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| Featured NEWS |
| LD Assistant 2012 Fixture Information |
| By placing the curser over any fixture, LD Assistant will pop-up an information window that shows the: Position, Unit Number, Fixture Name, Channel, Dimmer, Circuit, Gel Color, Iris/Gobo and the Candle Power. |
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| When placing the curser over the cone, LD Assistant will pop-up an information window that shows the: Beam in degrees, Field in degrees, Beam Size(B.W.), Field Size (F.W.), Distance from the fixture to the target, Intensity and LD Assistant will also calculate Foot Candles through the gel. |
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| Next month we will look at LD Assistant's NEW Incredible DMX Patch! |
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| LD Assistant AC 2012 Service Pack SP-1 |
| A new service pack that updates LD Assistant Ac 12 is ready to download and install. It is recommended that all LD Assistant 2012 users download and install this file. CLICK HERE to login and download SP1. |
| LD Assistant AC 2012 Service Pack SP-2 |
| LD Assistant Ac 12 SP-2 is ready to download and install. It is recommended that all LD Assistant 2012 users download and install Service Pack 2. CLICK HERE to login and download SP2. If you’re a LDA 12 user and have not created a login account yet, contact support at LD Assistant to have the file emailed to you. |
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| LD Assistant 2012 Tips |
| DWG Convert Tip |
| LD Assistant 2012 includes a very useful DWG Convert, which enables the user to translate DWG files to any of the following DWG versions: R14, 2000, 2004, 2007 and 2010. Single or multiple files may be converted, making it useful for batch conversion of older files to the latest release. To access the DWG Convert, go to the Application Menu (Red LDA, top left corner) > Save As > DWG Convert. In the DWG Convert dialogue box, you can specify the DWG files to be converted, save the list for future use, create new lists and open/append existing lists. Additional options include Purge Drawings, Replace Page Setups and Check and Fix Errors. You can save multiple Conversion Setups, enabling you to easily restore a specific set of conversion properties. |
| Materials Tip |
| You can add materials to objects in your drawings to provide a realistic effect. A material’s settings create its physical properties. The Materials tool palette in the Tool Palettes window provides a large number of materials already created for you. You use these material tools to apply materials to objects in a scene. You can also create and modify materials using the Materials window. The Materials window offers many settings to modify properties of the material. |
To map a
material to an object start by using the LD Materials icon found under the visualization dropdown menu. The LD Materials tool will map a texture to the size of the object. This can be very useful when mapping doors, walls and floors.
Adjusting the
Materials
1) Under the dropdown menu Tools, open both Materials Browser and Editor. (Picture 1)
2) Click on the Materials to be edited. (Picture 2)
3) In the Materials Editor double click on texture image (picture 3) to open the Texture Editor.
4) Adjust the material scale in the Texture Editor. (Picture 4) |
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| Did You Know |
| * LD Assistant has an easy to use interface that is used by over 9,000,000 CAD users around the world. |
| * LD Assistant 2012 is the only CAD program that has 3D Audio. Designers can attach audio files to a sound cabinet and hear the audio playback while walking through their designs. Each speaker can have a different MP3 file attached to it. |
| * LDA 12 is the only Entertainment Lighting Design, Visualization & Event Planning Software with Wire & Cable. Track your: • Cable Length • Cable Price • Cost Per Foot • Cable Name • Cable ID • Position of Cable • From Location •To Location • From Plug Type • To Plug Type and more all in a single built-in Spread Sheet! |
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| Featured LD Assistant Rendering by Kevin Denzel |
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| What is Autodesk WS? |
| With WS your clients don't need a CAD program to collaborate with your design team... a web browser is all that is needed! |
| 1) Create an FREE account |
| 2) Upload your LD Assistant drawing |
| 3) Invite your clients to join you and your design team in an email link |
| 4) You and your clients can both manipulate the drawing |
| 5) Open a web browser and start working and sharing your ideas |
| Win More, Do More with Design & Drafting's LD Assistant 2012 and WS |
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| Below are a few screen shots of the internet based user interface. |
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| Autodesk News |
New Mobile Simulation App Autodesk ForceEffect Motion Now Available
Freedom to Test Impact of Motion Behavior on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch SAN RAFAEL, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK) announced that Autodesk ForceEffect Motion, a new mobile simulation app for developing and testing mechanical systems with moving parts (scissor lift, windshield wipers, automobile engine, robotics, etc.), is now available on the App Store for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. “Autodesk ForceEffect Motion brings engineering to the point of the design problem that engineers are trying to solve in the field, in the office or in the classroom”. Click here to keep reading |
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| ARTICLES & HOW TO |
In the Field with AutoCAD WS - by Jason Drew
AutoCAD WS is one of the many new cloud services offered by Autodesk. It allows users to upload and share drawings with anyone around the globe. No need to send large email attachments or upload to FTP sites. AutoCAD WS works with the following devices: •iPhone & iPad •Mac •Android phones and tablets
•AutoCAD (Plug-in) Have you ever gone out to the field with a stack of paper drawings and wondered if there was a better way to perform a walk-down? Click here to keep reading
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Activate the Old Menu bar - Most of you will be aware that AutoCAD has been using a Ribbon interface for a number of years. On the whole, people have moved to using this, helping integration across different applications, such as Inventor, which also runs a Ribbon interface.
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Text Editing - tips for editing text using in-place text editor, RK McSwain, CAD Panacea
If you are editing TEXT (not MTEXT), and the system variable TEXTED is set to 0 or 2, then you will be using the In-Place text editor. Although you can type in %%U to add underlining, there is no obvious way to remove it. I would guess most people would not even try the %%U since initially it shows up in the string while you are typing it in. Click her to keep reading |
Get rid of the default grid in AutoCAD - by Ellen Finkelstein, AutoCAD Tips Blog
Starting with AutoCAD 2011, Autodesk has made the grid on by default. Do you turn it off every time you start AutoCAD? If you don’t know how to turn it off permanently, here are the steps: Click here to keep reading
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Never Use the Layers Pull Down Again - by Paul Munford
If you are creating AutoCAD drawings which contain a lot of geometry, I highly recommend that you concentrate on keeping your geometry organised as you go along. Using Polylines, Groups, Blocks, Xref’s and Layers will really help you to create and edit your geometry in an efficient fashion. Click here to keep reading |
AutoCAD WS for Facilities Management – Collaboration in the Cloud - Shaun Bryant, CADspeed,
I was one of those CAD geeks who did the loop around my small office when AutoCAD WS was released. It is a sophisticated mobility tool that Autodesk was savvy enough to release for free. Now available on the App Store for Apple devices and native Macs as well as the Android Market for Android devices, it gives a massive scope to CAD users and facilities managers alike. Click here to keep reading |
AutoCAD Rotate and the Magic Options - rotating rectangle to match edge at odd angle using ROTATE command, by Jarod Schultz.
When using the rotate command AutoCAD assumes that you always want to rotate something starting at 0 degrees. But sometimes the issue is you want to rotate something where the angle is not that, in fact without listing the line you might not know what that angle is in the first place. So instead of doing a bunch of picks and clicks to figure that out or doing some math to figure some of this out let’s put the “Auto” into AutoCAD. Click here to keep reading |
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| Hardware for the CAD Professional |
CAD Workstation Storage, Part 1: The Evolving Tradeoffs Between HDD and SSD - by Alex Herrera, CADspeed -
When it comes to thinking about what should go in our workstations, we — both hardware suppliers and users— too often dwell on the glitzier technology inside, the “speeds and feeds.” How many CPU cores or GPU shaders there are, what frequencies they’re clocked at, and how many polygons/second or texels/second the GPU can churn through. Click here to keep reading |
CAD Workstation Storage, Part 2: Guidelines for Choosing HDD or SSD - by Alex Herrera, CADspeed -
This series is comparing hard disk drives (HDD) versus solid state drives (SSD) for CAD workstation storage. Now there’s no one answer that fits all when it comes to choosing any piece of hardware, so let’s boil down all those distinguishing characteristics to yield some useful guidelines for outfitting your workstation’s disk storage. Click here to keep reading
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The BOXX 4920 Xtreme Workstation - Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme hex-core, over-clocked, liquid-cooled CPU, ultra-high end NVIDIA Quadro 5000 GPU, PCI Express-resident 240 GB SSD, offers high performance for CAD, DCC apps, Alex Herrera, Graphic Speak. - -
Opening the chassis on any Boxx workstation is a diversion from the mundane, because Boxx designs anything but ordinary machines. The company knows that to compete with the big-volume boys, it must differentiate as much as possible. And once again, in the case of the 4920 Xtreme, Boxx takes some noteworthy slants on workstation design, most notably—but not limited to—its liquid-cooled CPU. - Click here to keep reading |
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