DataCAD DBUG Meeting at the Avalon Essex Community  Architectural CADD Consultants  Friday ---- January  31, 2003   ------ 6 pm --- 9:30 pm  Host :  Geoffrey Moore Langdon,  Architectural CADD Consultants  Location :  42 Avalon Dr., Peabody, MA  Meeting Web Site :  http://www.architecturalcadd.com/seminars/dbug2003.htm  Directions :  see maps at web site and at http://www.avaloncommunities.com  Questions :  glangdon@architecturalcadd.com  Phone : 978-532-3543   (also call or email to RSVP on afternoon seminars)

AGENDA	Free meeting open to all
Friday  1/31/03	.
12:00 pm - 4:30 pm -- Afternoon Seminars  -   with Professor Langdon  A.  12 - 2           3D Modeling in DataCAD  B.  2:30 - 4:30    A DataCAD Users Guide To AutoCAD    5 pm - 6 pm -- Reception, Food, Networking                                                                                                     6 pm - 9:30 pm -- DataCAD DBUG meeting	Directions :  Take 128 north to route 114 west (immediatly after Salem exit), at third light (total of about 300 yards) turn left up hill (after mall and before car dealership), at top of hill see entrance to Avalon Essex ahead and to right.  Follow signs to right to townhomes. #42    ** click for map **
DBUG MEETING TOPICS
**  Introductions, Announcements, Jobs Available  ** Plotting to PDF       and combining many PDF's into one file  ** How to Use the Free Online Object Libraries       with DataCAD - 3Dcafe.com, etc.  ** Revit /  ADT / AutoCAD   futures       and how the upcoming changes effect DataCAD users       and file transfers to/from DataCAD and AutoCAD  ** The Best Reason to Upgrade to DataCAD 10       -- CAD Overlay Techniques       Tips and Tricks for Image Overlays        (taking scanned existing drawings into CADD)	<   Beginners        <   Intermediate      <   Advanced

DataCAD DBUG January 2003 Meeting Website - http://www.architecturalcadd.com/seminars/dbug2003.htm

Thank you all for bearing with me as it took a while to re-arrange my schedule, as I teach classes every night this semester (Suffolk Univ --  http://www.suffolk.edu).  We decided that the best place to host this year is at our new home in the Avalon Community on the North Shore - right across the street from the North Shore Mall.  We are doing it on a Friday, and, as we did at Roseledge two years ago, offering very cheap ($35) seminars from 12 to 4:30 that afternoon for the early-comers to difray the cost of renting the projector.  Early comers not at the seminars are welcome to lounge in the community clubhouse.  Free pizza and smoozing start at 5 and meeting goes from 6 to 9ish.  Welcome all,  Geoffrey Moore Langdon
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Descriptions of Afternoon Seminars :
(lecture format though if you bring a laptop we can do hands on workshop learning)

A.

3D Modeling in DataCAD

- $35 seminar includes new CD tutorial on 3D modeling
- Prof. Langdon always surveys the attendees and customizes the specific topics to their particular level of knowledge as well as in what kinds of things to model (i.e. house dormers, furniture, or office buildings)
- seminar covers :
  * the three different kinds of 3D in DataCAD
  * how to get started with real 3D
  * the "tilt-up" horizontal slab modeling technique
  * AEC model macro - to add detailed doors/windows/stairs
  * concepts in using 3D to produce 2D construction docs, and projecting 2D into 3D
  * 3D tricks and techniques
  * tips and tricks for the framit 3D macro
  * the 3D Power Tools macro
  * visualization issues - perspective, getting hand sketch look, photorendering, shade rendering in DataCAD, o2c, o2c interactive!, exporting to LightScape
  * issues on supplemental software - SketchUp, DataCAD Plus, etc.

B.

A DataCAD Users Guide To AutoCAD

- $35 seminar includes new CD with articles detailing the issues/techniques of file transfer to/from AutoCAD/DataCAD, and a free
copy of IntelliCAD  (the AutoCAD clone)

 - how to get into AutoCAD or IntelliCAD, select what you need, and export it properly to DataCAD,  converting PaperSpace Layouts to GoToViews or MSP,  dealing with ACIS 3D Solids, proprietary ArchitecturalDesktop and ARX objects ("Proxy Objects"), dealing with orphaned xrefs

* How to pull up your DataCAD drawings and models in AutoCAD

 - lets say you are visiting your engineer,  he has questions about details in your drawings and has pulled them up on his screen in AutoCAD
-- stuff is missing, how do you get it back?  -- you need to quickly isolate a portion of the drawing and print it out - it is YOUR drawing you have spent hours on, and you are the one most familiar with it, but you don't want to feel like a dodo in front of your engineers not knowing how to manipulate it in a strange (litterally) program (AutoCAD).  What if it is a 3D model and you want to show them a perspective ? -- feel like asking permission to install the demo version of DataCAD? unfortunately that is not always an option, thus this seminar will help you :

- we will show you how you can pull up perspectives in a program that doesn't actually HAVE perspectives (AutoCAD)
- Doing a government project and have to deal with Metric SI units, we will also show you the work-arounds necessary on how to deal with a program that does not have Metric  (AutoCAD 2002)

** In/Out DataCAD/AutoCAD

ok so you have the latest DataCAD 10, there are still a dozen categories of entities which either won't transfer in or out, or to which you need to pay special attention.  We will show you what and how.

The seminar will go over  (and the CD will detail)  the problematic issues listed below where AutoCAD and DataCAD don't see eye-to-eye  and what the solutions and work-arounds are to deal with them successfully :

* Disapearing Symbols/Blocks

* Entities :
- Splines
- Elipses
- Mtext
- Custom Linetypes

* Special Features :
- images
- xrefs
- GoToView / LayerStates, Snapshots
- MSP / PaperSpace Layouts

* Proprietary Encoding :
- ARX  (objects and elements encrypted in a format even some AutoCAD flavors cannot read)
- ACIS  (the 3D solid modeler - polyline extrudes and revolves)
- ADT (ArchitecturalDesktop and Mass Elements)

* Strange Concepts :
- LT "thickness" as height
- Tesselation and one-sided 3D Faces
- Perspective  (how to achieve this in a program that doesn't actually HAVE perspective)
- Multi-layer blocks
- Line weight  -- on screen (LW) and on paper (color as lineweight) techniques
- overshoots
- dimension style overrides  (how to do metric SI with an AutoCAD work-around)