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Ellipsis is the official blog of Autodesk's Technical Evangelist Team. We will discuss all things design and manufacturing related with a focus on industries such as automotive and transportation, consumer products, industrial machinery and building product manufacturing and fabrication. We also have resident experts who will blog about specific product developments in CAD, Simulation, Industrial Design and Data Management.
We look forward to providing you, our user community, with the most relevant and up to date developments in our industry, and hopefully with information that will assist you in doing your job better, faster, and more precisely.
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Inventor SP2 is out!
August 31, 2006 12:44 AMby Kevin SchneiderGo get you quality goodness here:
For Inventor 11 and Inventor 11 Pro
For Inventor 11 DWF Extension and Inventor 11 Pro DWF Extension
The read me on what's fixed is here.
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Neon Lights
August 30, 2006 02:34 AMby Kevin SchneiderRecent there was a newsgroup question about how to make a NEON light.
since Studio is such a visual tool to use this is a great place to post the answer so you can see the results.
There are two "Tricks" to getting an object to act like a Neon light.
First edit the material properties and set you emissive to a light color. In this Case I want the neon light to look red so I set the emissive to red.
In addition I tweaked the other setting s to get the final look I wanted, but the most important thing you do is to get that emissive color bright!
Next you need to edit the Lighting style and turn on Bounced light. It is on the second tab at the bottom. You can shorted the time it takes to compute by setting a low or medium value in the combo box. I sue a medium as it is a good compromise setting. This setting controls the number of bounces Studio calculates when rendering.
Next make sure you save your edits to the style and apply the material and lighting style to your scene.
Finally render!
View image
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Intel Core 2 Duo: Woodcrest
August 28, 2006 05:52 AMby Kevin SchneiderMCAD Magazine has a good review of Intel's latest processor. Check it out here.
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Do you use Invetor in a team?
August 25, 2006 04:37 AMby Kevin SchneiderI am working on my AU class material and would like to gather some best practices from users, as well as questions you might want to get answered. These questions are ONLY for sites with more than one user. The class I am currently working on is how to/not to set Inventor up for use by multiple users.
Specifically, if you could e-mail answers to me at kevin.schneider@autodesk.com with a subject line "[your name] - AU Class 1 Info"
Most of these are yes no and should take you 5 minutes to answer. The more answers I get the better the class will be!
Questions:
1. How many Inventor users users
2. What standard parts do you use CC or iPart/iAssembly
3. Do you customize CC
4. Do you use custom templates
5. Do you use custom styles
6. Do you use custom standards
7. Do you have custom iFeatures/Punch Libraries
8. Do you have custom title blocks, borders, or symbols
9. Do you allow users to make their own templates/style libraries
10. Do you use custom design data like thread.xls
11. Do you use company wide VBA macros
12. Do you use AIP
13. D you use design views
14. Do your users use private design views
15. Do you use network shares to control common data like the above
16. Has your network been down in the last 90 days
17. Do you use Novell servers
18. Do you use Windows servers
19. Do you use Linux\OSX servers
20. Do you use NAS device
21. Do users need to be able to work on line/off line from your network and shared data
22. Do you share projects with other "off sight" users without access to your company shares
23. Do you use multiple projects
24. Do you use "Single project method"
25. Do you use "Workgroup" project paths
26. Can you share a typical IPJ file with me if I asked
27. Do you use design assistant to copy/rename manage assemblies
28. Do you use Vault
29. Do you use other PDM/EDM system, which?
30. Do you use legacy "Multi-user" projects
31. In 100 words can you describe your File name scheme and logic
32. Do you migrate ALL inventor data to the latest deployed release
33. Do you have a backup strategy
34. Do you require unique names
35. Do you use custom iProperties
36. What NT permissions do users have on your network
37. Do you use node locked or network locked licensing
38. Do you deploy other AIS products like AutoCAD or MDT
39. Do non CAD users have access to your native Inventor data
40. What format are you using for non-cad viewing (DWF, PDF, DWG, E-Drawing, Native, other)
Please include any other special information relative to your multi-user setup.
Feel free to include questions and problems. My goal will be to answer as many questions as I can in the CLASS so please understand that I won't be able to answer all here.
-Kevin Schneider
Manufacturing Solutions Evangelist
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So many tips so little time...
August 23, 2006 06:45 AMby Kevin SchneiderThis is not your only source of tips is it?
Check out this great tip from Avatech.
Check out this sight in Europe
or, this tip from Amy and Garin here on the community site
It's great to see so many users sharing tips on how to get the most out of their tools. Log into the tips section here and post your own!
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Productstream can tell you when you have work to do...
August 21, 2006 04:19 AMby Kevin SchneiderOne of the cool things about Productstream is that it can be set up to e-mail you when you have work to do on an ECO. I was sitting with customers the other day and several asked that I clear up how to turn of e-mail notifications. The good news is that this is now much easier in Productstream 5.
In many cases you might have a corporate e-mail server you can use. For this tip I am assuming that you will be using the SMTP server that is installed by default when you install IIS off the XP cd.
Configuring the default SMTP server installed with IIS
As an alternative to using a corporate e-mail server, you can use the SMTP server installed with IIS. The following steps assume IIS was installed with the defaults.
1. On the Windows desktop, right-click My Computer and then select Manage.
2. In the Computer Management dialog box, expand Services and Applications and then expand Internet Information Services.
3. Right-click Default SMTP Virtual Server and then select Properties. Then select the Access tab.
4. Click Relay.
5. In the Relay Restrictions dialog box, verify the Only the list below radio button is selected.
6. Click Add.
7. In the Computer dialog box, click DNS Lookup. In the DNS Lookup dialog box, enter localhost. Click OK. The IP address for the localhost, 127.0.0.1, is inserted in the Computer dialog box.
8. In the Computer dialog box, click OK.
9. In the Default SMTP Virtual Server Properties dialog box, click OK.
You may be required to reboot after configuring the SMTP server.
Setting UP Autodesk Data Management Server
Note: These steps configure Autodesk Productstream for both the ERP e-mail notification and the change order e-mail notification.
1. On the computer hosting the Autodesk Data Management Server, Start the Autodesk Vault Manager.
2. Log in as administrator or user with administrator privileges.
3. From the Tools pull down menu select Advanced Settings...
4. Click the checkbox EnableEmail to turn on e-mail notifications.
5. Set the SMTP server to be the computer hosting the ADMS by entering in the SMTP Server Name value as localhost. If you are using a remote server, change the value to the machine name of the SMTP server on your network. If you do not know the machine name of the SMTP server, contact your system administrator.
6. Enter the FromEmailAddress. The FromEmailAddress key specifies the "from" address to use for the automatically generated e-mail messages. This value is blank by default. An e-mail address must be entered.
7. Enter the SMTP port number. By default SMTP operates on port 25.
8. Click the Test email button, enter the to email you want to sen the email to, and you should get a confirmation dialog. If not double check you entered everything correctly.
9. Check the email account you entered and you should see the message?
10. Click Apply and then close the Advanced Settings Dialog.
You are done!
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iPropWiz Updated.
August 15, 2006 11:40 PMby Kevin SchneiderSean Dotson makes a great little add-in for working with properties in Inventor. He has posted a new version here.
If you are already a user make sure you dontate and help support these great community created tools.
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Surface Consume Inputs
August 15, 2006 09:08 AMby Kevin SchneiderInventor 11 ands many new surfacing and shape description tools. With these new tools you can construct many surfaces and then modify them using trim, extend, sculpt, stitch or any of the other surfacing tools.
Weather creating or modifying surfaces, Inventor maintains a history of the se operations. Inventor 11 added new capabilities to manage how this history is displayed.
Here we have a very simple example design. This model consists of two surfaces. The red extruded surface and the cyan boundary patch.
These were created in two separate operations and you can see them in the browser as two separate features.
Over time the browser can get very long and complicated with each feature you create appearing in one long list.
When we stitch these two surfaces into one surface Inventor will now automatically consume the input surfaces.
This will remove clutter and better represent the history and dependencies of how your surfaces were created. To undo this you can right mouse click on the stich, or other consuming feature, and uncheck the option called Consume Inputs.
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A380 delays stem from CAD
August 3, 2006 11:40 PMby Kevin SchneiderIf you have been following the development of the Airbus a380 you may find the following Seattle times article interesting. It details a little about the design problems that lead up to the production delays.
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AUGI Wishlist
August 3, 2006 08:14 AMby Kevin SchneiderAutoCAD has worked for years with the AUGI team on a customer wishlist. It is used to help define what is developed in future releases of AutiCAD. You can now participate in the same process for Inventor.
The first round of voting is complete. See the results here.
I have had several people reply that they don't want to join AUGI. Why? The more Inventor users who join the more the AUGI community can shed the perception that it is for only AutoCAD users! Besides it is free!
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