Wicked Cool Stuff

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• A quick update

  Posted 10/08/07 by Nick Zeeben

  This one will be short and sweet. The survey extension for Civil 3D posted here was updated today. A minor correction was made and I would encourage all of you to download and install this new version.
  
  Have fun and safe translating for all you survey oriented folks.
  
  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!
  
  View image
  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

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• 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

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• 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

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• How you say English?

  Posted 03/29/07 by Anthony Governanti

  So I'm on my third day of training here in Shanghai, and I learned something really cool today - how to spell my name in Japanese. Well Katakana (Japanese simplified characters) to be technically accurate.
  
  Thanks to Fukuchi for "enlightening me"
  
  アンソニー - Anthony
  
  ガヴァナンティ - Governanti
  
  Then this started a pretty cool competition as my Chinese and Japanese colleagues were trying to figure out my last name in the correct characters.
  
  So here is simplified Chinese:
  
  安东尼
  
  嘉瓦纳帝
  
  
  And in and traditional Chinese:
  
  安東尼
  
  嘉瓦納帝
  
  Here is the white board that started it all.
  
  View image
  
  It's definitely been a cool couple of days so far. i hope to post some more pics before i leave.
  
  Till Next Time,
  Cheers,
  AG

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• International Travel – the ups and downs

  Posted 03/27/07 by Anthony Governanti

  International Travel – the ups and downs
  
  I’m sitting in a very nice Hotel in Shanghai, China as I write this post, and will get to the details of the “ups and downs” of this particular international trip. First I want to apologize for not getting a new post up here in a while. As you can imagine, I’m busier then a one-armed paper hanger at the moment as I transition from the technical marketing job to the regional sales job. Essentially I’m doing (or trying anyway) both jobs at the same time. Anyway, not a good excuse for lack of posts, if Lynn Allen can do it, I can!
  
  Anyway, now onto the ups and downs, and we’ll start with the downs. To get to Shanghai, I had a set of flights that originated in Boston early Sunday morning, and a connection to Shanghai on a flight through San Francisco. All was going well until we got about two hours into the Shanghai flight, and a passenger noticed a piece of the fuselage hanging off of the right side engine – not good. After many trips by the captain back to through the cabin to take a look, and several passengers employing there digital cameras and zoom lenses, it was decided that we’d better turn back and land the plane while we still could.
  
  Bottom line, 5 hours in the air, and I wound up right where I started, back in SFO. We were delayed till the next morning when they got a us a new plane and could take off again. Now I won’t mention any Airline names here, but it started with a “U” and ended with a “nited”. After several less then desirable experiences, I’ve started to doubt my allegiance to this corporation (I’ve been flying them pretty much exclusively for almost four years). This is yet another delayed flight due to maintenance or mechanical issues for me in a short span of time, and quite frankly, I’m fed up.
  
  Anyway, that was the down, what about the up? Well I finally did arrive here in Shanghai, and I must say this is a pretty cool city. I haven’t seen much of it, but was able to take a small walking tour of the area around my hotel The Royal Meridian. What I’ve seen so far I like a lot. Also, I’m reunited (no pun intended for those paying attention) with the APAC AEs and sales team, whom I usually only get to see once a year, and this week should prove to be a blast. I’m here to do “train-the-trainer” classes on Civil 3D 2008, and despite loosing a day to travel woes, we should be able to cover some great new functionality, and of course share some laughs over some Tsing Toa beer in between.
  
  I’ll try to post again from China before I leave on Saturday, then it’s off to Paris France for the EMEA Train the trainer event. Sounds luxurious I know, but I doubt I’ll get to do too much as I only have two days there to squeeze in 3 days worth of content. Anyway, once the whirl-wind global tour of the Da Govna show is completed, it’s onto the dark side of sales full time for me.
  
  Cheers,
  AG
  
  PS - This is a landmark event - this 50th wicked cool stuff post. May not seem like much, but that's close to average of two posts a week. Not ground breaking, but I'm happy with it.

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• Behind The Curtain – welcome to the demo world

  Posted 03/16/07 by Anthony Governanti

  So a while back I had posted a couple times on topics I looked at as "taking a peek behind the curtain" here at Autodesk. I promised at the end of the last installment that I would talk about the process I used for creating and releasing the scripted demonstrations you all get to see when you attend a Civil 3D seminar or when a reseller or Autodesk AE stops in for a visit.
  
  My intention here isn’t to brag or call attention to this work; it is more to give you a sense of what goes on behind the scenes and maybe give you a better understanding of why we show what we show when demonstrating the product. I want to point out that the materials I create for demonstrations are merely a starting point for a lot of our AEs. It is in no way the end-all and be-all when it comes to demos, and really is just meant as a baseline of material that our sales force can use to present a consistent and concise message of Civil 3D to customers. I think what you’ll find is that most if not all AEs (Autodesk and resellers alike) don’t use the “canned” demo, but instead prefer to create a custom demonstration for their audience that either uses data provided by a customer, or at least more “locally” applicable datasets. This is where the real value of a local AE or technical expert comes in. They can add their expertise and experience to the presentation to improve its overall effectiveness.
  
  So the way I approach creating a demonstration of the product can be boiled down to several common steps;
  
  - Finding a Dataset
  
  - Re-engineering that dataset in Civil 3D
  
  - Canning certain parts of the demo
  
  - Scripting the messaging
  
  Finding the dataset
  This is a very crucial part of the process that will lead to the success or failure of a demonstration. The challenge with finding a good dataset is balancing the need to have a large or complex enough project that can show the power of the application, but not something so huge that its overwhelming to an audience when you show it. Once this type of project is found, then the next challenge is to get the rights to it. In our marketing world, we need the materials we produce to be accessible by all of our partners, resellers, and sales folks alike, worldwide. They need to use that information to sell our product, and so getting the legal rights to the information is paramount. The downside is that many companies aren’t willing to sign their data, which represents their intellectual property, over to Autodesk to do with as we please.
  
  Re-engineering that dataset in Civil 3D
  Ok, so let’s assume that we find the correct dataset, and then we get the sign off from the customer to use that dataset. No we need to get that dataset configured so it fits the needs of the demonstration. This means that if the project wasn’t done in Civil 3D, it has to be re-engineered or redone using Civil 3D.
  
  “Now wait a second there Govna, you mean to say that you use datasets that weren’t even created using Civil 3D? What’s up with that?!”
  
  Well, this goes back to the first step; sometimes, well if fact most of the time, its very difficult to get a dataset that fits the criteria so we take what we can get. If that means it’s a project that was built using a different product (LDT most likely in my case) then so be it. Also we need to consider what we are showing, and the features we wish to highlight for the customer to show the value of the product. In some cases, that means tweaking or adding to the original design, and that’s part of this step as well.
  
  Canning certain parts of the demo
  I hope that you can agree that we can never show all the steps taken to design or create a project using the software in one sitting. So realizing this, we have to take some license with the data, and have some engineering or work done ahead of time in order to get through the demonstration in a timely manner. As such we typically "can", or have a lot of the work done ahead of time. This streamlines the demo and allows us to create a highlight reel of sorts to show all the critical or cool things that the product can do. What I typically do with the parts of the demo I do "can" is to make it clear to my audience what was canned and why, that way everyone is on-board with where the data or project is at before I demonstrate a feature.
  
  Scripting the messaging
  This is probably the part of the process you weren’t aware of. Or at least I should say you shouldn’t be aware of. In order to make our demonstrations consistent across multiple demonstrators, we provide a script of messaging with the datasets. This script is usually just a word doc that lays out the marketing messaging and key points we want a presenter to make while they are showing certain things in the product. I mention that you shouldn’t be aware this exists because it is not the intent that the document be given to customers, or that a presenter stands in front of an audience and repeats the script word for word from memory. Much like the dataset, the script is meant as a framework or a guide for the presenter use so that the messaging and presentation of the features is consistent and on target for the intent of the demo. This again is where most AEs will add their value, in that they can interject their personally experiences and points of view to improve the presentations. This is usually the hardest part of the demo creation process in that you need to articulate the value, benefits, and the importance of features to an audience, and do it in a way that is clear and concise, and for me, doesn’t sound like a bunch of Marketing BS.
  
  With all these steps taken into account, at the end of the process, you should have a demonstration with a dataset that’s on target, a set of steps that are easy to follow for both an audience and a presenter, and messaging that communicates the value and benefit of the product. In my role as the Technical Marketing manager, this process has taken me anywhere from 8 weeks with a large demo like the Overview for Civil 3D 2007, to just a few weeks with a mini-demo like the segment specific ones I’m releasing this year for Civil 3D 2008.
  
  Bottom line is that there is a lot of effort that is put into these demos, so the next time you have the pleasure of seeing one first hand, I hope you’ll get a little more out of it then you would have otherwise.
  
  Till next time,
  Cheers,
  AG

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• Where or Where could Anthony be?

  Posted 03/12/07 by Anthony Governanti

  So it has been a long time since my last post, and I ha hoped it would have been less, but last week was YAWLV - that means Yet Another Week in Las Vegas.
  
  I know; woe is me; but in this case, it really was a long and tough week. We had our annual Sales conference last week called One Team at the MGM Grand hotel and Conference Center. It was a blast, but probably not as fun for me as it could have been. Two reasons; one my laptop died on the plane ride out there; two I was pulling double duty as both the tech marketing guy and the rookie sales guy.
  
  Laptop woes:
  So there I am on my 6 hour flight to Vegas, working away on my laptop putting the finishing touches on what I hoped were going to be some great demonstrations of Civil 3D 2008 for our sales team. I shut down my machine to change batteries, because even with power save mode, I still only get about 3 hrs from this boat anchor. I change batteries and restart - except the machine won't boot - it just hangs there on the IBM ThinkPad startup screen. Hmm, this is interesting, let's try that again. After several more failed attempts, it finally comes up with an error - _System Start Failed - Check system date and time.
  
  This is not good.
  
  So after messing around with the bios and seeing that indeed my system time and date have been reset, I give up and put the machine away, hoping that maybe some alone time will do it well and that it will decide that it feels better after we've had some time apart.
  
  So we land in LV, rush to get a private care cause we are running late for a rehearsal for one of the 5 presentations Dave and I are involved in this week, and we get to the hotel, where I try to boot again, only this time plugged in to see if its a power issue. No such luck, so I am stuck with a laptop and no OS. Luckily, Dave is there to save the day, as he has recently installed a build of Civil 3D 2008, and I have an Ultra-bay adapter that allows me to put my hard drive in as a data drive. All is not lost, but more on that later.
  
  Tech Guy vs. Sales Guy
  So the other difficult part of last week was managing what worked out to be a split personality for 6 days. As many of you are now aware, I'll be transitioning to a new role as a Sales Territory Manager in the coming weeks. This made for an interesting dynamic for me at the conference, as I was torn between being the tech guy for all these presentations, and also being a rookie sales guy who needed to meet-and-great all his new resellers and various sales folks within the organization. Anyway, it was quite a challenge, but I want to express my deepest thanks to those of you who attended and helped me ease into the new role by introducing yourselves, or at least didn't mind when I asked you name for the third or fourth time.
  
  It was a surreal experience in the end; as on Thursday afternoon, I did my last technical presentation during the CAD/GIS sales session. I came to the realization that it is going to be something I will miss, as I really enjoy presenting these products to an audience. It was also surreal to talk to all the folks who knew me from that role and the great compliments and encouraging words they had for me. I was truly lucky to have been involved in some of the cool things over these last several year, and I want to thank all of you who were there for the great and not-so-great times.
  
  Ok, so enough reflection; time to start looking ahead, and in doing so, I want to begin to share how truly excited I am for the year ahead! We have a lot going for us this year.
  
  A rock solid product; this year is the year, we worked really hard to get this thing ready to for prime time, and despite a bit of a false start last year, I think the momentum is still strong, and 2008 will be well received.
  
  New opportunities; with my new role comes some new opportunities for me to grow and learn. In the short time I've been the sales guy, I've already seen some great opportunity to do some cool things, and I can only say at this time to stay tuned in for future updates.
  
  A growing business; despite a downturn in the housing market here in the US, the economy from a Civil Engineers perspective is still very strong, as the public sector is starting to rise, with more state and local government projects coming up for bid. Other parts of the private sector are still growing as well, with commercial development continuing to grow. This all means great things to come for us all; more projects mean more work for all of you, which means more need to be efficient and productive; this is where Civil 3D will fit in and be and integral part of the entire process, and this is where I hope to make a difference (well at least for the Northeast states anyway).
  
  Ok, enough of my ramblings for today - I still owe you a post on how we go about building technical demonstrations that you see out there, so I hope to get to that this week before I'm fully transitioned to the new role.
  
  Till next time,
  Cheers,
  AG

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• Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes......

  Posted 02/27/07 by Anthony Governanti

  "Oh, look out you rock 'n rollers"
  
  In the great words of the modern poet David Bowie - It's time to turn and face the strain...or something like that. Anyway, I'm writing today to let everyone out there who peeks in on this blog - all three of you that is :-) that I'm going to be changing positions here at Autodesk at the end of this week.
  
  As many of you know, I am currently the Technical Marketing Manager for the Civil product line, which means I get to do all sorts of cool stuff like present at AU, weekly webcasts, create demonstrations, author White papers as well as some not so exciting stuff too. Well, after almost four years, and some really awesome times in this role, I've decided to take an opportunity in Sales. I will be the Northeast Territory rep for Civil Vertical Solutions here in the US as of March 1st. My territory will encompass Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey. So if you are in one of those states, I hope to see you sometime this coming year, if anything just to say hello.
  
  Now before your shriek with horror and wright me off as a lost cause, I do want to thank you all for the support and guidance over these past four years in this role. A lot of you out there in the community have taught me a lot about this business and this industry, and I hope I was able to return the favor every now and then, and teach you something too. Also, I'm not going away that easy. I would like to keep this blog going, and slowly morph it away from just the technical stuff and perhaps have conversations that center more around the business side of the world we all live in.
  
  But that I will leave up to you, my faithful readers - again, all three of you :-). So let me know by leaving a comment as to whether or not I should keep the blog going, and if you would keep interest even if it wasn't all technical and tips and stuff. I can't promise that I'll have anything that ground-breaking to share with you - but then again I never have. I'll keep to my same philosophy, which has always been to tell it like I see it, for better or worse.
  
  I hope you can share my excitement for this opportunity, and really what should be another exciting chapter in the life of Da Govna. And may our paths cross in a boardroom or conference hall in the near future.
  
  Till Next Time,
  Cheers,
  AG
  
  PS - I'm still hoping that Nick can add a couple posts every now and then, so that will hopefully keep the technical side of this blog legitimate.....well as much as a Canadian transplant can be legitimatethat that is.

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• Corridors Eh!

  Posted 02/15/07 by Nick Zeeben

  Howdy everyone,
  
  Before I get going, a quick apology to Anthony and all you anxious readers. I have been a little lax about getting involved over here with Anthony. I think I am finally starting to feel settled in around the office and otherwise, so I am going to try and make this is a bit more regular thing.
  
  On with the show. Everyone, their dog and cat have been posting about Autodesk's 2008 products so I thought I would show a little bit of Corridor Flash for you Anthony's loyal readers.
  
  
  Corridors have always supported inserting regions, the problem with that is setting up all of the targets for that new region could be alot of work. AutoCAD Civil 3D 2008 adds the ability to split an existing region. The command will divide an existing region at the point you have selected, and copy over all the original regions settings, including assembly, and any target surfaces, alignments and profiles.
  
  
  
  Corridor surface creation has also had some quirks. I wrote a series over at Civil3d.com about a particular problem with datum surfaces not being created properly.
  
  
  
  
  Now in the corridor surfaces tab we have overhang correction. I have posted two images, one with bottom correction on, and one with none.
  
  
  Bottom Correction Applied
  
  
  No correction applied
  
  Well that is all I have for now. Don't worry we have lots more things to show you in the coming days weeks and months. We might even start showing how it all works.
  
  

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