WorldCAD Access

Understanding the Divide

Centers vs Borders

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What the Center was telling the Border, one year ago

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Martin Gurri's The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium (2018 edition) is the textbook for explaining the discombobulation that we peoples of the world feel today. We want discord to go away; he says it can't. Here's why.

Gurri divides the world into two: a Center made of elites (gov’t, media, academia, corporations) directing their decrees and products at the Border, which is made up of all others. In the past, Border people tended to accept what was pushed at them -- limited policy options, limited news, limited job possibilities -- so much so that they became to be known as the Silent Generation. Then technology came along.

Technology allows the Border to think and act and produce independently of the Center. The Center is furious at its diminished power, and so we hear it lashing out, accusing us of being fascists, bitter clingers, deniers, and deplorables. In turn, the Border sees the Center as inept, thieving, self-obsessed, unaccountable, and hypocritical.

A second key to understanding the split is that it is not between left and right; we see the Border and the Center on all sides of political thought. In the USA, for instance, we have seen Socialists fighting their Democratic party and Tea Partiers fighting their Republican party. My wife notes that Trump may well have came to power by taking advantage of the Center-Border divide: he is a Center person who made his appeal to people living on the Border. It explains Brexit, which was not so much a desire to leave the ultra-Center EU but a revolt against the Center in England.

 

No Winners

Gurri’s further point is that even though the Border now has power, it is unable to replace the Center, because only the Center is organized enough to run things, no matter how ineptly. As for the Border, it is too diffuse to develop and implement policy with sufficiently broad appeal. Both need each other, even as they despise each other.

The lack of cohesion is due also the the inability of the Center to receive feedback from the Border. Even when it does, the near-unlimited variety of demands made by the Border overwhelms the ability of the Center to respond.

Closer to home, this explains why large CAD vendors are tone-deaf to the concerns of users, whether the Revit-Autodesk conflict or the Solidworks-Dassault disconnect. 

The solution? There is none. Gurri thinks the current discontent is unresolvable, and may well carry on for decades. There is no unity to be had. He hopes that a new form of democracy will eventually emerge, but he (like me) says we can never predict the future, not even tomorrow.

 

Women vs. Government

An excellent Border vs. Center example took place this week. The political and medical elite of the Center in Canada's province of British Columbia announced that 55-65 year-olds could get the AstraZenica vaccine from local pharmacies. My wife and her friends in the age range were conflicted, because other elites at the Center (primarily from Europe) has been declaring AZ ineffective, dangerous, age-restricted, and the cause of blood clots. 

It was the death-by-blood-clot that concerned the women the most, as women are affected by them more often than men. Their conflicted choice was between suffering from coronavirus or from a blood clot. So these people on the Border used technology to confer through their smartphones and texting apps to make a consensus decision, independent of the Center.

(In the end, they decided that it was more likely for them to catch the virus than a clot. With the decision made, they then learned that just 13,000 doses were available for the 490,000 persons who are in their age group.)

 

 

Ralph's new book: 'Best CAD Practices'

4th Edition

 

This is the first time since 2001 I've updated my book on CAD management. Back then, it was known as CAD Managers Guidebook and was published by the Onward Press imprint of Delmar Publishing. Now it's know as Best CAD Practices.

Little in these 15 years has changed in our industry. We still wonder about what to name layers, which dimension styles to use, and how to write a manual that catalog's our firm's standards. During the same time, agencies have tweaked their standards, more standards have entered our world (such as related to BIM?), CAD has spread to mobile devices, and it's normal to run two or more CAD systems and/or operating systems in offices.

To thoroughly update this book, I went through all the standards in the earlier text, updated them, added more international standards, added four brand-new chapters, and changed the word "extranet" to "cloud." There's four entirely new chapters, plus significant new content in the others. Here's the table of contents:

1. The Role of the CAD Manager

2. Naming Drawings and Symbols
3. Layer Names, Colors, and Conventions
4. BIM Standards *New!
5. Fonts and Patterns, Linetypes and Widths
6. Scale Factors and Dimensions
7. Standard Drawings and Templates
8. Writing Your CAD Standards Manual

9. Working with Paper Drawings
10. Outsourcing and the Cloud
11. Running CAD on Mobile Devices * New!
12. The DWG Format, and Its Future
13. Managing the Dual-CAD Office * New!

Appendix A. How to Make Computers Run Faster * New!

It's available now for $27, which you can purchase through PayPal using this link

https://www.paypal.me/upfrontezine/27

Should Paypal.me not operate in your country, then please use www.paypal.com and the account of grabowski@telus.net. Or mail a cheque (US$ or CDN$ only, please) to upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd., 34486 Donlyn Avenue, Abbotsford BC, V2S 4W7, Canada with your email address.

I will email you the ebook, which is a PDF file about 7.5MB in size. The PDF is formatted for printing on 8.5"x11" paper.

Best CAD Practices
by Ralph Grabowski
4th edition; 270 pages
Published by upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd.
US$27.00

The 2016 edition of "BricsCAD for AutoCAD Users" now shipping

314 pages, and free for you

 

I wrote my first "...for AutoCAD Users" book back in 1991. It was the idea of OnWord Press to come out with a new category of book. It was no longer unheard of that two or more CAD systems coexist in the same office. Until then, it was normal for just one CAD program monopolize design firms, because of the expense. Paying $50,000 or $100,000 per seat was considered normal, and at those prices just one vendor could win a contract.

("Per-seat" was literal, as in those days the CAD vendor provided the software and the hardware and the customization. The hardware was unique to the software, and companies like Intergraph [short for interactive graphics] were in the 1980s among the largest computer manufacturers in the world. Even today, the Intel CPU running in your computer uses some of the functions invented and patented by Intergraph. Intergraph today, however, is a subsidiary of a Swedish measurements firm.)

When programs like AutoCAD came out at $1,000 (original price; inflation happens), designers could smuggle them into firms on their newly purchased personal computers. By the early 1990s, some firms needed more than one (now low-cost) CAD system to satisfy clients, and that's why running two or more CAD systems was no longer unheard of.

As a result, Dan Raker of OnWord Press asked me to be co-author of "Microstation for AutoCAD Users," a truly bi-directional book, despite the biased name of the title. I did the AutoCAD half, the co-author did the Microstation half. We showed readers how to many things in both CAD systems, which were quite different from each other, like trying to talk English in Spain. Even today I have no idea how to toggle the grid in Microstation!

Content from "BricsCAD V16 for AutoCAD Users"

 

Since then I've been asked to write "VDraft for AutoCAD Users," "IntelliCAD for AutoCAD Users," "TurboCAD for AutoCAD Users," "BricsCAD for AutoCAD Users," and so on. Even Autodesk asked me to write one, an 'Inventor for AutoCAD Users' style of book that was titled "Learning Autodesk Inventor: The 2D to 3D Transition Handbook."

Over the decades, the content of the book series has changed, from its bi-directional nature ("how this works in AutoCAD and how the same thing works in Microstation") to uni-directional: "you already know AutoCAD, here is how it works in Inventor, in BricsCAD...".

Over the decades, however, the reasons remained the same having two CAD systems in one office:

• To be 100% compatible with clients by using the same CAD system that they use
• To save money by licensing a mix of high-end and lower-cost compatible CAD systems

It is not uncommon today for design offices to employ a 10/90 license mix: 10% AutoCAD or Microstation seats for high-end functions, and 90% BricsCAD or DraftSight seats to handle the bulk of the drafting needs at something like 15% of the cost of AutoCAD.

 

About BricsCAD for AutoCAD Users

Because I've updated "BricsCAD for AutoCAD Users" quite often, it has really grown with useful content, of which I am quite proud. There is an entire chapter on practical advice on solving the issues that arise from running two CAD systems in one office. The same chapter also describes the issues involved in running two operating systems -- Windows and Linux -- because Linux offers further costs savings to design offices. (BricsCAD, DraftSight, and so on run with nearly identical feature sets on Linux, Mac, and Windows, something Autodesk cannot say.)

Another chapter provides several step-by-step tutorials on the advanced 3D features in BricsCAD, such as direct modeling, BIM, and sheet metal design and unfolding. A third chapter illustrates graphically how compatible BricsCAD is with AutoCAD: I show every AutoCAD 2016 entity alongside the same one as displayed by BricsCAD V16.

Anything that is new to V16 is highlighted in blue, making this a handy guide for users (and competitors) wondering what's new to the latest release of BricsCAD.

Last week I finished updating "BricsCAD V16 for AutoCAD Users." It's grown to 314 pages, and is available as a PDF download from https://bricsys.com/estore/books.

 

[Disclosure: With the exception of "AutoCAD for Microstation Users," Bricsys and other CAD vendors mentioned funded the writing of these ebooks.]

 

 

 

 

eBooks I've written

The census says 115

 

I've written close to 200 books; what are they? Here is the list of (nearly) all e-books I've written. (The remainder are paper-based books.) Not in the list are bespoke editions, about two dozen e-books I've written for specific clients. Together, this makes the total of e-books written around 115.

My very first e-book was "Tailoring AutoCAD," written for AutoCAD 2000 around that year. The e-book began as a series of articles I wrote for AutoCAD World, a now-defunct tabloid-style magazine. They called the column "Tailoring AutoCAD." The editor returned me the copyright on my articles after 3 months, and so  I began posting them on my Web site.The column went on for a couple of years.

A reader one day asked if I would collate all of the columns into a single book, so as to make it easier to download the PDF files. As a result, in 2002 my first e-book was born. Thirteen years later, the most popular e-book of all proved to be Tailoring Dynamic Blocks 2010.

On to the  list:

1. Animations With AutoCAD
2. Animations With AutoCAD 2012
3. BricsCAD for AutoCAD Users
4. BricsCAD V10 for AutoCAD Users
5. BricsCAD V11 for AutoCAD Users
6. BricsCAD V12 for AutoCAD users
7. BricsCAD V13 For AutoCAD users
8. BricsCAD V14 For AutoCAD users
9. CAD Manager's Guidebook: Rough Edition
   
10. Command Reference AutoCAD 2013: Rough Edition
    
11. Customizing BricsCAD V10
12. customizing BricsCAD v11
13. Customizing BricsCAD V12
14. Customizing BricsCAD V13
15. Customizing BricsCAD V14
16. Customizing BricsCAD V15
17. Customizing BricsCAD V8
    
18. Customizing BricsCAD V9
19. Inside AutoCAD 2006
20. Inside AutoCAD LT 2006, Vol 1
21. Inside AutoCAD LT 2006, Vol 2
22. Inside BricsCAD V13
23. Inside BricsCAD V13
24. Inside BricsCAD V14
25. Inside BricsCAD V15
26. Inside General CADD Pro 1
27. Inside Generic CADD 6
28. Inside IntelliCAD 2009
29. Inside IntelliCAD 5
30. Inside IntelliCAD 6
31. Inside Visio 2002
32. IntelliCAD: The Un AutoCAD (white paper)
33. Learn BricsCAD V10 in a Day
34. Learn BricsCAD V11 in a Day
35. Learn BricsCAD V12 in a Day
36. Learn BricsCAD V8 In A Day
37. Learn BricsCAD V9 in a Day
38. Mlines & Splines
39. Quick Reference AutoCAD 2014 Update
40. Render With AutoCAD 2011-12
41. Tailoring AutoCAD
42. Tailoring AutoCAD 2004
43. Tailoring AutoCAD 2004 Workbook Edition
44. Tailoring AutoCAD 2005
45. Tailoring AutoCAD 2006
46. Tailoring AutoCAD 2007
47. Tailoring AutoCAD 2008
48. Tailoring AutoCAD 2009
49. Tailoring AutoCAD 2010
50. Tailoring AutoCAD 2011-12
51. Tailoring AutoCAD 2012 for Mac and Windows
52. Tailoring AutoCAD CUI
53. Tailoring AutoCAD CUI 2008
54. Tailoring AutoCAD CUI 2009
55. Tailoring AutoCAD CUI 2010
56. Tailoring AutoCAD LT 2004-2005
57. Tailoring AutoCAD Render
58. Tailoring AutoCAD Rendering 2008
59. Tailoring AutoLISP DCL Diesel
60. Tailoring CUI for AutoCAD 2011-12
61. Tailoring CUI for AutoCAD 2013
62. Tailoring Dynamic Blocks
63. Tailoring Dynamic Blocks 2009
64. Tailoring Dynamic Blocks 2010
65. Tailoring IntelliCAD
66. Tailoring IntelliCAD 2009
67. Tailoring IntelliCAD 4
68. Tailoring IntelliCAD 5
69. Tailoring IntelliCAD 6
70. Tailoring QuickCalc
71. Tailoring Visio 2002
72. Tailoring Visual Styles
73. The Russian MCAD Market (white paper)
74. TurboCAD 4 AutoCAD Users
75. What's Inside AutoCAD 2005
76. What's Inside AutoCAD 2006
77. What's Inside AutoCAD 2006 LT
78. What's Inside AutoCAD 2007
79. What's Inside AutoCAD 2008
80. What's Inside AutoCAD 2008
81. What's Inside AutoCAD 2009
82. What's Inside AutoCAD 2009
83. What's Inside AutoCAD 2010
84. What's Inside AutoCAD 2010
85. What's Inside AutoCAD 2011
86. What's Inside AutoCAD 2012
87. What's Inside AutoCAD 2013
88. What's Inside AutoCAD 2014
89. What's Inside AutoCAD for Mac

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All of these ebooks are available for sale through my sales portal, eBooks.onLine at http://www.worldcadaccess.com/ebooksonline

 

Newest ebook on BricsCAD V15 now selling

Two of three

 

I've been updating my line of books for BricsCAD V15, the latest release of the 3D and 2D software from BricsCAD, and here is my progress report:

Pages from the new "Inside BricsCAD V15" ebook

Now available: Inside BricsCAD V15 ($20)

• How to make 3D models and 2D drawings with BricsCAD
• Dozens of useful tips
• Bigger at 284 full-color pages
• Updated for BricsCAD V15:
• Coverage of BricsCAD V15 for OS X and Windows 10
• New start screen and workspaces
• New ribbon, drawing tabs, and LookFrom and Tips widgets
• To order, see instructions below

 

Now available: BricsCAD V15 for AutoCAD Users (free)

• Illustrates how the two programs are similar and different
• How to work with a dual-CAD and dual-OS office
• Bigger at 294 full-color pages
• Includes new OS X version
• Download the PDF from the www.bricsys.com Web site at no charge

Pages from the new "BricsCAD V15 for AutoCAD Users" ebook

 

Available soon: Customizing BricsCAD V15 ($40)

 

How To Order

To order Inside BricsCAD V15, go to www.upfrontezine.com/lb8 and then click on the V15 button. You will be directed to PayPal for the $20 payment. Allow 24 hours for the delivery of the ebook, which is in PDF format and sized for printing on 8.5x11" paper.

At the same Web site, you can buy earlier editions of this ebook. I have editions available that go all the way back to BricsCAD V8. When you order, please specify which edition you want: V8, V9, V10, V11, V12, V13, or V14.

 Thx!

Geometric Modeling by Nikolay Golovanov

Book review by Ralph Grabowski

 

This isn't the usual kind of CAD book. It won't tutor you on how to design 3D models or draw in 2D. No, it explains the underlaying mathematics that makes 3D CAD software possible.

And so it is to filled chock-a-block with mathematical expressions, matrix transforms, and generalized diagrams of CAD structures, such as Bezier curves, 3D surfaces, and intersections between elements. These are the topics covered by its chapters:

Curves
Surfaces
Construction of curves and surfaces
Geometric models
Geometric modeling building
Geometric constraints
Geometric model application
Coordinate systems

To give you a flavor of its style, here is the paragraph with which the book begins Chapter 1:

A geometric model contains a description of a shape of a modeled object. A geometric shape is described by surfaces. Curves are used for constructing the surfaces. Geometric design begins with curves. Geometric modeling uses curves that are easy to manipulate. Curves are controlled by changing the data used to construct them. The curves may be constructed using analytic functions, a set of points, or other curves and surfaces.

...and then it proceeds to assume "a Cartesian system with a fixed orthonormal basis in three-dimensional Euclidean space." This is typical of the book: a mixture of the easily read with hardcore math-talk. Some of it I recognize from my vaguely-remembered university vector math class.

With this kind of intense complexity (I wonder if the book should carry an IQ rating), you might wonder who this book is meant for. It's for students learning principles of CAD design, as well as programmers who write CAD software.

There is a misconception that CAD software is a small field, consisting of a few big companies and a few more small ones. Au contraire! There are thousands. This is the reason the Open Design Alliance has 1,300 members, most of whom use the ODA's DWG APIs for in-house software that's never seen by you or me. My son-in-law, for instance, is writing a software program that analyzes the thermal efficiency of steam boilers manufactured by his employer. And so there is demand for this kind of book of fundamentals. Pre-pre-pre-design, you might say.

The author developed the C3D geometric modeling kernel for KOMPAS-3D, the largest selling Russian 3D CAD system from ASCON Group. He wrote this book based on his 20+ years of experience. Might he be giving away the company's crown jewels? No, not at all. It takes a lot to convert mathematical formulae into programming code. This book is the foundation. You now have to build the house.

I want to give a tip of the hat to the person who translated this book from Russian into English. (No credit is indicated, although the writing style indicates an American.) The translation is flawless.

This book gives me renewed respect for the programmers who produce the CAD software which we so lovingly employ to create our designs.

 

Geometric Modeling
by Nikolay Golovanov
$40; 344 pages
ISBN 978-1497473195

 

 

Available now: BricsCAD V15 for AutoCAD Users

6th Edition

 

It's almost hard to believe that I've written and updated 22 books on BricsCAD, and today I'm pleased to announce that #23 is available from the Bricsys Web site.

BricsCAD V15 for AutoCAD Users tells you just about anything you need to know about what's different and what's the same between the newest releases of BricsCAD and AutoCAD. It's loaded with hints on how to work with both CAD systems.

 

In particular, Chapter 5 on how to operate a design office with both BricsCAD and AutoCAD will be of interest to firms looking to lower their production costs. It's not unusual these days for offices to maintain a few seats of AutoCAD (for those tasks BricsCAD cannot perform), while bulking up on licenses of the 4x cheaper BricsCAD Platinum. 

The chapter solves issues such as the following:

• Lowering the total cost of ownership
• Dividing workflows between AutoCAD and BricsCAD
• Strategically implementing of a second CAD system
• Maintaining common operations through file paths
• Setting up the dual-OS office by running both Linux and Windows

The entire ebook is free, and can be downloaded from https://bricsys.com/estore/estoreBooks.jsp.

To apply these practices, I am available through grabowski@telus.net to consult on enhancing dual-CAD offices.

 

 

It is time to declare browserCAD in a deep funk

by Ralph Grabowski

 

It was a scant two years ago that a flurry of start-ups launched 3D MCAD software that runs in Web browsers. The catalyst was HTML5 and other browser technology that allowed users to interact with 3D models in their Web browsers on any hardware. No more installs to desktops; no more being limited to Windows. Wanna run 3D CAD on an Android ultrabook or a FirefoxOS phone -- no problemo.

(Well, almost no problemo. There were a few caveats. The hardware had to be powerful enough; the Web connection speed had to be fast enough; the Internet latency had to be low enough; the Web browser had to be HTML5-compatible enough; and so on. See figure below of Sunglass running on an iPad, kind of.)

Never mind. Even CAD-unaware publications like TechCrunch heralded this New Era in 3D design. Lanuched with the financial assistance of VC firms, firms erupted with funky software names like TinkerCAD, To3D, and sunglass.io . 

And then it was like 2001 all over again. The answer to step 2 of the old joke...

Step 1: Idea!
Step 2: ????
Step 3: Profits!

... is Paying Customers!

The Web sites for Sunglass.io and To3D aren't even zombies; they're gone entirely now. TinkerCAD was in the process of shutting down when Autodesk snapped it up. And as I write this, Lagoa was bought by Autodesk for $60 million. Earlier, GrabCAD was bought by Statasys, and TeamPlatform by 3D Systems.

Web-based CAD is just too funky to be useful in an efficient way to end-users.

 

Now in German: "BricsCAD V14 in 12 Lektionen" tutorials

Translated from "Inside BricsCAD 2014"

 
The German reseller of BricsCAD in Germany is MERViSOFT GmbH, and in March they arranged with Harald Vogel to translate my "Inside BricsCAD V14" ebook into German. This week the 193-page ebook becomes available for purchase (e21.61 incl. VAT) through https://shop.mervisoft-gmbh.de/bricscad/vertraege-zubehoer/bricscad-in-12-lektionen.html.

Some background on this edition: MERViSOFT used the title "BricsCAD V14 in 12 lessons," because there is no similar expression in German for my "Inside of BricCAD 14" title. As this book is a tutorial for beginners, it made sense to emphasize that it contains 12 lessons.

All sample drawings were translated into metric and German systems, and can be downloaded from the reseller's Web site; the link is found on the book's second page.

The translator, Mr. Vogel, is the author of articles in magazines like "C'T," as well as several books on 3D CAD. He added a bonus tutorial on layouts for this German edition.

- - -

All of my V14-edition BricsCAD books are available from theBricsys Web site at https://www.bricsys.com/estore/estoreBooks.jsp. "BricsCAD V14 in 12 Lektionen" is available here for US$27.

How to customize all aspects of BricsCAD V14, in 448 pages

Customizing BricsCAD V14

If you are an BricsCAD user, then you will be interested to know that I've updated one more of my books for V14:

Customizing BricsCAD V14 ($40)

• all about customizing BricsCAD and some on programming 
• all-new chapter on Quad cursor and workspaces 
• 448 full-color pages
• more information from www.upfrontezine.com/cb8

To order, go to www.upfrontezine.com/cb8 and then choose the edition you need. Editions are available for BricsCAD V8 through V14.

After I receive you order from PayPal, I will either email you a download link through Dropbox -- or you can use the link shown above. Please allow up to 24 hours for the email to arrive.

Thank you!
Ralph Grabowski, author 

 

PS: Here is the table of contents...

1. Introduction to Customizing BricsCAD V14
The Many Ways to Customizing, Which Customization?, Versions of BricsCAD, 60 Tips for BricsCAD Users, For Further Reference, Tutorial eBooks, BricsCAD API References, DWG, DXF, and DWF References

2. Adjusting Settings in BricsCAD
Touring the Settings Dialog Box, Settings Dialog Box: Toolbar, Categorized/Alphabetic Sorting, Export Settings, Drawing/Dimensions/Program Options, Finding Variables, Accessing and Changing Values, Variables Specific to Linux, Entering Variables at the Command Prompt

3. Customizing the BricsCAD Environment
Quick Summary of Support File Locations, Starting BricsCAD, Command Line Options, Command Line Switches, b Switch - Script Files, l Switch - No Logo, s Switch - Support Paths, p Switch - User Profiles, pl Switch - Batch Plots, t Switch - Template Files, Regserver and Unregserver Switches, Changing the Colors of the User Interface, Background Color, Cursor Color and Size, UI Parameters Controlled by OSes, Snap Marker Options, Hyperlink Cursor Options, Dynamic Dimension Options, Support File Paths, Files Settings, Files Section, Projects Section, Printer Support Section, Templates Section, Tool Palettes Section, Dictionaries Section, Log Files Section, File Dialogs Section, Reusing User Preferences, Launching the User Profile Manager, Using the Profile Manager

4. Introduction to the Customize Dialog Box
Touring the Customize Dialog Box, Menu Bar, CUI Customization File, ABOUT Cui Files, Tabs, Shortcut Menus, Apply and OK Buttons, The Nuclear Option

5. Customizing Toolbars and Button Icons
Quick Summary of Toolbar Parameters, Customizing the Look of Toolbars, Rearranging Toolbars, Dragging and Moving Toolbars, Turning Toolbars On and Off, Making New Toolbars, and Modifying Them, Creating New Toolbars, Alternative Method, Adding Controls, Flyouts, and Separators, Adding Controls (Droplists), Customizing Controls, Adding Flyouts, Adding Separators, Removing Buttons, and Renaming and Deleting Toolbars, Removing Buttons and Toolbars, Renaming Toolbars and Buttons, Quick Summary of Toolbar Button Parameters, Customizing Buttons, Modifying Button Parameters, Editing the Title Name and the Help String, Changing the Command Macro, Replacing Button Images

6. Customizing the Menus
Quick Summary of Menu Parameters, Modifying the Menu Bar, Understanding Menu Title Conventions, Adding Menu Items, Deleting Menu Items, Adding New Tools, Context Menus, Sharing Menus, Importing AutoCAD Menus

7. Writing Macros and Diesel Code
Quick Summary of Metacharacters in Macros, Quick Summary of Diesel Functions, Simple Macros, Transparent Commands in Macros, Dashed Commands, Options & User Input, Options, Pausing for User Input, Combining Options and Pauses, Other Control Keys, Menu-Specific Metacharacters, Diesel Coding, About Diesel, How to Toggle Check marks, Toggling Grayouts, Reporting Values of System Variables, Applying Sysvars Everywhere, How to Add Units, How to Solve Check Marks that Conflict with Icons, How to Deal with Two Sysvars, Reporting Through Diesel, Formatting Units, Formatting Diesel Output, Formatting Numbers, Fix, Index, Nth, Rtos, Formatting Angles, Formatting Text, Upper, StrnLen, Variables in Diesel, Complete Catalog of Diesel Functions, Math Functions, Logic Functions, Conversion Function, String Functions, System Functions, Diesel Programming Tips, Debugging Diesel, ModeMacro: Displaying Text on the Status Bar

8. Creating Keystroke Shortcuts, Aliases, and Shell Commands
Quick Summary of Shortcut Keystrokes, Defining Shortcut Keys, Editing & Deleting Keyboard Shortcuts, Assigning Multiple Commands, Command Aliases, BricsCAD Aliases: Sorted by Alias Name, BricsCAD Aliases: Sorted by Command Name, Creating New Aliases, Editing & Deleting Aliases, Alias Rules, Hand Coding Aliases, Shell Commands, Editing Shell Commands

9. Adapting Mouse, Double-click, and Tablet Buttons
Quick Summary of Default Buttons, Defining Actions for Mouse Buttons, Attaching Shortcut Menus to Buttons, Writing Macros for Buttons, Defining Actions for Tablet Buttons

New in V14! 10. Customizing the Quad Cursor & Workspaces
Quick Summary of Quad Cursor Settings, About The Quad Cursor, Customizing the Quad Cursor, Customization Through the Quad Tab, Customizing Workspaces

11. Designing Tool Palettes
Navigating Tools Palettes, Quick Summary of View Options, Icon Customization, Palette Customization, Customizing Tools, Customizing Tools Properties, Adding Programs and Macros, Organizing Tools, Importing Tool Palettes from AutoCAD, 12. Designing Simple and Complex Linetypes, Quick Summary of Linetype Definitions, About Simple and Complex Linetypes, Commands Affecting Linetypes, Loading Linetypes, Scaling Linetypes, System Variables Affecting Linetypes, The Special Case of Paper Space, The Special Case of Polylines, Customizing Linetypes, At the Command Prompt, Testing the New Linetype, Creating Linetypes with Text Editors, Linetype Format (.lin), Line 1: Header, Line 2: Data, Complex (2D) Linetypes, Embedding Text in Linetypes, Text, Text Style, Text Scale, Text Rotation, Absolute, X and Y Offset

13. Patterning Hatches
Quick Summary of Pattern Definitions, Where Do Hatch Patterns Come From?, How Hatch Patterns Work, System Variables that Control Hatches, Creating Custom Hatch Patterns, -Hatch Command, Hatch Command, Understanding the .pat Format, Adding Samples to the Hatch Palette, Tips on Creating Pattern Codes

14. Writing Scripts
What are Scripts?, Drawbacks to Scripts, Strictly Command-Line Oriented, Recording with RecScript, Writing Scripts by Hand, Script Commands and Modifiers

15. Decoding Shapes and Fonts
Quick Summary of Shape Definitions, Fonts, Complex Linetypes, and Shapes, SHX Fonts, About Fonts in BricsCAD, SHX in Complex Linetypes, SHX in Shapes, SHX in GD&T, Shape Compatibility with AutoCAD, About Shape Files, The Shape File Format, Vector Codes, Hexadecimal Conversion

16. Coding Field Text
Placing Field Text, Field Command, Fields in MText, Fields in Attributes, Changing Field Text, Double-clicking Fields in MText, Editing Fields in Attribute Definitions, Customizing the Way Fields Update, UpdateField, FieldEval, FieldDisplay, Compatibility with AutoCAD Field Codes, Another Field Text Example, Updating the Field Text, Understanding Field Codes, Concise Field Code Reference, Groups, Metawords, Formatting, Format Codes, Date & Time Format Codes, Quick Summary of Field Date and Time Codes, Objects and Property Names, Objects

17. Programming with LISP
The History of LISP in BricsCAD, Compatibility between LISP and AutoLISP, Additional LISP Functions, Different LISP Functions, Missing AutoLISP Functions, The LISP Programming Language, Simple LISP: Adding Two Numbers, LISP in Commands, Remembering the Result: setq, LISP Function Overview, Math Functions, Geometric Functions, Distance Between Two Points, The Angle from 0 Degrees, The Intersection of Two Lines, Entity Snaps, Conditional Functions, Other Conditionals, String and Conversion Functions, Joining Strings of Text, Converting Between Text and Numbers, Other Conversion Functions, External Command Functions, Command Function Limitation, Accessing System Variables, GetXXX Functions, Selection Set Functions, Entity Manipulation Functions, Advanced LISP Functions, Writing a Simple LISP Program, Why Write a Program?, Adding to the Simple LISP Program, Conquering Feature Bloat, Wishlist Item #1: Naming the Program, Defining the Function - defun, Naming the Function - C:, Local and Global Variables - /, Saving Data to Files, Tips in Using LISP

18. Designing Dialog Boxes with DCL
A Quick History of DCL, What Dialog Boxes Are Made Of, How DCL Operates, Your First DCL File, DCL Programming Structure, Start Dialog Box Definition, Quick Summary of DCL Metacharacters, Dialog Box Title, OK Button, The Default Tile, Testing DCL Code, LISP Code to Load and Run Dialog Boxes, Displaying Data from System Variables, Adding the Complimentary LISP Code, Clustering Text, Supplying the Variable Text, Leaving Room for Variable Text, Fixing the Button Width, Centering the Button, Testing the Dialog Box, Defining the Command, Examples of DCL Tiles, Buttons, Making Buttons Work, Check Boxes, Radio Buttons, Clusters, Columns and Rows, Boxed Row, Boxed Row with Label, Special Tiles for Radio Buttons, Debugging DCL, Dcl_Settings, DCL Error Messages, Semantic error(s) is DCL file, Dialog has neither an OK nor a CANCEL button, Error in dialog file “filename.dcl”, line n, Dialog too large to fit on screen, Additional Resources

19. Dabbling in VBA
Quick Summary of VBA Program Components, Quick Summary of VBA Commands in BricsCAD, Introduction to VBA, Accessing VBA Programs, Embedded or External, Sending Commands, Writing and Running VBA Routines, Displaying Messages, Constructing Dialog Boxes, BricsCAD V14 Automation Object Model, Object-Oriented Programming, Common Object Model, Object Browser, Line Entity, Properties, Methods, Events, Dialog Box with Code, Designing the Dialog Box, Adding the Code, Quick Summary of VBA Data Types, Quick Summary of VBA Predefined Constants, LastInput.Dvb, Quick Summary of VBA String Manipulation, Quick Summary of VBA Data Type Return Values, Loading and Running LastInput.Dvb, Quick Summary of VBA Variable Declarations, Quick Summary of VBA Shortcut References

Appendices
A. Concise Summary of System Variables and Settings
B. Concise DCL Reference
C. Concise LISP Reference

 

 

Photobook reveals the solider's life in the war of Afghanistan

Book Review

 

A publicist offered to send me a book to review of the war in Afghanistan. The war over there, in which my country Canada lost the most soldiers (on a per-capita basis), has always been a vague thing, and so I looked forward to seeing the book.

After a few SNAFUs in delivery, the hardcover Afghanistan on the Bounce: Boots on the ground with the US Military and the International Security Assistance Force arrived last week. It is photographed by Robert Cunnigham and annotated by Steven Hartov.

The photos follow the year or so US soliders put in duty, from leaving tearful family members at home, to going on patrols, goofing off, special ops, injury, and then returning to tearful family members at home.

It is part coffee table book and part encyclopedia. The photos fill the large pages, and then are interspersed with smaller booklets that provide details, such as the parts of the SOPMOD accessory kit (for guns) or the layers of clothing soldiers put on.

As I paged through the book, I became increasingly irritated at the small number of captions. Few photos have them, and so the meaning of many others was lost to me. What did it mean when a group of soldiers hurriedly unpacked fire extinguishers from cardboard boxes in front of an active (but unburning) helicopter? No idea. Of the few captions, many are too generic to satisfy. Immersing oneself in the photos will do.

Although ISAF is mentioned in the title, the other 50 countries receive no mention.

The author spent two years photographing 40 units on 132 combat missions, as well as civilians. The result is a book that gives us back home a feel for what it is like to soldier in the hot and barren hills of Afghanistan.

 

Afghanistan on the Bounce
http://afgotb.com

Hardcover $40 
162 pages
ISBN 978-1-60887-218-3

 

 

PR: "BricsCAD for AutoCAD Users" updated for BricsCAD V14

If you are an AutoCAD or BricsCAD user, then you might be interested to know that I've updated BricsCAD for AutoCD Users for AutoCAD 2014 and BricsCAD V14. My book shows you how the two CAD programs are different and similar.

Chapter 5 "Operating Dual-CAD Design Offices" is a great resource for design firms transitioning to another CAD package -- not just BricsCAD -- because it shows you how to run a dual-CAD and dual-OS (Windows and Linux) office.

This 272-page, free ebook has a whole new chapter on working with 3D in BricsCAD as compared to AutoCAD: direct modeling, Quad cursor, constraints, design intent, assembly modeling, kinematic analysis, generative drawings, sheet metal design, and more.

Here is the table of contents:

1. BricsCAD for AutoCAD Users
2. Comparing User Interfaces
3. Compatibility of Drawing Elements
4. Customizing and Programming BricsCAD
5. Operating Dual-CAD Design Offices
6. Working in 3D

A. Command Name Cross-reference (between AutoCAD and BricsCAD)
B. System Variable Cross-reference
C. Command Alias Cross-reference
D. Keystroke and Button Cross-reference

That's right, this ebook is free thanks to the generosity of Bricsys, and you can download the 9MB PDF file directly from their Web site through this link: https://www.bricsys.com/bricscad/docs/en_US/V14/BricsCADV14ForAutoCADusers-en_US.pdf.

Now, if you would like to support me in my writing, then you can purchase it for a suggested price of $23.20 through Paypal. Please follow these steps:

1. Log into www.paypal.com

2. Click Send Money

3. Enter the following information:

To: grabowski@telus.net
Amount: $23.20
Purchase: Goods

4. Click Continue.

After I receive you order from PayPal, I will either email you a download link through Dropbox -- or you can use the link shown above. Please allow up to 24 hours for the email to arrive.

Thank you!

Ralph Grabowski, author

 

Spell checking files for documents about AutoCAD

In my line of work, I need my desktop publishing and word processing software to recognize command and system variable names used by AutoCAD. This morning I put together all of them from AutoCAD 2014 into a single zip file, which you can download from here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/28941239/AutoCAD-Cmd-Names.zip

The zip file contains the following text files (plain ASCII text, all lower case), which you can import into your document production software's spell checker. Note that I separated the command names into categories, in case you don't want to import them all:

• AutoCAD-2014-commandNames.txt
• AutoCAD-2014-Express-Commands.txt 
• AutoCAD-2014-ObosoleteCommands.txt
• AutoCAD-2014-undocumentedcommandNames.txt
• AutoCAD-2014-sysvars.txt 

In total, there are 1,867 command and system variable names. (I take no blame, naturally, for omissions. commissions, and missplelings.)

To import the words into InDesign, follow these steps:

1. Unzip the AutoCAD-Cmd-Names.zip file.
2. In InDesign, go to the Edit menu, and then choose Spelling.
3. In the Spelling submenu, choose Dictionary.
4. In the Dictionary dialog box, click Import.
5. In the Import dialog box, navigate to the folder holding the .txt file, and then choose one.
6. Click Import, and then repeat steps 4-5 for the remaining files

 I trust this will be useful to you.

 

Paper books dying, ebooks too

I can call 2013 "the end-of-the-line for book writing." After starting in 1990, I at one time was writing multiple books for four publishers, resulting in some sixty titles and updates. Thank you to Delmar, Wordware, OnWord, and Springer for taking on me and my words.

My last remaining book publisher, Delmar, earlier this year entered bankruptcy protection. At the same time, I noticed my ebook orders slowing down over the last year. 

The good folks at Delmar tells me they think the problem is that people prefer to watch free YouTube tutorials, rather than buy and read books. I know that piracy also plays a devastating role, as people can get my PDFs free from numerous disreputable sources, and there is nothing I can do against them. To my dismay, even respectable engineering firms would rather steal than pay, I have learned.

End of the Line

And so I'm announcing that I won't update my ebooks any more; there is too little money in it for my time involved. Even, I've had no demand from customers to update my line of ebooks for AutoCAD 2014, as I would have in years past.

I will continue with some ebook projects, such as for Bricsys and other special clients. Naturally, existing titles will continue to be sold at www.upfrontezine.com/ebooks.

Thank you to you who bought ebooks from me over the last dozen years!

Synecdoche

Once in a while I come across a word I've never read before.

synecdoche

A figure of speech, in which:

-- a part is used for the whole (as hand for "sailor").
-- the whole for a part (as the law for "police officer").
-- the specific for the general (as cutthroat for "assassin").
-- the general for the specific (as thief for "pickpocket")
-- the material for the thing made from it (as steel for "sword").

Frequently in journalism (e.g."Ottawa" for the Canadian federal government) and sports (e.g. "Liverpool" for one of thd city's football teams).

From Greek sunekdokhē: to take on a share of.

First Book for the new AutoCAD 2007

The very first book for the new AutoCAD 2007 software from Autdoesk is now available. It's my "What's Inside? AutoCAD 2007", a 106-page PDF book. It covers what's new, changed, deleted, and undocumented in the latest release of AutoCAD, which is due to ship on 23 March.

More details, including the table of contents, are available at the book's Web page. The PDF book available now for US$15.90 through PayPal. If your organization uses more than one copy, please contact me for bulk rate discounts.

João Brogueira of www.cad.blogs.com likes it:

After receiving your eBook I spent an hour or so reading it (it was midnight in Portugal). Congratulations! Nice work. I post about it in my blog, and I'm sure you will see some movement from Portugal and Brazil.

Guy Kawasaki: "The Art of the Start"

Guy Kawasaki of Macintosh fame visited Vancouver Canada last month, spending a little too much time impressing we Canadians of his love for hockey. The remainder of the free 50-minute speech was an overview of his most recent book, "The Art of the Start." I took notes on scraps of paper while sitting on the floor of the overbooked conference room.

He says he uses ten points for speeches, so that listeners can tell how far along he is -- and walk out if it's taking too long. Each of the ten points, however, had several subpoints. More of a 40-point speech, then, on how to launch new companies:

10. Make Meaning (rather than set out to make money) through:
- increasing the quality of life for others.
- righting a wrong.
- preventing the end of something good.

9. Make a Mantra:
- 3-4 words on why your company exits.
- don't make mission statements, which are meaningless.

8. Jump to the Next Curve:
- by rebooting your brain (think differently).
- be willing to kill your own cash cow (create new products).
- don't be afraid of polarizing the opinions of others.

7. Get Going:
- make prototypes.
- find soul mates (sales, marketing, adult supervision).
- avoid solo enterprises.

6. Niche Thyself:
- avoid stupid products.
- avoid low-price products.
- look for unique and valuable products, which is where the $$$ are made.

5. Let 100 Flowers Blossom:
- sow fields with your product, not just window boxes.
- keep an eye out for unintended uses and customers, then cultivate them.
- look for agnostics to buy your product; avoid atheists.

4. 10/20/30 Rule:
- 10 slides for any presentation.
- 20 minutes duration of presentations (allows 40 minutes for questions and discussion).
- 30 pt is the optimal text size for slides.

3. Hire Infected People, in this order:
- #1: love of your product/service.
- #2: consider the new-hire's work experience.
- #3: consider the new-hire's education.
- hire better than yourself.
- apply the shopping center test: would you approach this person in a shopping center (or, hire the person right away)?

2. Low Barriers to Adaptation:
- never ask people to do something you won't do yourself.
- flatten the learning curve.
- works out of the box.

1. Don't Let the Bozos Grind You Down:
- Bozo 1: ignorant (rusty, old, loser).
- Bozo #2: dangerous (successful, rich, famous).
- Mr Kawasaki at first failed to see that the Internet was more than just a PC with a modem cord; he turned down an offer to run Yahoo.

"There must be a God," Mr Kawasaki concluded, "because there is no other reason for Apple to have survived."