by Don Beaton
The 2nd annual Bentley Bash was sponsored by Bentley and Archway Systems at Rio Hondo college. The price was right -- free, free, free! -- and it was a pleasant way to spend a Saturday, pick up a bit more CAD knowledge, eat some tasty sandwiches, and take home some nice door prizes. Archway estimates that 240 people attended the day's 12 presentations and seminars.
An IT rep from the Los Angeles Community College system gave a talk on an impressive high-tech energy-conservation construction program. www.laccdbuildsgreen.org
The morning seminar on Project Wise hit a speed bump when the presenter had computer problems and didn't have access to a server to do a real demo. However, I did get a much better understanding of what Project Wise is -- a Windows-Explorer-type CAD file manager that offers real benefits in keeping projects organized. It handles check-in/out for drawings, including files edited by outside agencies and contractors. It also ensures that all links to reference files are updated when files are renamed.
The second half of the morning seminar was on Windows 7. It seemed like a good choice when I signed up for it a couple of months ago, but in the meantime I already learned about 80% of the info just by installing and using 7. One cool trick I learned was the Windows+Tab shortcut, which is a space-age alternative to Alt+Tab.
In the afternoon, I chose the mini-class on the 3D aspects of MicroStation. I learned a bit more about Accudraw, which makes it easy to draw in 3D while viewing objects in an isometric view.
I may yet take the $125 MicroStation 3D course offered by Rio Hondo college. At 7 hr/day x 1 day/week x 16 weeks per course, it works out to about $1.11 per hour, and a good way to stay motivated to learn the material. www.riohondo.edu/tech/cad/index.htm
Thanks to Tom Lazear and his staff at Archway Systems for putting on the seminar. I find they are a great company that goes out of their way to help users and promote MicroStation and various other CAD products. www.archwaysystems.com
[Don Beaton is an Intergraph and Unix expert living in Orange Country, California.]
The 2nd annual Bentley Bash was sponsored by Bentley and Archway Systems at Rio Hondo college. The price was right -- free, free, free! -- and it was a pleasant way to spend a Saturday, pick up a bit more CAD knowledge, eat some tasty sandwiches, and take home some nice door prizes. Archway estimates that 240 people attended the day's 12 presentations and seminars.
An IT rep from the Los Angeles Community College system gave a talk on an impressive high-tech energy-conservation construction program. www.laccdbuildsgreen.org
The morning seminar on Project Wise hit a speed bump when the presenter had computer problems and didn't have access to a server to do a real demo. However, I did get a much better understanding of what Project Wise is -- a Windows-Explorer-type CAD file manager that offers real benefits in keeping projects organized. It handles check-in/out for drawings, including files edited by outside agencies and contractors. It also ensures that all links to reference files are updated when files are renamed.
The second half of the morning seminar was on Windows 7. It seemed like a good choice when I signed up for it a couple of months ago, but in the meantime I already learned about 80% of the info just by installing and using 7. One cool trick I learned was the Windows+Tab shortcut, which is a space-age alternative to Alt+Tab.
In the afternoon, I chose the mini-class on the 3D aspects of MicroStation. I learned a bit more about Accudraw, which makes it easy to draw in 3D while viewing objects in an isometric view.
I may yet take the $125 MicroStation 3D course offered by Rio Hondo college. At 7 hr/day x 1 day/week x 16 weeks per course, it works out to about $1.11 per hour, and a good way to stay motivated to learn the material. www.riohondo.edu/tech/cad/index.htm
Thanks to Tom Lazear and his staff at Archway Systems for putting on the seminar. I find they are a great company that goes out of their way to help users and promote MicroStation and various other CAD products. www.archwaysystems.com
[Don Beaton is an Intergraph and Unix expert living in Orange Country, California.]
Not sure if other's realize this or ot but Project Wise is an almost similar product to Autodesk's Vault data management solution.
It's interesting that Bentley sees value and success in promoting Project Wise into the AEC world yet Autodesk (who theoretically should be able to integrate with Autodesk products better than Bentley) has focused on manufacturing only with only a small brief attempt at managing Civil products with it.
Both products, have functional issues in the AEC arena that I'd certainly love to see addressed but I suspect I shouldn't hold my breath.
Posted by: Darren J. Young | Feb 01, 2010 at 12:02 PM