The AutoCAD User Experience Team is hosting its annual AutoCAD Sneak Peek events in late September. These are free half-day events held in a few different locations, and they’re a great way to get hands-on experience with in-progress features and give your suggestions and feedback directly to the team designing those features. This year the team is running two events that focus on different functionality. To sign up, click one of the survey links below.

Web & Mobile Sneak Peek

This sneak peek highlights features for people who work on AutoCAD from multiple computers or different locations — such as using different workstations, or switching between the office, home, or working out in the field.  CAD Managers and day-to-day AutoCAD users of all levels are welcome to attend.

Locations & Dates: San Francisco (Sept 22), San Jose, CA (Sept 28), and Denver (Oct 4-5)

Sign Up for the Web & Mobile Sneak Peek Here

Model Documentation Sneak Peek

This sneak peek is geared toward people in the Mechanical/Manufacturing industry who use AutoCAD, AutoCAD Mechanical, or/and  Inventor , and who create and annotate model views (such as section, detail, and projected  views) of 3D models (mechanical parts, components).

Locations: San Francisco (Sept 23), Portland/Lake Oswego (Sept 29-30), and Fullerton, CA (Sept 29-30)

Sign Up for the Model Documentation Sneak Peek Here

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=172720029467777

Bill and Karen (with Jedi the cat)

Lynn Allen, of Autodesk, also presented along with Elrond Burrell from the UK.  The theme was Building with Nature – Building Design in a Changing Environment.

Many speakers addressed the impact of climate changes and natural resource depletion and the need for buildings to respond.  Buildings that are energy efficient and respectful of their environments are needed and so much more can be done.

I spoke on the cycle of Software enabling design and Design pushing software.  We see that creative designers push harder on software and that software responds by becoming more responsive.  Software also enables designers to generate their creative designs in a more productive way.

Speakers also discussed reduce carbon footprints and reductions in energy use.  How building owners and homeowners could reduce their electricity use via changes in habits (turn off that light if not in active use) or unplugging non used appliances like large screen TV’s that have standby power loads.  Larger discussions included residential solar power additions and the troubles of getting the right information to make informed decisions.

The event closed with an Awards Ceremony showcasing top designs in many categories.  You can see the 2010 winners here - http://www.bdasa.com.au/index.php/gallery/design-excellence-awards .  The 2011 winners are not online yet (as far as I know).

Many thanks to the Australian hosts and their generous hospitality and friendliness.  I also saw some kangaroos in the wild – very nice.

I am always looking for tips and trick and cross industry information that I can apply to the firms with whom I interact.  I attended several classes but two of them stood out.

The event opened with an introduction to the event by Kanwar Anand.  His disarming nature and candid speaking manner makes you think he is chatting with only you.  He presented some lessons learned by KETIV about the impact of the economy and how they could apply to each persons firm or business.  Very practical and a lot of the listeners shared many of the same struggles over the past 18 months or longer.

The first was Optimal CAD Management presented by Javier Chavez.  Javier talked about creating deployment images and how you could set many of the standard settings that a CAD Manager would want to unify as part of the deployment.  He covered the CUI, Profiles, standard config files,workspaces and much more.  My compliments to Javier.  I have heard him speak before and he always does a great job.  He answers questions well and takes those question that are specific to only one person offline after the class.  He stays on topic and reviews what was presented at the end.

Another good class was “The Convergence of BIM and Digital Prototyping”.  It was focused on sharing components created in Inventor with those using Revit.  Rob Cohee of Autodesk discussed what he thought the top attributes of quality BIM content from the Revit users point of view.

Some of the things he listed included:

• Conveying Design Intent
• Appropriate level of Detail
• Adequate  number of items in a family
• Flexible use of Parameters
• Industry or Category Standards
• Good performance
• Usability
• Rendering Quality

He went on to discuss how the BIM Interoperability in 2011 addresses many of these concerns.  There is not a lot out there on this subject that I could find.

Good presenter that interacted with the audience well.  He polled the attendees to see what they were using, industry they were in, what kind of tools they were using and then used this info to make his presentation better.

Here are a couple of links on  the Interoperability tools in Inventor:

http://saarc.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?siteID=5967151&id=14530772

Check out his Youtube video’s – http://www.youtube.com/user/robcohee

All in all a very good event.  And my good friends at KETIV just keep getting better and better. (full disclosure – I use to work  with them)

Registration for the 2010 Mid-Continent MicroStation Community Conference is now open! Be sure to register soon to qualify for our early registration discount.

Register at: http://www.tmcmcmc.org/modules/confreg/

What: 2010 TMCMCMC Mid-Continent MicroStation Community Conference

When: August 10th and 11th

Where: Overland Park Convention Center

Costs: Early Registration: $85/day/person (Early registration ends July 23rd at 5pm!)
After 7/23: $95/day/person Workshop fee: $60 per workshop

Click for the current agenda be sure to check back, we’re still working on the final version of the agenda.

Special Event:This year’s Special Event will once again be held at The Power Play in Lenexa, KS. This is a great opportunity to spend time with your peers outside the conference setting.

I have attended before and the event is going strong.  Well attended by industry representatives, software developers and User Group reps.  It is a grand collection of those who influence the software and industries that your are involved in.

Highlights of this year included HP and Intel discussing the next generation of chips and hardware that will make your services run faster.  Is it time to move to a new platform?  Do you need to move from a PC to a workstation?  Are you on the right hardware?

Intel mentioned the Tick-Tock process of development where:

Year 1: First the “Tick”

Intel delivers new silicon process technology, dramatically increasing transistor density while enhancing performance and energy efficiency within a smaller, more refined version of our existing microarchitecture.

Year 2: Then the “Tock”

Intel delivers entirely new processor microarchitecture to optimize the value of the increased number of transistors and technology updates now available.

Find out more here.

HP discussed SkyRoom - which I want to check out.

Other items that are getting traction:

PTC Windchill

The Chaos Report for IT – failures of projects

Pivot from Microsoft

The Mid Continent MicroStation Community is hosting an event.

Summer Conference
Overland Park, Kansas
August 25-26, 2009
Registration is now open!

Here are just a few reasons to attend this year’s conference:
• Interesting and informative sessions on MicroStation,
• The latest information on the current MicroStation, GEOPAK and InRoads releases
• Building Information Modeling (BIM), one of the hottest topics in architecture and engineering, continues to be a featured track
• User sessions by local and national firms
• Structural Analysis solutions (RAM, STAAD, LEAP, and others) in a dedicated track
• CAD Management tracks, as well as Plotting, Publishing, and Collaboration
• Hands on Workshops using MicroStation and Discipline specific Tools
• The ever-popular giveaway games and “Jeopardy”
• Visit our various exhibitors and browse their offerings
• The ability to network with your peers
• Earn Continuing Education Credits

View the sessions at a glance:
http://www.tmcmcmc.org/meetings/2009/sessions_2009.pdf

Register:
Register at http://www.tmcmcmc.org/modules/confreg/

Free CAD Managers Forum Event:

EatyourCAD (EYC) is holding the first US CAD Managers Forum event at HNTB’s offices in Kansas City, Missouri on Monday August 24th from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm. The focus of this round-table, open discussion session will be looking at the developing role of the CAD Manager, with emphasis on the current recession. We will be looking at how BIM is impacting our daily jobs, and how to approach implementation. We will be discussing the expense of training and how we can make the most of what is available to maximize benefits and how CAD Management should support our company’s business aims. Demonstrating success, and justifying the role of CAD Management can be difficult, but it is essential to the long-term success of the CAD Manager’s role. The afternoon sessions are for exchanging ways of managing your priorities, planning projects and monitoring your performance.

Today was a long day of classes. On just about every topic you could think of.  After those classes were done – there were more classes.

Many that I spoke with had trouble remembering the class topics they had on the first day.  This is a common problem.  There is so much learning going on that it is hard to keep track.  It will all come back to them when they return to their offices and review their notes.

All in all it was a grand day of learning.

Well it was AUGI Day.

The AUGI Board met with users at the AUGI Unplugged meeting.  We chatted about the existing and future plans and answered questions with our members.

Then it was off to my next presentation on Preventative CAD Management, after that Lunch and then presenting on CAD Leadership.

AUGI members were encouraged to put on AUGI wear.  Anything and everything that has AUGI written on it.  A winner was selected that had the most creative outfit.  Top DAUG continued with live updates on the top 10.

AUGI had is Annual Meeting and Beer Bust.  The Annual meeting included the presentation of the AUGI Wish Lists for Inventor, AutoCAD, Revit and Civil 3D.

More to come tomorrow on the last “full” day.  Friday is a half day calendar.   Then everyone heads home (or heads for the casinos)