Second, according to him, he's seen the people working on the next version of Architectural Desktop and he swears it's going to be good.

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