Meeting Minutes

Past meeting minutes for 2001:

December 20th, 2001 meeting minutes:

For the first half of the meeting, Mike Willette and Beau Turner discussed several tabs of the Options Dialog box, handouts were provided for items not included in their presentation. By altering the settings, operators can increase productivity.

For the second half of the meeting, Dave Stein, System Administrator at AMSEC of Virginia Beach, introduced the attendees to AutoLISP (LISP) and Visual Basic (VB) programming. Although not as user-friendly as VB, LISP is easy for beginners to learn. The built-in color-coded Visual LISP text editor of AutoCAD allows for rapid testing and de-bugging of code. Dave can be reached at davidmstein@yahoo.com. His website, with free downloadable code (check out the DSX Tools) is: c

Door prizes given out were a large Christmas tin of Danish Butter Cookies, an assortment of cheese and meat spreads, and a copy of Autodesk Architectural Desktop 3.3.

November 18th, 2001 meeting minutes: Paul Burgener started the meeting with a demonstration of Layouts. Beau Turner followed with an assortment of tips and tricks. Several attendees chipped in with some of their own. Tips discussed included: turning off those annoying Proxy Object warnings, MBUTTONPAN to set the middle button for Pan, R to toggle among viewports, REFEDIT command for redefining block definitions, Quick Select, TXT2MTXT, and quick work done with the Properties Dialog Box.

After the half-time break, Beau continued fielding troubles and questions, with help from Joe Hedrick of Avatech, and others. Problems fielded included: options for making thumbnails of block drawings (such as Design Center), plotting text outside of the viewport (narrowed the problem down to the plotter or its driver), drawing file recovery techniques (such as dragging the file in from Windows Explorer, and Binding an Xref). Resources were discussed briefly such as newsgroups and the Autodesk website knowledge base.

Door prizes given away were: Architectural Desktop add-on software Building Mechanical, and CAD Overlay. Both of these are courtesy of Autodesk.

October 18th, 2001 meeting minutes:

Quarterly meeting. Rick Feineis (rfeineis@avat.com , or see Avatech on Resources Page) presented CAD Overlay, a sibling software of AutoCAD, from Autodesk. Rick began with a short discussion of "paper to CAD" technology, and ended with a demonstration of how CAD Overlay simplifies tracing and editing scanned (raster) paper drawings.

The second presentation was by Jason Strawderman (jstrawderman@snapserver.com) and Desi Whelan (dwhelan@snapappliances.com , and see Snap Appliances on Resources Page). Jason explained the "flow" of network storage devices and the pros and cons of various types. The average Snap Server stores data at only $10 per gigabyte, much cheaper than competitors. Deluxe models have redundant cooling fans and power supplies and allow for "hot swapping" RAID (redundant data) drives, ensuring data safety.

The url for info and registration for the Lynn Allen webcast (Oct 23, at 1:00 until 2:00) WAS: http://info.autodesk.com/mk/get/autocad_online

Also as promised, the entire 24-page "Top Ten Tips for 2002" article by Lynn allen is on the "Downloads" page (http://seva-aug.tripod.com/downloadables/). Double click on the named "10_tips_acad2002_booklet_sliced.pdf".

Door prizes given away were: A 20 GB file server from Snap Appliance, AutoCAD Building Mechanical, an Avatech shirt, two Avatech hats, and an Avatech fleece, Quantum (parent company of Snap Appliances) traveler coffee cups and Halloween treats for the kids, and Cadopolis.com brochures and 10 percent discounts for software.

Snacks and drinks were courtesy of Avatech.

September 19th (Wednesday), 2001 meeting minutes:

Ford Cook, Principal Consultant of Mechanical Simulation International (http://www.mechsim.com/, 757-595-1697, ford@mechsim.com), showed capabilities of Autodesk's 3D Studio Max software. Ford and his company use 3D Studio, and other software to analyze and animate large and odd-shape cargo items (vehicles, helicopters, pallets ...) for transport up ramps and into cargo aircraft.

Mechsim (or MSI) also develops training animations showing land contours, water, vehicles, helicopters, and buildings. Using 3D Studio, Ford's video begins with a fly-by of the actual training ground land and buildings. Some of the buildings 3D models are overlaid with photograph bitmaps for more accurate depiction. The roof then fades out to expose the interior rooms and walls. The animation continues with the rescue crew running through the rooms, in Doom-style perspective.

Mechsim also analyses vehicle suspensions and cargo handling systems, including the suspension for Liebherr's 300-ton dump truck, and a truck-mounted boom for loading pallets. Using engineering software (sorry, it's not all from Autodesk), Mechsim also graphs axle loads for vehicles cresting ramps.

Though too advanced for tutorial purposes, Ford's presentation "wet the appetites" of attendees to continue studies in animation, and computer-aided engineering software.

Door prizes given away at the end of the meeting were: several Avatech pen/highlighters and mouse pads, and a full version of AutoCAD 2000i from Autodesk. Free snacks and drinks were also provided. The tentative new name for the AUG was announced: Eastern Virginia AutoCAD User Group.

Requests were made for a logo graphic design and website url. Support was also requested to begin a new postcard announcement service.

August 16th, 2001 meeting minutes:

Jon Fulton, Electrical Designer and night school instructor at Newport News Shipbuilding, provided an introductory lesson in creating and using custom toolbars. Jon demonstrated several toolbars that he made for placing blocks of standard electrical equipment, such as lighting fixtures and junction boxes, aboard ships. He explained those annoying smiley faces, special characters within button macros, and the various files involved in toolbars and pull-down menus. Jon also used Notepad to demonstrate how to revise and locate toolbars by editing the acad.mns file. Door prizes given away at the end of the meeting were: and Avatech coffee cup, 3 hats from Buzzsaw, evaluation CDs (for all attendees) of GDL Solid Modeling add-on, AutoCAD 2000, and 3D Studio Viz 2.0. Free snacks and drinks were provided by the user group host, HEWV.

July 19th, 2001 meeting minutes:

Jimmy Stevens, Architectural AutoCAD Operator at HEWV (see "HEWV" section of "Friends" page) provided an introductory lesson in 3D Solid Modeling with AutoCAD. Jimmy quickly extruded a glass wall section, with breaks between panes, and molding around the edges. Jimmy also brought two photorealistic renderings of architectural projects he completed at HEWV, using Autodesk Architectural Desktop and Lightscape rendering software. One was a view of a proposed auditorium he designed, from the top row of seats. Jimmy quickly began the project again, to demonstrate how easy the walls and stage can be made. Jimmy explained that he often saves time by “borrowing” 3D models that are offered for free at websites, such as 3Dcafe.com. He also demonstrated Architectural Desktop’s “Mass Properties” intelligent objects for architecture.

After several questions for Jimmy, Paul Burgener and Beau Turner walked though an elementary 3D solid modeling tutorial for making a simple table fork model. This handout is currently on the “Resources“ page of this website.

Elise Moss (also on the “Friends” page of this website) gave out several door prizes, as she did at the May meeting. Everyone present received a 90-day evaluation disk of AutoVue, from Cimmetry (see website http://www.cimmetry.com/ ), and a ball cap, pen and T-shirt from Avatech, Cimmetry, or Buzzsaw (see http://www.buzzsaw.com/ ) Buzzsaw.com). 6 of the attendees left with free subscriptions to Cadalog.com’s preferred membership access, and two received copies of Elise’s training manuals for Autodesk Inventor (http://www.silverscreen.com/sdcpublications/pb_inv3_fund.htm). A copy of AutoCAD 2000 LT was also given away.

Free snacks and drinks were provided by the user group host, HEWV.

May 17th, 2001 meeting minutes:

Elise Moss (see "SVAPU" section of "Friends" page, or website http://www.mossdesigns.com/ ) provided an early demonstration of the upcoming Release 2002 of AutoCAD. Shipping in mid June, Release 2002 adds tools for easier and better Internet communication and file sharing than the previous 2000 and 2000i. Built-in email and web-publishing (with security) features allow for global colaboration in new designs. AutoCAD 2002 also improves associative dimensioning by attaching extension lines to objects, not defpoints.

After several questions, Elise continued on with a demonstration of Inventor 4, Autodesk's answer to Pro-Engineer mechanical solid modeling software. Like an upgrade to AutoCAD's 3D orbit, you can click on the orthographic "line of sight" you want to view down, and Inventor will dynamically rotate the display to that angle.

Elise can be reached at elise_moss@techie.com or at elise_moss@mossdesigns.com. She teaches regularly at DeAnza College in northern California.

Several doorprizes were given away, including two ball caps (compliments of Avatech, also on the website Friends page), two textbooks for Inventor written by Elise (http://www.silverscreen.com/sdcpublications/pb_inv3_fund.htm), and three seats (including support) of Revit http://www.revit.com/ architectural add-on software for AutoCAD. Attendance was so high for this meeting that we had to deploy the bleachers in the HEWV breakroom.

March 15th, 2001 meeting minutes:

Paul Burgener, AutoCAD operator and instructor, presented his long awaited demonstration of script files. Samples of Paul's script files (mostly academic) included development and printout of tutorial handouts, display of presentation slides (and rough animation), standardizing AutoCAD toolbars and system variables, 3D modeling, and layer control. Vice Chair of the user group, Beau Turner added professional examples of script files from his work at the hosting architectural firm, HEWV (see Friends page). Paul and Beau mentioned several websites for learning and running script files. Links to these websites are available in the user group "Resources" page.

This meeting was the first at the new (hopefully permanent) user group location in Norfolk, just a couple blocks from Waterside and Nauticus tourist areas. Even if the group grows to 30 regular attendees, the HEWV break room/presentation facility would be sufficient, by deploying the portable bleachers. Snack machines are nearby. And parking on the street was easy to find, being so late in the day.

A not-for-resale copy of Autodesk CAD Overlay was given away as a door prize.

January 18th, 2001 meeting minutes:

Paul Burgener, AutoCAD operator and instructor, was prepared to demonstrate writing and using script files. Unfortunately, due to bad weather and the new location (Newport News Main Street public library), the attendance was only 5. The meeting quickly turned into a very informal question and answer session, beginning with inserting and tracing raster images. Paul showed his procedure for developing full-scale maps, beginning with a screen capture from www.mapquest.com. Discussion followed concerning AutoCAD 2000's new "lineweight" concept, the old SKETCH command and SKPOLY variable, IMAGEFRAME, OFFSET, and MTEXT.

A not-for-resale copy of AutoCAD 2000 LT was given away as a door prize.

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