Wicked Cool Stuff
Dominick Gallegos, Civil 3D Technical Marketing Manager for Autodesk, shares his unique perspective and ideas on the functionality and use of Civil 3D for a range of different project types.
About DOMINICKLatest Post
- posted 04/25/07 by Nick Zeeben Its a small one
- Ok, so I feel guilty for the blog neglect and Anthony's attempt to remain technical was a little sad. So I thought I would put this one up.
The Code Set Style Dialog now supports shift and/or ctrl selection for editing!!
Now most of you are probably sitting around wondering why this matters, but as a guy who used to spend alot of time setting up templates and as any of you CAD manager types reading this will likely agree this particular set of styles was a laborious process to setup.
So let's take a look, I'll even put in some screen shots of the product installed on my own machine.
Simply use your ctrl or shift keys to select the desired codes.
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Now go ahead and choose a style to change. It is really is just that simple.
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I actually clapped in my cube the day I found this. I realize I don't get out much, but they do say it is the small things in life that matter.
I will try and write something a little more substantive later on this week, Anthony's dirty looks in the halls and subtle reminders in conversation were getting the best of me though and I felt the need to post a nugget.
Nick
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Heading down the highway...
Posted 04/24/07 by Anthony Governanti
Well, my third week as Sales Guy is starting with a trip down to NYC to drop in on the Experience the Possibilities Tour. I hope to meet some of our customers there, and also take in a bit of the city, since this will be my first time in NYC.
Of course my first challenge is to get there in one piece! I'll be heading south sometime tomorrow, and hope my navigation skills will steer me away from as much traffic as possible. Anyway, if you are planning on attending the event, make sure to say hello - I'll be the tall Italian in a black suit and tie....wait, this is NY, that would describe most of the people there. Well, I'll have to get up front and introduce myself then so you can come say hello.
It has been a while since I shared any tips here, so I suppose it's time to give one to tide you over until Nick can hit ya with the good stuff. With Civil 3D's new Plan Production feature, there is the ability to define a hatch patter or mask for the outside of the Match Lines. This is a really cool feature, in that you can fade back or hide the line work that exists to the outside of the sheets that are generated. One cool thing you can do with this hatch is set it to a solid color, and it will "mask" out the line work. The problem is that if you set the color to White, when you flip over to a standard Layout, it has a white background. What happens to color White when the AutoCAD background is White? It turns it to Black. Pretty cool for line work, not so cool for a big solid mask.
So when you configure the matchline styles, you can use color 255,255,255 instead of the Acad standard White, and avoid the problem. I'd give a screen shots, but I don't have Civil 3D installed anymore!
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Here is what the final output looks like if you use the 255 trick.
See the lobotomy has already begun, but its slower than predicted.
Till next time,
Cheers,
AG -
What time is it?
Posted 04/16/07 by Anthony Governanti
Well, it's been a week since my illustrious world tour ended, and I think I finally know what time of day it is, as the jet lag has worn off. I want to again thank my gracious hosts in Shanghai and Paris for making two very long trip so enjoyable and relatively stress free.
So last week was my first full time effort for the new role as "sales guy", and I must say, its going to be a very interesting, if not exciting year. I've got a lot to learn, and hopefully a lot of knowledge to share in return.
My first order of business was just that, to plan out my business. After referring to Webster’s dictionary to figure out what business means - I'm kidding of course - I worked through a plan of action for this coming year. We use a system here at Autodesk called Goal P.O.S.T . Without getting into too much of the detail, we essentially state a goal for the year, and then the process takes us through creating a Profile of the business, Objectives for the plan, Strategy for how I will achieve the goal, and then Tactics for reaching the objectives.
It is a pretty cool process and forces you to look at a plan from all directions, and make sure you have your basis coverd. With the help of my new teammates, we came up with a pretty good plan, with a lot of tactics that will hopefully translate into a successful year. I only hope that I can stick to my plan, and achieve the goals I set for myself. Because after all, its not just having a good plan, but good execution of that plan that make it happen, right?
So why am I rambling on about this? Well, essentially I just wanted to share my thoughts and observations as to how this can be applied to your world, perhaps with an implementation of Civil 3D (I know, not that subtle, but then again, I am Italian). See I believe, and I think a lot of people would back me up on this, that having a good plan before you try to implement a technology like Civil 3D is paramount to its success or failure. You have to sit down, look at what you want from project, or the goal of the implementation, and then you need to asses the current conditions in your firm, or build a profile of your existing setup. Once you have this, you move into the objectives to achieve during the implementation like starting a pilot project, training certain team members, etc. This will then need a strategy for implementing the objectives so they are achievable, as well as tactics or actionable items for rolling out the plan.
I mention this only because I feel the important part is to realize that you aren’t on your own to do this. We at Autodesk have done a lot of work, and investment, in materials and training to provide the resources you need to successfully implement Civil 3D.
The first level is the CAD Manager’s Guide, which is a pretty in-depth paper that will guide you through the details and direction needed to begin an implementation of Civil 3D. The next level is our ICE program, or Implementation Certified Expert. This is where an individual who works for a reseller or consultant is trained and then certified on an implementation process specific to Civil 3D. To find a reseller who is certified search your area and look for their ICE certification credentials. The next level of support is very similar to ICE, as a lot of or resellers, consultants, and partners have taken the program and customized it to their services adding more value in a packaged offering.
Anyway, I hope you can see the value in at least having a plan when implementing Civil 3D, and with the technology getting better and better each year, if you haven’t taken a look at the possibilities, maybe now is the time.
Till next time,
Cheers,
AG -
How you say French?
Posted 04/04/07 by Anthony Governanti
So this week I find myself in Paris France, but luckily no drama to tell for the trip over. All the parts of the plane stayed on, and I arrived in Paris’ Charles De Gaul airport at the bright and cherry time of 6:30 AM.
My gracious host this week was Willy Luce, the French Civil AE, and he’s been very kind and understanding when it comes to my complete lack of knowledge when it comes to all things French, including the language. After several cell phone calls and some clarification of where I actually was in the airport, we met up and headed to the Autodesk office. Willy and I took the “local” tour of Paris, as we seemed to hit every red traffic light in the city as we slowly made our way to the eastern part of the city.
I’m here, much like last week in China, to train our internal sales force on the new features and to go over the Tech Camp materials. If you are a reseller, and haven’t been to one of Autodesk’s Tech camps (formerly Boot camps) then you must read Dana’s TechCamp Survival Guide. Anyway, we had a great two days, and I think everyone got what they needed so they could turn around in a couple weeks and train the EU partners and resellers on this year’s release.
Left to Right: back row – Ian McGregor, Alexey Petrinchuk, Brian Kling, Jack Strongitharm, Da Govna, Jim Hughes, Klaus Dahlfeld; Front row – Willy Luce, Marco Martens, Ove Cervin, Tomas Lendvorsky, Joerg Pipo, and Roland Klement.
Here we have a great mug shot of the EU AEs about mid-way through today’s training. It was hard to stay awake, especially with the temp in our training room being about 10 degrees above Stuffy, and me droning on and on about feature lines and corridor assemblies.
We did enjoy a wonderful dinner the first night at a restaurant in the Village Saint- Emilion (Bercy) area.
Marco and I split probably the largest Filet steak I’ve ever seen. The restaurant specialized in steaks, and had a 4 person meal that served a 1 Kilogram steak! That is just huge. As it was, we had the 750g, which is the same weight as a bottle of wine! It was a great meal, and Willy did a superb job selecting some great red wines for us to enjoy (as the French are so known for doing anyway!)
Anyway, it’s been a great trip, but I am anxious to get back home to the family, as I’ve only been home for 1.5 days in the past 12. I’m signing off now, wish me luck for an unadventurous trip back home.
Till next time,
Cheers,
AG
