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Coinciding with the acquisition of VIA Development, Nate joined Autodesk in March of 2003 after a decade stint as an entrepreneur following a two-decade stint as a controls engineer and software applications developer at Owens-Corning. Nate is now the lead product architect for AutoCAD Electrical. He loves this stuff.
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Influencers wanted
August 24, 2007 04:37 AMby Nate HoltWe are looking for customers who would be interested in helping to shape future releases of AutoCAD Electrical by attending periodic webcasts. The primary objective of these meetings would be for you to work directly with the AutoCAD Electrical team to gather your requirements, input, and suggestions regarding potential product enhancements. Prior to the events, you would receive an invitation with the details of the meeting as well as a high level agenda of the topics that will be discussed during the meeting. Participation is completely voluntary, but in order to participate in these discussions, you will be required to first sign our Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).
If you are interested in participating in some of these meetings, please send the information listed below to jared.bunch@autodesk.com. Once he has received and confirmed the information provided, he will send you the NDA to sign and then fax back. Once he has received the signed NDA, you will be included in the invitations to participate in future discussions.
Please email directly to Jared Bunch (jared.bunch@autodesk.com):
Your Name (First and Last):
Company Name:
Company Address (please include City, State and Country):
Phone Number:
Email Address:
AutoCAD Electrical Version currently using:
Amount of experience with AutoCAD Electrical (weeks, months or years):
Here are some answers to questions you may be asking yourselves right now:
Q.) Where are these events held? Do I have to travel for them?
A.) No, there is no travel required. What we do is host these events via a webcast presentation and conference call, so all you would need is internet access and a telephone.
Q.) What is required of me if I attend one of these events?
A.) Nothing, other than sending the requested information, signing and sending back the NDA, and calling/logging into the presentation. These events are completely voluntary and if you are not interested in a particular topic, or are just too busy at the time of the meeting, that is fine, you dont have to attend. You can just wait for the next topic and discussion to take place and attend that meeting if you are available. Please keep in mind that our purpose of hosting these discussions is to help us ensure that we are meeting your needs with the potential product enhancements that are discussed.
Q.) Ok, so I dont have to attend every discussion that I receive an invitation for, but for those that I do, how much of my time will it take?
A.) We completely understand and respect how busy everyone is. Our goal for these events is to keep them to a 1 hour timeframe. Sometimes, the discussions may run over a little when many people have feedback they would like to provide, but we fully understand that not everyone may be able to continue to participate past an hour. We want everyone who joins the discussions to feel free to voice their opinions and to provide their input during these discussions. Having an open environment for these discussion where everyone feels comfortable contributing can really help to drive deeper discussion and discoveries and overall lead to a better solution for the potential product enhancements.
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The AutoCAD Electrical team looks forward to hearing from you and to your participation in these events!
Thanks,
Jared Bunch
Product Designer
AutoCAD Electrical
Autodesk, Inc.
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Nate Holt
Product Architect
AutoCAD Electrical
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SS->PLC I/O utility - adding auto title block update - AutoCAD Electrical
August 13, 2007 04:48 AMby Nate HoltThe spreadsheet to PLC I/O generator tool is so tempting to modify and enhance that Autodesk supplies it to you in full source format (file name is c:\program files\autodesk\acade 2008\support\wdio.lsp). The tool allows you to define your project's PLC I/O requirements in an Excel spreadsheet and then, with a little configuration, AutoCAD Electrical will quickly generate a set of sequential drawings that document the I/O modules.
A number of users have adjusted this AutoLISP program to suit specific needs. One user suggestion came in last week: This utility generates new I/O drawings and can add them to your "active" AutoCAD Electrical project drawing set.
But the utilty does not auto-update each new sheet's title block as it is added. You have to go back and run AutoCAD Electrical's "title block update" utility. Why two steps?
Good question. Let's see if we can modify the wdio.lsp utility to auto-update the title block for each new drawing added to the active project.
STEP ONE
First, we need to find a command call that will update the active drawing's title block. Check the AutoCAD Electrical Help --> API Help topic. Poking around yields this promising candidate:
STEP TWO
Second, we need to open up the wdio.lsp utility (after making a back-up copy!) and figure out where we can insert this call. It should be at a point after the drawing is generated but before moving on to the next drawing (if the PLC I/O extends beyond a single sheet).
Open the file with a text editor or with AutoCAD's built-in Visual LISP editor (type vlide at command line). Here is a possible place in the program.
So we just type in the API call. It's shown below, the one line API call along with a bunch of comment lines:
STEP THREE
Save the revised version of wdio.lsp.
That's it. There's no compiling required. AutoCAD Electrical runs this particular tool straight from its text source file.
Select the SS->PLC I/O tool, make sure you toggle on the "Add drawings to active project", and test!