The Final Day

Wednesday, December 5, 2013

6:30am - Breakfast

Not wanting to make the long walk to the breakfast hall I opted for a bagel and coffe around the corner, it also allowed me to sleep in 30 more minutes

8:00am - Introduction to VBA for Autocad

This class covered the basics of getting started using VBA with AutoCAD. I was hoping to learn something here but the class discussed the IDE in detail and basic programming with VBA. This was a remedial class for my skill level.

10:00am - Digital Design Management

Another change in class. After further review of Autolisp Strategies for CAD Managers I decided I knew most of what might be covered in this class so I decided to take a different class that might give some insight on better management of data. DDM - Digital Design Manager is similar to CAD manager they handle installations, standards, etc.. The DDM needs to stay active and relevant. 

A good slide on goal setting

11:30am - Lunch

Oh I feel my arteries clogging, Mark and I went back to In and Out Burger and indulged in scrumptiosness again. Yummy (again)!

1:00pm - Intro to Android Development

I got a little lazy in my note taking for this class, mainly because the instructor was French and hard to understand and because he was covering a lot of information fast.

The instructor knew his stuff, unfortunately I don't think this is something we are ready for until we start considering mobile as a viable tool. 

2:30pm - Going on a Bug Hunt Debugging Autolisp

Good class on the visual lisp IDE and ways to use it for debugging lisp files. 

    

4:30pm - Closing Session

Finale with Autodesk senior VP of Product Group. This session tied together ideas and trends that Autodesk is heading. I thought this year was more of a showcase of Autodesk's new products rather than an education event of their products. The main topics I took away from the conference was a better understanding of laser scanning tools and a sense of how the industry is headed. A trend I see that could be hitting our industry soon is collaboration via cloud and the 360 products target this area. My challenge is how to introduce these ideas to our organization in a way for serious consideration.

Conference Continues

Wednesday, December 5, 2013

One word made this morning awesome, "bacon". I skipped the conference breakfast in favor if "reall" breakfast from the food court, yummy.

8:00am - A Recap on Plant Design

The recap product shows promise. It's suppose to come with any design suite at no extra cost, there is a basic and pro version and I'm not sure of the difference.  It is used to take raw scan data and convert into recap format for importing into Autodesk products.

The class also showcase a product by Kubitz which allows intelligent modeling from the recap file (scan data). The Kubitz  software is worth looking into but I think it only performs with Plant 3D, perhaps there is an option for autoplant.

As a side note, it appears the industry uses clash detection via review software or they perform visual clash detection. Need to investigate the navisworks clash detection.

10:30am - Exam Prep

This time slot was open so I decided to spend it studying for the AutoCAD exam. Wish me luck!

11:30 - Lunch

Mark and I took a ride to see the Pawn Stars place of business and have a burger at In and Out Burger. Pawn Stars was interesting to see and the burger was yummy.

1:00pm - Profuctivity Programming with the Action Recorder

Good class showing how the action recorder can be used for simple repetitive tasks. Will have to investigate how might be able to incorporate into work processes.

2:30pm - Making Use of Substation Design Models for Scheduling

I called an audible on this class, was suppose to take a class on lisp. After reviewing the course description for the lisp class I decide it would be remedial for me. I'm hoping this class will inspire new ways to visualize designs for our clients.

Navisworks can work with primavera but mapping from model to schedule activities must be done. It's a great visualization tool for construction but I don't understand how it could benefit engineering. Since model objectsust be linked to schedule if objects aren't modeled then no 4D would be available.

4:00 - Certification Exam

I was suppose to attend another class on AutoCAD 360 but class description sounded like the same class I took yesterday. I decided instead to take the AutoCAD Certification exam. I passed!!!

6:30pm - Exhibit Hall

The usual vendors you would expect was on display. There seemed to be quite a few number of vendors related to laser scanning either from source (scanning equipment) or final output (software). A promising vendor was Kubitz, their software is capable of modeling cad objects from laser scans using cad specs (using plant 3D spec format which autoplant specs can be converted) in a simple "pick and click" format.

The other promising software was recap. The basic version (free) will allow viewing scans and also converting to AutoCAD format which allow working with Autodesk products. The pro version will allow registering the scans similar to LFM software for manipulation. The expected price for the pro version is $3600, about half of LFM and flexible terms, monthly, quarterly, yearly, etc.

Conference Begins

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

I started this morning with the conference breakfast, I was number five in the breakfast line. the breakfast consisted of an egg and spinach bagel sandwich, fruit and yogurt. after a quick bite i made my way to the lounge outside my first class, Compelling Strategies for Passing the AutoCAD2014 Professional Certification Exam. sincewe are on AutoCAD 2012 at work, this may be a stretch in passing.

As always the conference always has behind the scenes giveaways, contests, etc. trying to participate in these extra activities is fun but challenging to do so with everything there is to see and participate.


8:00am - Compelling Strategies for Passing the AutoCAD 2012 Professional Certification Exam

The instructor has many years of teaching autocad. the eam will contain skills based questions where hands on skill is tested in a drawing. also included are knowledge based questions in the form of multiple choice. the instructor covered test taking techniques, hands on techniques, and suggested reading roadmaps and acad help for solutions. also available are workflows for taking the exam. instructor also had suggestions for setting drawing environment when doing hands on portion of exam.


10:30am - Keynote Address: The Answer is Outside
Penn and Teller opened the keynote address, way cool opening. The theme around the keynote was crowdsourcing and collaboration. The idea correlates to their direction, one of using the cloud and their brand of cloud software. Some of the more notable points made was reverse mentoring, having the younger generation retrain the older generation. Another concept was that of using the cloud, Autodesk 360, to get project input from outside the design team, sort of reverse innovation, end user input on final product. Lastly the concept of making more use of existing design/construction to save time, i.e. making use of reality captures or laser scans in the design rather than remodeling exist objects for design aid.


1:30pm - Best Practices in the Brownfield Case Studies in Effective Scanning and Modeling
This was not what I was expecting. there were two instructors for this class, the first talked about scanning from a service provider perspective, the second talked about scanning post data collection from the service provider perspective also. The class was geared towards scan providers, discussing scope of work, best practices, etc. from our perspective we are the customer of said service providers, their discussion had little to do with how we work with scans


3:00pm - How to Excel at Data Extraction
Short class but very informative. The instructor gave demo on how to create index drawings using data extraction wizard. Some other ideas ideas include data linking to spreadsheets with dynamic updates.

4:30pm - Autodesk 360

Jamuary 18 tech preview, must sign up to get on list. Resembles share point or Facebook for projects. Similar functionality to ipims which could be enhance with some features. AutoCAD 360 has Integrated viewer feature for files not just drawings, could ipims use the autodesk viewer that's free, true view? Who at work could I get to look at for enhancing ipims?

6:30pm - Exhibit Hall

The vendors had a lot to showcase. Took today to browse the vendors making note of the ones I'd like to visit with more later.

Breakfast line was short when you're fifth in line.

The crowd of people waiting to enter the hall for keynote address.

Keynote address

Penn and Teller opened keynote address

Lunch 

Departing Houston

Monday, December 2, 2013

Arrived at airport in Houston with not much to do except wait for the flight. Looking around at the people waiting to board the flight I wonder how many are going to the conference and how many are going for other purposes. Since it's a Monday I don't expect too many to be going for pleasure. I see a fair number of people dressed in attire that would suggest traveling for business. 

I arrived in Las Vegas and checked in at the Venetian, a very nice hotel. I dropped my gear in the room and made my way downstairs to the exhibit hall. I found the registration desk and got registered for the conference. There isn't much going on with the conference but there are a lot of conference folks hanging out in the area. I decide to grab some pizza and go back to the room to eat and relax. I'm also going to play with the AU app and see how useful it will be during the conference.