LT Unlimited

Quick Edit Attributes

2012-10-10T09:09:00-04:00

Ever want to just edit an attribute like you would text, without going through a dialog? Guess what? You can!

(You knew I wouldn’t ask unless the answer was yes.)

To quickly edit one specific attribute, simply hold down CTRL while double-clicking on the attribute.

It’ll be opened for editing without any of the bells & whistles you get from the Enhanced Attribute Editor, but if all you’re doing is editing the contents, maybe you don’t need them every time.

(Note: I first saw this on Twitter, linked to a blog – but I can’t find the original tweet or post. :-( If it was yours, let me know & I’ll provide proper attribution.)

(Update: Thanks to Paul Munford (@CadSetterOut) for the original tweet and Will Forty of HowToAutoCAD.com for the initial blog post!)

Autodesk Revit LT now available

2012-09-20T10:47:02-04:00

Big news this week – Autodesk Revit LT 2013 and the AutoCAD Revit LT Suite 2013 are now available for purchase on the Autodesk eStore in both North America and Europe. They’re currently English-only, but I understand a German-language version will be available soon.

I had a couple requests for an expanded post on the capabilities of Revit LT and its comparison to Revit, so it seems like a good time to do that—considering you’re now able to actually go out and buy it. :-)

The first places I always go to for a new product like this is are the features list and the comparison matrix.

Let’s start with some highlights from Revit LT:

All the advantages of a single, coordinated model. Imagine working with beams, walls, and doors that know what they are, and aren’t just lines on a screen. Change an element in one view, and all views that show that element will also automatically updates. It’s like magic.
Visualize in 3D, then document in 2D. The world is 3D, even though we often represent it in 2D. Get the best of both worlds here, when you’re able to see exactly how things fit together in three dimensions, then automatically generate the necessary 2D views.
Automatic Schedule Generation. With Revit LT, your schedule contents are driven by the elements in your model, helping reduce the amount of time you have to spend to make sure that keynotes and references are kept up to date.
Photorealistic Cloud Rendering. If you add Subscription to your Revit LT purchase, you’ll get access to Autodesk 360 Rendering that you can use to produce compelling visual images of your designs. Apply materials and add lighting elements (sun or artificial) to see what your projects will look like before they’re complete—and in a fraction of the time it would take to render the same image on a single desktop machine.

And here are some Revit-only features:

Simultaneous editing of models (but you can link models in Revit LT)
In-product photorealistic & ray trace rendering
Conceptual massing & in-place modeling
Interference checks & copy/monitor
Point cloud import
Energy analysis
API access
Network licensing

Revit LT is designed for those of you out there who are thinking about the move to BIM, but maybe aren’t ready for or don’t need some of the items on that second list.

If you’re not sure whether you’re ready or not, that’s what the trial is for!

Free 30-day trial.

Canstruction 2012

2012-09-18T09:56:00-04:00

No, that’s not a typo in the header. I’m taking a slight detour today to post about an international charity organization whose mission is “to engage, amaze and inspire the community to work together raising canned food to feed hundreds of thousands of hungry people.”

Canstruction is a series of events where members of the local architecture & engineering community team up with grocery stores to collect canned goods and use them to build some absolutely amazing sculptures, helping to raise awareness of hunger issues.

Here’s a link to their upcoming events, in case there’s one near you. (If there is, you should definitely pay a visit.)

I took a field trip last week to the Washington, DC, event not only to admire the local ingenuity but also to test out the new 123D Catch for iPhone (more on that later).

Here’s one of my favorites (sorry for the blur):

Perkins + Will, “A Colorful Meal of Golden Proportions”

I loved not only the shape and color of this (it’s the basilica in St. Petersburg!), but also that they brought evidence of their planning:

See? There’s a CAD connection after all.

Perkins + Will weren’t the only ones to pre-model their sculpture. AECOM used Revit for their Liberty torch, but they didn’t display the sheets after the sculpture was done. (Anybody from AECOM want to send me some images? I’ll be happy to post them!)

AECOM, “Give Us Your Hungry”

Let’s see, how about some other favorites…

Local color: Abraham Lincoln (HOK) and the Alexandria Masonic Temple (David M. Schwarz).

Apollo 11 as seen from the moon AND Earth (Wiencek + Associates). These two pictures are the same sculpture from front & back.

An old-school cell phone (Cannon Design) and the Grand Canyon (Barnes Vanze Architects)

For more about these sculptures (and to see the rest I didn’t have room to post about), visit http://www.capitalareafoodbank.org/canstruction-2012/.

Last but not least, though, is one of the (many) space shuttle tributes presented this year.

I took this first with the regular camera:

Hartman-Cox Architects, “Monumental Flight: Discovering An End To Hunger”

Then I used 123D Catch to take around 35 pictures from all angles, and ended up with these:

I’m not very good at this yet, though, so I also ended up with this:

I’ll get there. :-)

If you want to see the full 3D model, click here.

If you visit a Canstruction event and make your own models, let me know! I’ll be happy to share them.

Help Update for AutoCAD 2013 and AutoCAD LT 2013

2012-09-12T12:15:19-04:00

“You can’t always get what you want / But if you try sometimes, you might find / You get what you need.”

The Rolling Stones weren’t talking about software documentation when they wrote that, but occasionally I think they could have been. Help files aren’t always exactly what you want. Sometimes they don’t even have what you need—or they do but you can’t find it.

We do our best to make sure the AutoCAD 2013 and AutoCAD LT 2013 Help files have what you need, but you’ve said you want more.

So, we’re giving it to you.

Fire up the F1 key in AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT today, and you’ll see our redesigned Help welcome page.

It’s got a whole host of new features, most of which are based directly on user feedback. (All new content is English-only right now, with additional languages for many elements to be added later.) This new version of Help includes links to commands, system variables, the glossary, and FAQs; search filters to narrow down topic results; and possibly my favorite—the Hitchhiker’s Guide to AutoCAD.

This brand-new feature is a guided tour through 42 (get it?) of the commands and tools you need to create 2D drawings in AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT.

Check it out for yourself, and I think you’ll see the Stones were wrong—sometimes you can get what you want!

Updated Service Pack for AutoCAD 2013 and AutoCAD LT 2013

2012-09-11T09:55:36-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, we posted a service pack for AutoCAD 2013 and AutoCAD LT 2013. Unfortunately, we had to pull it a few days later—our sincerest apologies to those of you who were inconvenienced.

Our team has now fixed the issues that caused the recall, and the service pack has been reposted. You can find 32- and 64-bit versions here:

AutoCAD 2013 Service Pack 1.1
AutoCAD LT 2013 Service Pack 1.1

Two things to note:

This service pack is only for AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT and cannot be applied to vertical products that are based on AutoCAD 2013.
If you managed to download and apply SP1 before it was removed, you can just apply SP1.1 on top of it. Uninstall of SP1 is not necessary or required.

As always, I highly recommend that you read the README before installing any product update.

Thanks for your patience while we resolved this issue.