The Dan Miles Idea Factory

Autodesk Inventor 11 Shipping Soon

Everyone,

By the looks of it Autodesk Inventor Series 11 and Autodesk Inventor Professional 11 will start shipping to people with software subscription in early April 2006.  This is a HUGE release so make sure you take some time to learn or investigate all the new features before putting the new release into production.

Dan

Back from Autodesk One Team

I made it back from Vegas without losing too much mainly because I didn’t get that much time to play.  However like normal I was able to win back my money one hour before leaving and told myself like normal ok just try to get up a little then leave.  You know how that goes I ended up giving it all back before heading to the airport.  The Autodesk One Team conference was bigger then ever with the Media and Entertainment division resellers also attending this year.  There was so many people that the main stage was in the MGM arena stadium this year.  They confirmed that they were on track to ship over forty (40) new products in the coming weeks.  The company this past year hit the 1.5 billion mark and I think will rapidly go over 2 billion in the next couple of years.  This is mainly due to the fact they have so many new great releases of existing products but more importantly so many brand new products like Alias, Autodesk Intent, and Autodesk Productstream just in the Manufacturing space to name a few. On the final day a gentlemen from Ford Motor Company gave a great presentation on the challenges within the auto industry and how Ford is dealing with them.  He also provided a little insight on how some of the vehicle styling is done with Alias products.  All in all it was another very good conference and we (INCAT) were able to have some nice meetings with Autodesk to help us grow and plan for the future as an Autodesk partner.  If you have any questions please let me know.

Dan

Off to Vegas for Autodesk One Team

I am heading off to Las Vegas tomorrow morning for the annual Autodesk One Team Conference at the MGM.  This event is a global event for all of the Autodesk resellers and partners around the world.  Autodesk will provide their last year results and outlined the coming year plans.  They have a great batch of new product releases coming out in the coming weeks with Autodesk Inventor 11 and Autodesk Productstream 5 so I am sure there will be plenty to talk about.  My schedule is pretty much packed with meetings starting each morning at 7am and finishing with dinner meetings.  (Don’t worry I will still be playing the games and having a few drinks until the early hours)  I will post a review when I return this weekend and should have some good info because I have some nice meetings scheduled with folks from the CEO to the Manufacturing Division executives.  Let me know if you have any questions.

Talk to you soon

Dan

Using Engineering to Make Millions

Today I went to my local electronic store to purchase the latest Microsoft Xbox 360 game “Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter” after work.  I haven’t play to many games in the last month due to some projects I have been working on (Also having fun with Autodesk Inventor 11) so I was really looking forward to this one.  Well it turns out I had to go to three stores just to find the damn thing because it looks like all of the Xbox 360 supplies are still in short supply even four months after being launched.  So then I thought my friend Bill Gates is selling millions of these suckers if he can’t make them fast enough to stock the store shelves.  I am pretty sure they have three factories making them now and they sell for around $400 each and they are hard to find.  Another interesting note is I am pretty sure they are losing money each time they sell one right now because of the cost to make one today.  They do this in the hopes that materials (Hard Drive for example) will cost less say one year from now and they will make it all up then.  This is a great example of the value of Engineering because if Microsoft could save just one dollar ($1.00) per system that will make them several millions in return.  There are many ways they could save that dollar but engineering can help for sure.  For example what if there was 3 inches less wire in the Xbox or maybe several ounces less plastic or a few less components.  This is a great example of how engineering provides great value because I believe this is possible.

Stay tuned for more thoughts on the value of engineering

Dan

IDW Sketching within Views

Guess what?  You can not draw everything in 3D and also sometimes you just don’t have a need.  Outlined below is a nice tip for creating a 2D sketch within an existing drawing view that is associative to the view.  With the sketch being associative to the view when you move or update the view the sketch also updates.  You can also project view geometry into your sketch for constraining and all sorts of things.

Step 1 – Activate the drawing view you would like to sketch in by clicking just outside the view geometry but within the view border so there is a red outline around for view.

Step 2 – Click the “Sketch” button to create a new sketch.  The sketch will be nested under the selected drawing view in the browser.

Two of the most common reasons to create a sketch like this is to show material stock sizes and to add items into the view for detailing that are not in the model like tooling balls.

Hope this helps you soon in your daily work

Dan