Featured Designer - Matt Timmer

Matt Timmer: As the Director of Audio Visuals at Bacara Resort & Spa - Santa Barbara, California, Matt keeps it real for SWANK AV by creating the wall sconces and chandeliers for his ball rooms. Matt's CAD background stems from his college days where he was trained in another CAD program, but he likes LD Assistant for its ease of use. "LD Assistant has all the tools to make my job easier, unlike other programs I’ve used in the past," says Matt. “With the real-time walkthrough, I can give my clients a real feel of what the event is going to look and feel like before they set one foot into the room."

June 2009 Reviews

• HP EliteBook 8730w Mobile Workstation - DreamColor technology for better display, Intel PM45 Express chipset, many CAD software vendor certification, Mark Fletcher, MCAD Online

• Wide-Format Scanners - choose scanners from Colortrac, Contex, Graphtec, Oce, Xerox depending on size, resolution, speed, price, David Essex, Desktop Engineering

• More Power, Lower Price - NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 - affordable ultra high end graphics accelerator supports SLI frame rendering, 1.5GB video memory, offers 2 DisplayPort connectors, David Cohn, Desktop Engineering

• INDUSTRY ROUND-UP - Ricoh claims 1200 dpi for new Aficio MP W5100/MP W7140 - but is it really?

June 2009 Articles

• Add Background Images to Your 3D Models - using 3D orbit tool for placing model correctly in AutoCAD, Bunyamin Katirci, Daily AutoCAD

• Let AutoCAD do the Math - using AutoLISP expression, CAL command, or entering math expressions in dialog box, properties palette, Ellen Finkelstein.com

• Smooth Shapes with Mesh Modeling Starting with a Rectangle - video tutorial, Guillermo Melantoni, What a Mesh!

• Align Objects - aligning objects based on pairs of points picked, Kate Morrical

• CAD Standards - Start with a Target - start with National CAD Standard, client's standard, or company standard used earlier, Mark Kiker

• Tips and Tricks Tuesday - New AutoCAD Video Tip - assigning colors per viewport using VPCOLOR column, Lynn Allen's Blog

• Migration From PDF to DWF Made Easy - setting PDF to open by default in Autodesk Design Review, Mark Douglas, In The Dynamic Interface

• Affordable 3D Printer - highly affordable, cost effective, RapMan 3D printer is open to view printing, great educational tool, Mark Fletcher, MCAD Online

• How Many CPU Cores Do You Need? - 3D rendering software like Autodesk 3ds Max takes full advantage of quad core processors

June 2009 News

• Autodesk at NAB 2009 - Autodesk to Showed New Versions of Visual Effects Systems for Film and TV and to Launch Flare - Hot Addition to the Product Line-up.

• Autodesk Kynapse Middleware Licensed for America’s Army 3 Computer Game - “Autodesk Kynapse will allow us to enhance game play for America’s Army 3 in several ways,” explained Michael Barnett, chief engineer for the America’s Army titles.

• Autodesk Introduces Smoke 2010 - Autodesk tools have been used on some of this year's highest profile entertainment projects, including the TV shows “NCIS,” “Bones,” “Prison Break,” “Smallville” and “Dexter”; as well as blockbuster movies such as “Milk,” “Frost/Nixon,” “Changeling,” “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” and “The Day the Earth Stood Still”. The software was also used to help shape the Super Bowl commercials Pepsi “Pass” and “Refresh,” General Electric “Scarecrow” and Pedigree “Crazy Pets.”

• Autodesk Partners with Clinton Climate Initiative to Provide Technology to Help Build More Sustainable Cities -
Autodesk is joining CCI and Microsoft Corporation to help sponsor the Project Two Degrees initiative. The sponsors, working with Project Two Degrees stakeholders--including ICLEI, Ascentium Corporation, and the Center for Neighborhood Technology--are developing the Project Two Degrees emissions tracking software. The project's Web-based software enables cities to calculate the carbon footprint of both municipal operations and the communities they service in a uniform way.

• NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit 2.2 Released - This latest release supports several significant new features that deliver a major leap forward in getting the most performance out of NVIDIA’s massively parallel CUDA-enabled GPUs.

LD Assistant and MA Lighting GrandMA Consoles

Design & Drafting is pleased to announce that the LD Assistant development team is now implementing MA NET. For the first time ever, LD Assistant and AutoCAD users with LD Assistant PL will be able to connect to GrandMA consoles without DONGLES!

Need to create drawings but don’t want to purchase a expensive CAD program?

• Project Draw Is For You - This new feature-rich web-based vector drawing application lets you create simple floor plans, electronic-circuit diagrams and network diagrams all online, and best of all it's FREE to use. • Click here to start using it • • Drag and drop vector shapes to create custom diagrams • Cross-browser compatible - create in IE, open it in Firefox • Handles - drag the shape handle to stretch dimensions • Linear, curved, and orthogonal connectors available • Imperial and metric page sizes available • Text tools, gradients, shadows, zoom, Dimensions & snap

People Walking and Dancing in Real-time!

HOLY COW... People Walking and Dancing in Real-time! Easily integrate actors into your designs and see them come alive in real-time as you walk through your creation, while you control the lighting with your console. Have audio and video all playing back at the same time... in real-time. Multiple Light Source Fixtures With Lens FX The flash movie to the right shows a single High End Systems SHOWGUN with mulitiple light sources. Looking closely, you see the main light source inside the LED ring. Easily connect your ETC, GrandMA, Strand or Hog console using LD Assistant's built-in sACN, Art-Net, Pathport or ENTTECand say good bye to DONGLES forever. With LD Assistant you never have to buy some 3rd party software to make it happen.

Click below to see people dancing Small Flash Movie 1Large Flash Move 2