RobiNZ CAD Blog

Autodesk University 2010 E-Badges & Twibbon

I’ll update my status as things evolve but currently “I’m Attending, Speaking, Exhibiting” don’t quite apply so had to make a slight adjustment! Autodesk University - Autodesk University 2010 E-Badges Spread the word about your participation in Autodesk University 2010. This set of AU 2010 e-badges can be added to your website, blog, or email blasts to colleagues and customers, then linked to the AU 2010 Conference or Exhibition page. Badges are available in three sizes… Visit the AU 2010 Twibbon page now and add the AU Twibbon to your twitter avatar and Facebook account Read more →

Revit User Group Wellington - July Meeting Announcement

When: Wed 28 July 2010 Where: Productspec HQ, 14 Holland St, 5.30 - 7.30pm Presentations: Scheduling linked files..? We've solved it..! Come along and find out how. We will take you through nested families, linking parameters, project parameters and the difference between component and annotation parameters. Then, just when you thought you were all parametered out Matt will take us through shared parameters and how to best manage them. Old Skool XP: We follow up with the batch renderer utility on an old skool XP. Q&A Session : Have your question answered in the open Q&A session.. Thanks Precision :... Read more →

New Zealand Places Third at Microsoft Imagine Cup

Congratulations to Team OneBeep! New Zealand Places Third at Microsoft Imagine Cup - Communicado - Site Home - MSDN Blogs “We’re all extremely proud here at Microsoft New Zealand today – Team OneBeep from the University of Auckland took out 3rd place at the worldwide finals in Poland for the Imagine Cup” “Focusing on the One Laptop Per Child programme and its 1.4 million deployed laptops, Team One Beep came up with an inexpensive and robust method to solve the problem of sending educational content to these laptops, which are sent out to impoverished schools and communities in areas of... Read more →

Whacky Xref insert scaling? Check INSUNITS

Working in old files brings out some obscure problems. Items long since established, corrected, in templates/projects leap out of the past to confound you again. This time it was an ancient old site reference file that refused to insert correctly scaled. That can happen if sites are drawn 1 Unit = 1 Metre, vs. buildings at 1 unit/mm, but that wasn’t the case. The factor was about 25.4 x larger and Imperial Units can trigger this. However, they were correctly set to metric. It turned out to be the InsUnits setting which was set to 1 (imperial), not 4 (metric).... Read more →

Revit User Group Auckland – July 2010 meeting announcement

At Jasmax, 2 Marston Street, Parnell, on Wednesday 21st July 2010 5.30pm : Join us from 5.30pm for Drinks and Nibbles ($5 donation-receipts available) 6:00pm : Welcome and Introduction 6:05pm : Presentation: Revit Architecture Case Studies with Steve Davis from Assemble (20mins or so) Panel Discussion: 'Structural Design and Documentation with Revit Structure' (40mins or so) Philip Kendall, BECA - Zane Priest, Buller George Turkington - Andrew McCabe, MSC Chaired by - Steve Davis, Assemble 7.00pm : Wrap up - Tips, Tricks & Open Forum Please RSVP attendance by 5pm on Tuesday prior, for catering purposes, via the link at... Read more →

The new banner is where I live!

A view from the Waitakere Ranges of: Waitakere City, Auckland CBD, North Shore, Rangitoto (Volcanic cone) and, in the far distance, Coromandel Peninsular. I actually live 370m below this, in the foreground, so usually see this view, puffing, after cycling up the hill. The road is called "The Scenic Drive" and lives up to the name! Read more →

I write like…

I was happy with this analysis, from the text of a TAMOz related post, as the first one I tried said "Dan Brown"! I write like Isaac Asimov I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing! I wish I did write like Isaac. I’ve certainly read many of his books, fiction and non-fiction, and the hefty autobiographical volumes: “In Memory” & “In Joy”. It was quite a while back as had to order at the local Library and remember struggling to fit them in my school bag. I doubt this analysis is reliable as Isaac was a... Read more →

A simple fix to open the broken Outlook Window

I was on holiday today but a call from a friend had me in PC repair mode. The problem was Outlook 2007, on a home PC so no Exchange, refusing to start with the message: "Cannot start MS Office Outlook. Unable to open the Outlook window” This one was new to me so I ran Office Diagnostics to check the install. That was clean so a bit more research was required to find this simple fix. Just fire up Outlook with the command: Start > Run > Outlook.exe /resetnavpane After that Outlook started normally from the icon, back to the... Read more →

Learn about AutoCAD 2011 with Lynn Allen

Lynn Allen recently posted some awesome video tour/demo/training media. A series of short videos lead you through the new and improved features in AutoCAD 2011. Of particular interest to me were the enhanced 3D tools, especially as AutoCAD now offers surfacing tools more often seen in dedicated mechanical & modelling packages. For 2D work the “Parametric Constraints” and “Everyday Productivity Tools” sections are a must while Hatch & Transparency satisfies the artist that lurks inside every CAD user! Together the videos form a concise, but complete, introduction and each topic is a separate “video chapter” making it easy to review... Read more →

Thirteen years, where did they go?

According to Outlook, today marked thirteen years since I joined The Warehouse Limited. Coincidentally, yesterday a question regarding the area of a long closed store had me ferreting through an old plan* (below left) which represented TWL store design at about that time. Since then we have evolved from 2D CAD to BIM with tools that seemed like science fiction not much more than a decade ago. Although technology, and the world, has changed the reasons I decided TWL would be a good place to work remain. So, it’s back to work tomorrow! * This plan was a trace of... Read more →