3D Document Publishing from TransMagic

One of the sometimes overlooked (this author included) features of TransMagic 3D CAD translation software is its free 3D model viewer. TransMagic read and write a number of file formats using native libraries - CATIA, SolidWorks, JT, Siemens NX / Unigraphics, Autodesk Inventor, Pro/ENGINEER - as well as neutral formats like STEP, IGES & STL - the advantage being native, reliable 3D CAD translation between high-end CAD systems of very good quality. However what should be done to share a CAD file with a client or colleague who has no 3D CAD system at all?

Enter TransMagic's 3D web page publishing feature. This video briefly demonstrates using TransMagic to publish a STEP file to HTML and open with Windows Internet Explorer.

Saving a CAD model or assembly as an HTML page from TransMagic will create (at least) two linked files using the file name given - one HTML file which can be loaded from Windows Internet Explorer & an associated HOOPS ".hsf" file containing the actual 3D parts which use the HTML as a "container". Simply, zip or unzip both files together, upload send in email or save to the same hard disk (or server) location and open the HTML from Internet Explorer with the .HSF file present in the same directory. You can view this video's actual HTML page for yourself HERE.

Of course, HTML code can be edited to change colors, add a company logo or product information and web links as desired - so it is far more effective in making product presentations than a binary viewer - and transmits far more successfully in email. It also adds the possibility (perhaps also using TransMagic's batch-convert option) to publish 3D part catalogs on a website that visitors can navigate and "inspect" in real time 3D.

For Australia and New Zealand, TransMagic can be downloaded locally from CADDIT. From other lands, please refer to http://www.transmagic.com/.

Liquidlogic Versa Board on the Nantahala

We have had the Versa Board in production for a couple months and the word is coming around that people are having a great time paddling them in all types of water.  The original purpose of the Versa Board was to make a great entry level paddle board that anyone could enjoy jumping on and paddling around the local lake, river, or waterway.  But the more we paddle it the more we realize how fun this thing is to paddle down easy whitewater.

I went over to the Nantahala with Adriene for a kayak competition and took the Versa Board to try out on the river.  Robert Bone from the NOC was game so we loaded a couple boards up and headed up stream for a couple mile paddle down the lower section of the Nanty.  Neither of these guys had paddled a board on a river before so I was interested to see how it would go.  Keeping your balance while sitting on your butt is one thing but stand up and paddle its a whole new feeling.  Amazingly the Versa Board looked totally stable and easy to deal with for them.

The Versa Board actually made the paddle down the Nanty a really enjoyable afternoon of fun, a little challenge, and some excercise.  Here is a video I put together of the trip.

Enjoy

Shane

Spring cleaning

Every couple of years, the sand and silt in Chicago's harbor mouths need to be cleaned out. We lose shallow spots we enjoyed for teaching and surfing, but the big ships that pay to dock have more clout. This is Chicago, after all.

Badger's Blog: How to Maintain Oiled Gunnels and Wood Paddles

Badger's Blog: How to Maintain Oiled Gunnels and Wood Paddles

Having a look at the Badger Blog has reminded that I need to get my seats & thwarts oiled before the season starts!

Free Pro/ENGINEER "Lite" CNC, FEA, Structural Steel & Ergonomics Design Modules

Did you know that every seat of Pro/ENGINEER now includes full-featured CAD/CAM milling, mechanical assembly FEA simulation, human factor analysis ("Manikin" analysis) piping and cabling design?* Here is a list of functionality now delivered to every Pro/ENGINEER user with updated maintenance:

CAM Lite – (Expert Machinist)
Pro/ENGINEER Foundation XE includes a basic 2 ½-axis CNC milling license, allowing machining of prismatic parts in 5-axis positioning. There are no “Menu Manager" menus; interface is completely icon/dialog driven. Pro/ENGINEER NC Lite follows a simple workflow:

• Specify final part and original material stock
• "Work cell" definition - specify milling machine type and machine zero
• Toolpath strategies - define machining "features" to block list
• Toolpath calculation is virtually automatic when all parameters are defined
• Post CNC machine G-code (generic FANUC post processor included)

Toolpath definitions are stored independently of machine features. More specific additional NC G-code POST processors can be used, they should be acquired from AustinNC or other developers.


CAE Lite – "Mechanica Lite"
Pro/MECHANICA finite element analysis and simulation ("FEA") for maximum 100 surfaces. CAE Lite enables you to perform static structural analysis on parts and assemblies so you can virtually test your product earlier in the design cycle. Intuitive interface walks users through analysis setup:
• Static Structural Analysis for Parts and Assemblies
• Apply Loads and Constraints (Displacement, Pin, Ball, Planar)
• Full results functionality
• Results Probing, Animation, etc…
Leverages Pro/ENGINEER Mechanica technology. Complete upward model compatibility to the full version of Pro/ENGINEER Mechanica for large-scale analysis.

Manikin Lite
Find out how a human might interact with your design with ergonomic studies. Any Pro/ENGINEER user may load, place, edit placement and manipulate a manikin in the product scene. Explore the base concept of digital human modeling, directly inside Pro/ENGINEER!
• Limited selection of full manikin design extension tools for manipulation (2D drag and apply posture only)
• Manikin Extension adds the capabilities to check reach envelopes, vision cones, first person vision window
• Manikin LITE analysis extension offers Pro/ENGINEER users several important ergonomic analysis software tools for product designs.


Pro/ENGINEER Frame Extensions Lite (EFX)
Beginning with Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 5.0 M020, EFX Lite is now also available to all new and maintenance users. Expert Framework (EFX) is for structural steel design, framework assemblies made up of steel beams, aluminum profiles and other types of custom profiles. Customers are using EFX to create industrial machinery, cranes, buildings, assembly lines, conveyor systems, marine structures, roof designs and much more. Essentially all the engineer needs to do is to create or import the underlying structural shape using Pro/ENGINEER datum curves, where the curves represent the major structural beams. Designers then use EFX commands to convert these shapes directly to framework assembly / structural profile.

WILDFIRE 5.0 is now available, for Pro/ENGINEER information inside Australia you can contact CADDIT via their website http://www.caddit.net/ or http://www.cadcam.com.au/ For an up-to-date product comparison between the several available product bundles included with Pro/ENGINEER, see the PTC website HERE.

*Lite modules included free as of Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 4.0 refresh M70

Liquidlogic at the NOC shootout and Demo

This past weekend I went over to the Nantahala Outdoor Center to show boats at the store as well as watch the action at the Shootout, which is the first event in the USAFK point series.  Liquidlogic had a few entrants and they showed proud for the event both in the new playboat Biscuit series, and older freestyle designs.  John Clark from NOC rocked a Skip in the C-1 category and was amazing out there slicing an dicing and throwing in the big loop on just about every ride.  Jordan Poffenberger came in Second to John in C-1.  He was throwing massive loops and doing this crazy McNasty entry move.  Maria and Adriene represented in the Women's category really well with 2nd and 3rd places.  Maria consistently threw blunts and roundhouses to tally up the points while Adriene looked destined for a disappointing performance when in the last few seconds of her last ride she threw a huge loops and stuck it in the very flushy feature.

We also had a big winner in the Attainment race.  Chris Hipgrave took the gold, beating a field of 20 plus by paddling UP river to Nantahala falls and then paddling back down the fastest while.  This race was fantastic to watch because it was a La Mans start.  Everybody started out of their kayak, then ran to their boats, jumped in, and paddled away all together.  The fun was watching people try to put skirts on quickly and then battling in the eddies for position to paddle upstream while 20 other people hacked away with ther paddles as well.  Chris was in the Remix Stinger race boat and made it look oh so fast.  Congrats Chris!

The Nantahala is also going to be home of the 2012 World Cup and 2013 World Championships.  It is going to be a great place to be during the time.  It should be like a world paddling village.  I can't wait.  Some of my favorite paddling experiences have been in situations where paddlers from all over the world are camping, paddling, and living together.  It is always a good time.

The NOC demo day was great as well.  Almost all the our boats were out at some time or another but none were out as much as the Remix XP 9 and 10.  It just seems like this is the boat of choice for a bunch of paddlers both new and old to the sport.

All in all a great time.  Here is a slide show of all different parts of the event.
Enjoy
Shane

Revit team leader/co-ordinator

Thought you might be interested in this career opportunity that Kevin from UberCAD passed onto me. If you are looking to take your Revit and BIM skills to the next level, be sure to drop Kevin an email.

Global player with global opportunities.

We are looking for an ambitious Revit boffin. Initially you will be co-ordinating an existing multi-disciplinary Revit team and have responsibility for assembling the Revit model for a major £200m project.

Beyond that, as one of the most valuable Revit experts within this major international multi-disciplinary company, there are opportunities to work on major projects all over the world or you could chose a more strategic role in the UK. Either way this company will invest in keeping you at the forefront of BIM.

Please call Kevin Johnson on (+44) 01275 349000 or

email: kevin@uberCAD.com

Revit 2011 recommended Graphics Cards

This is a particularly useful document if you want to know what Graphics Cards are recommended for Revit Architecture 2011.

http://www.autodesk.com/us/revit/revit_graphics_hardware_-_graphics_hardware_list_final.html

Pulled Pork

I'm smoking a pork butt for supper on Sunday. I am going to update this post as I go.

The subject: 9lb Pork butt, bone in. $3.59/pound. Purchased at Prairie Meats. I'm not sure if this is a good price, or a bad one. (After reading on the 'net, it seems that this is not a good price. Our American neighbours can get it at well under a dollar per pound while folks out in Ontario are paying about $2.50 - I'll keeping my eye out for sale prices for future pork endeavours, perhaps talking directly to my local hog producer.)

The recipe: http://www.susanminor.org/forums/showthread.php?p=99#post99

For advice on the timing, I've been referring to various posts at http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/ which suggest that pork butt can take anywhere from 12 to 24 hours before it's ready to pull. The variance is due to the size and shape of the meat, the smoking/cooking temperature, the fat & connective tissue content of the particular pieces of meat, and more. Affecting the cooking temperature are factors like outside temperature, wind, sunshine, etc. The experts at the aforementioned forum also suggest that it is MUCH better to have your butt done early and to let it "rest" longer than to be waiting on the meat to reach an internal temperature of 190°F.

So, here's how things are playing out:

Saturday, 8:00 pm - Applied pork rub following recipe at http://www.susanminor.org/forums/showthread.php?p=99#post99. The recipe calls for a 1/4 cup of freshly cracked pepper. That's a lot of pepper to grind by hand so I connected the cordless drill to the pepper grinder in order to do it in a more efficient (and manly) manner.

Sunday, 12:00 am - Took the pork out of the fridge, applied more rub. Set up smoker in the back yard and loaded smoker with several rocks to help hold & recover heat when the door opens. Filled water pan with boiling water to help the cabinet (and the rocks) heat up. The ambient temperature is about 6°C so the heat setting on the smoker cabinet is full bore in order to combat the cold of night. Also have the smoke generator turned on to pre-heat it, and to help warm the cabinet.

1:00 am - Put pork into the smoker and loaded 4 hours, 40 minutes worth of wood "bisquettes". Used 2/3 apple, 1/3 hickory.

1:40 am - Checked the smoker temperature before heading off to bed - the cabinet thermometer is already reading at about 185°F! That's a quicker rise than I expected considering the big slab of meat is still relatively cool and moist, and it's not very warm outside. Rather than head off to bed as planned, I'm staying up to tweak the temperature in order to have the cabinet running at the desired 200 - 210°F. The heat control on my Bradley smoker is a simple slider, with not temperature setting. Thus, it requires some monitoring and adjusting in order to hit a target.

My desire to get a PID temperature controller has just jumped up a couple of notches! In the meantime, I make an adjustment, wait a fair bit of time for the cabinet to react and stabilise, then check and make another adjustment. This is repeated until the target is reached. However, changing outside temperatures or wind affect this, and the changing food inside the cabinet also affect this so it's a moving target.

In the meantime, I have had the time to write all of the above....

2:15 am - The cabinet is at close to the same temperature as 35 minutes earlier, perhaps just a few degrees higher. So, it seems like I can safely head off to bed now for a few hours.

7:15 am - I had the alarm set for 6 am, but apparently I didn't turn it on. Got up to check on things, and all seemed OK. Temperature is stilll low at about 190°F so it's not like it's goign to burn up too soon. Back to bed...

9:00 am - Checking on things again.... Temp still at about 190 or 195. Refilled water bowl with boiling water and inserted probe of digital thermometer.

Overnight low was about 1°C  for several hours. Current temperature is 11°C, it's calm and the sun is shining.

4:50 pm - Guests will be here in less than an hour, and the butt isn't done yet! The internal temperature is 169°F and I need it to be up to at least 175 (higher is better) before I pull it. I think I'm going to have to put it in the oven to finish it off. I don't know, do I leave it alone for another hour or so (the cabinet is at about 230°F), or do I take preemptive action?

While I was at it, this afternoon I did two "Bacon Explosions" similar to what I did last fall for the Grey Cup. I used another hours worth of apple wood smoke on that. One is stuffed with bacon, fried onion & mushrooms, and the other has less of the same, but a can of green chilis added. That stuffing is wrapped in pork sausage meat, wrapped in a woven bacon wrap. I'll follow up with photos.

6:00 pm - Bacon Explosion for an appetizer!

Jay digs into the Bacon Explosion - Fried mushrooms, onions & bacon wrapped in pork sausage meat, wrapped in woven bacon.

6:15 pm - I left the pork in the smoker and it reached 178°F, then I took it out, wrapped it in foil, then a towel, and put it into a small cooler (the FTC method - no, I'm not making this up!). There it "rested" about 20 minutes before I unwrapped it all and used a couple of forks to pull the pork. Oh, man was it ever moist and tender - literally falling apart! Of course I sampled as I went, and oh man, was it good.

6:40 pm - Supper's on!

Pulled pork ready to eat.

Not my best picture, but damn, that was a good sandwich!

Not Jay's best picture either, but I think that's one happy pork-eater.

17 hours of cooking created one of the best meats I have ever prepared. Was it worth the sleep deprivation? Hell yes. My sandwiches at work have been pretty darned good at work all week too. In fact, I think this stuff might be getter better with age. My only comment would be that perhaps bacon-wrapped bacon is a bit much for an appetizer that is followed immediately by a massive feed of more smoked pork. Today (Wednesday) I vacuum bagged the remaining leftovers and tossed it in the freezer to keep for a later date. The second bacon explosion was also vacuum bagged and I'll bring that with me tomorrow night and re-heat it in Jay's oven during his birthday celebration.

Next time.... put it in earlier, set the smoker to high (depending on the weather), and go to bed while the smoker and the pork take care of themselves. 

Another point trick - host by intersection

I can’t take credit for this; but this little gem was pointed out to me by my colleague Greg Schleusner from the New York office; its the ability to have a point hosted by it intersection. What this means is that you might have a point hosted on a line, but you could use another line, level, reference plane,reference line or point to drive the position of the point along the line its hosted on. The video hopefully explains this; I have avoided any form of voice over, because I’ve actually lost me voice!This works for 2010 as well as 2011. This has got huge potential, I will work on a good use of this over the next week or so and post this when I’m done.

Revit 2011 User Assistance

Be sure to check out the Revit 2011 User Assistance, some every useful stuff here.

http://docs.autodesk.com/REVIT/2011/ENU/landing.html

So Revit Architecture 2011 is finally here

As noted yesterday, RAC 2011 is available for download from the subscription Centre. Its a fairly heavy download, all 2.6 gigs worth of it, but its worth the wait!!

It can also be downloaded from the Autodesk website

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=14973244

After all of the excitement of the trip to the Autodesks Offices in Waltham last week, I got a rather nasty flu bug which was knocked me out for the last 6 days! Mind you, if Autodesk had decided to hold the event this week, I would have been stuck in New York as the UK is currently a no fly zone. This is due to a Volcano in Iceland spitting out ash into the atmosphere and this has drifted into the UK airspace. Aeroplanes and Volcanic ash don’t seem to make a good mix!

I’ve been helping James Vandezande on a section on concept curtain walling for the forthcoming “Mastering Revit Architecture 2011” he, Phil Read and Eddie C are working on. I managed to get the draft over to James on Thursday after some initial edits. I believe its been forwarded to the technical editor to pull part! I’ve seen some of the sections and I reckon it will be an awesome book when its finally published. Get your Amazon orders in now!

Revit 2011 – subscription download

It would seem that Autodesk Revit Architecture 2011 is available for download from the subscription centre, download all 2.68gigs of Revit 2011!

Summer Plans

Our family is making plans for summer paddling. It looks like we will find ourselves in the Broken Group Islands, Pacific Rim National Park, for a few days in July.

Here is a map of the area.

Here is a video showing off some aspects of the Broken Group. Also note the "related videos" on YouTube. It looks like I have more viewing ahead of me (or I'll just wait to see it for myself).



And here is a link to a neat little video that shows the scenery, and fog, very well.

Look Back Look Forward: The Bengaluru event

Look Back Look Forward: HfG Ulm and design education in India, a brief report on the one day event at the Taj West End in Bengaluru on 6th March 2010.

Prof M P Ranjan
The one day conference at Bengaluru will be remembered for a long time by the participants, all teachers and design professionals interested in design education coming from several leading design schools in India. So much passion was released in the 24 round table discussions, only a small fraction of which can be captured here in the links and resources that we have been able to collect and create. Two workshop sessions, each of two hours duration across the twelve round tables each with eight participants and some observers kept all of us deeply involved on the subject of design education for India. This meeting will have an impact on the shape of design education in India since tere is the promise of a follow up meeting later in the year and with the sharing of the Ulm Journal as a digital resource as part of the conference kit the schools in India have for the first time access to the rich reflections that the Ulm masters had assembled in the 21 issues that were published between 1955 and 1968 when the HfG Ulm was finally closed down.

Image01: Thumbnail images of the HfG Ulm Exhibit at Chitra Kala Parishath and the registration session at Taj West End on the next day.

Image02: Thumbnail images of the conference participants during breaks as well as at the round tables during the keynote sessions.

We now invite all the participants to join us in our analysis of the event and the proceedings for which we shall make available and share below the links to all the lectures and presentations made during the day as well as a host of other resources that can aid the proposed analysis of the discussions and events of the day. The first set of links are for the eight voice files arranged in the order in which the events happened at the conference. The opening session had Dr Evelyn Hust of the Goethe Institute, Bengaluru make her opening remarks with Prof M P Ranjan making remarks on behalf of Director NID who could not attend and then on to introduce the format of the conference, keynotes and workshop sessions, as planned. The morning session that followed had three events – the first keynote lecture by Marcela Quijano, Curator, HfG Ulm Archive, and the second keynote by Prof Sudha Nadkarni, Dean, Welingkar Institute of Management where he shared his experience as a full time student at HfG Ulm in the early 60’s. (for voice recordings see the links below). Marcela Quijano gave us an overview of the pedagogy of the Ulm masters and the historical setting in which the design education experiments were conducted at the HfG Ulm.

Image 03: Thumbnails of the Table Cards, each with one HfG Ulm Master as listed: 01: Max Bill, 02: Otl Aicher, 03: Inge Aicher-Scholl, 04: Tomas Maldonado, 05: Hans Gugelot, 06: Walter Zeischegg, 07: Herbert Ohl, 08: Gui Bonsiepe, 09: Herbert Lindinger, 10: Horst Rittel, 11: William S. Huff, 12: Konrad Wachsmann.

These two keynote presentations of the morning set the tone for Looking Back at the legacy of Ulmer Model in terms of their design pedagogy and this was followed by the first Workshop session – Look Back – that lasted two hours, at the end of which each of the twelve tables made brief presentations on their findings about the salient aspects of HfG Ulm pedagogy. Each table was named after one of twelve selected Ulm teachers in the order listed below:

Table 10 : Horst Rittel
Table 09 : Herbert Lindinger
Table 04 : Tomas Maldonado
Table 03 : Inge Aicher-Scholl
Table 02 : Otl Aicher
Table 05 : Hans Gugelot
Table 08 : Gui Bonsiepe
Table 11 : William S. Huff
Table 12 : Konrad Wachsmann
Table 07 : Herbert Ohl
Table 06 : Walter Zeischegg
Table 01 : Max Bill

Each table had a set of provocation cards that carried quotes from the Ulm masters while these cards were also shown on the large projection screen as an automated slide show. Each quotation raised one issue that would be critical for the Ulm pedagogy and these provided the point of departure for the table discussions that were carried on in real earnest by all the participants. Each table also had table think sheets on which the participants were asked to make their doodles and notes as the discussions and devbates progressed at each table. These “Table Think Sheets” were collected at the end of the session and these too are made available here at the link below.

List of 8 voice files and resources for download
01_Opening Session_MPR Hust.mov – 12 mb
02_Keynote_Marcelo Quijano.mov – 27 mb
03_Keynote_Sudha Nadkarni.mov – 35 mb
04_Intro to_Look Back WS.mov – 9 mb
05_Round Table_Look Back.mov – 47 mb
06_Keynote_Kumar Vyas.mov – 54 mb
07_Keynote_Wolfang Jonas.mov – 61 mb
08_Round Table_Look Fward.mov – 49 mb

Image 04: Navigation screens from the Look Back Look Forward conference resource interactive DVD. These nine screens are from the root level pdf file and each item or image on the pages takes one to the respective file or page. The Index page is level zero, while the other pages are numbered from 1 to 8.

The conference resource DVD is packed with design education resources from HfG Ulm as well as from NID, Ahmedabad. Page two provides links to the numbered Journals from the HfG Ulm from 1 to 21 issue of the Journal, all scanned and made available as digital pdf files thanks to the kind permission from Prof Gui Bonsiepe who edited these volumes at Ulm. These Journals were published from 1955 till the last issue in 1968 when the school closed down under dramatic circumstances. These were available in India only in the NID library and for the first time these are made available to Indian design educators and researchers to understand the Ulm school’s unique pedagogy since these hold a rich resource of reflections from the Ulm teachers. Volume 3 was missing from the set all these years and we now have a copy thanks to the Ulm Archive Curator, Marcela Qujano, who gave us a copy for the Library which is now made available here as a digital pdf file at the link below, and this completes the set.

Download the “Look Back Look Forward” conference resource interactive DVD here:
Look Back_Look Forward_DVD.zip – 968 mb
Ulm 3.pdf – 3.2 mb (This issue was not included in the DVD since it did not exist in the NID Library and a copy was given to us by Marcelq Quijano when she arrived in Bengaluru for the conferfence.)

Page zero, or the opening page, is the Index with hyper-links to the other eight pages. Page two contains links to selected documents from the NID history and includes the Eames India Report of 1958, The MOMA catalogue of 1957 of classic design from USA and Europe whose prototypes are in the NID archives, NID Documentation 1964-69, The Ahmedabad Declaration of 1979, Design & Environment (1982), select faculty papers (1991) and the Proceedings of the DETM Conference (2005) and so on. Page four contains 16 papers and presentation files that record the progress of the Design Concepts and Concerns Course at NID where design thinking and design theory have been introduced to NID students from 1988 till date, evolving over the years to give NID education its distinctive identity. Page three has reports prepared by NID for the setting up of three sector specific institutes for design education in India. Other pages contain all the artworks for the conference graphics and table resources as well as the photographs from the Ulm Archive exhibit when it opened at the NID Gallery.

The visual slide shows or text resources for the keynote presentation are available for download here below and these can be viewed along with the voice files of the proceedings located above.
Keynote 01: India_Look back_Marcela Quijano.pdf – 5 mb
Keynote 02: NID Banglore Keynote at Ulm conference_Nadkarni.pdf – 36 mb

Keynote 03: Learning at NID- Then and Now, H Kumar Vyas (final).pdf – 1 mb
Keynote 04: Wolfgang Jonas_Ulm Conference_Keynote.pdf – 14 mb

Pictures of Bangalore event – Folders in .zip format each containing many selected pictiures in jpg format are available here for download (see list below)
Picture sets of Bangalore event in jpeg format
01_Ulm_Blore_PreConference.zip – 98 mb
02_Ulm_Blore_LookBack.zip – 79 mb
03_Ulm_LookForward01.zip – 75 mb
04_Ulm_Look Forward02 2.zip – 74 mb
05_Ulm_PostConference.zip – 11 mb

Picture albums of the sets in pdf format can be downloaded from these links here:
01_Ulm_Blore_PreConference.pdf – 9 mb
02_Ulm_Blore_LookBack_h3.pdf – 6 mb
03_Ulm_LookForward01_h3.pdf – 6 mb
04_Ulm_Look Forward02_h3.pdf – 7 mb
05_Ulm_PostConference_h3.pdf – 2 mb
Chakradar mid Blore Pics_h2.pdf – 6 mb

Conference kit resources in pdf format.
While the conference resource DVD that was distributed to all the participants contains the digital art works version of the table materials we provide separate links here for some of these resources so that they may be used directly if needed.

01_Conference Table_Ulm Masters.pdf : 58.9 mb
02a_look back cards_prn.pdf : 3.2 mb
02b_look forward cards_prn.pdf : 2.4 mb
02c_Model card Front_oranisation vs. free + political structure.pdf_4.pdf : 5 mb
05_Ulm Biography Bookmarks.pdf : 1.9 mb
06_keynote speaker bio+Workshops_s.pdf : 20.5 mb

Other HfG Ulm Conference Resources
Conference Participant List_xx.pdf – 3 mb
Table_Think Sheets_175page.pdf – 11 mb

Participants will now have access to all the resources that they may use to make their own analysis of the one day event at Bengaluru and from these we do hope that Indian design teachers will take back a lesson from the Ulm masters, that of documentation of their teaching resources and of their class outcomes in a contemporaneous manner in the days ahead. This alone will ensure that Indian design education retains a quality benchmark that can be shared and discussed as we refine our teaching methods and find value that is unique to our context, environment and culture. If teachers from our Indian design schools start publishing their work and through this an active dialogue is set in place we would have succeeded in our mission of sensitizing our teachers to the need for such documentation in managing and manintaining a high quality of education in our schools across India. I hope that we did succeed and that the future will show us the positive results of these tall intentions.

Prof M P Ranjan

Green River Clean Up Session!

The Pile! 

photo by Jakob Kafer

If you are a regular on a river you get to have a certain connection with it.  You start to feel as though you know it like the back of your hand, the changing seasons, the water levels, the locals.  It all just feels sooo familiar.  Every once in a while I paddle this river, the Green, and I get to see it in a whole new way.  This past Saturday was one of those days.  If you have ever floated down your home river closely looking for garbage it can be disconcerting how much you find.  The Green though it is very remote feeling it is also impacted heavily by people.   Its headwaters are a lake that is populated to busting with homes, and docks.  Its tributaries flow through construction sites, and appliance riddled hollows.  So there are times that it feels pristine but then you look closely and see more.  This day gave me a new perspective on just how much garbage there is but that search also had me standing and looking at the river from places I hadn't ever been before.

The Crew at the Get In

We chatted up the idea of having a full scale clean up session this weekend but I was pretty sure that we wouldn't have many folks considering the weekend also had a Tallulah release, and a Cheoah release.  It was awesome to roll into the parking lot and see the huge crowd that showed up to gather the garbage.  I don't really know how many folks but I am guessing over 30.  It was incredible.  At first many people didn't think there would be enough garbage for all the paddlers but within the first mile we all knew that was not the case.  It will take many more huge efforts like this one to really get it all done but this effort put the first big dent in it.  Hopefully we can start a tradition and continue to do spring cleanings on our home run.

The Tire was Epic!

photo by Jakob Kafer

One fire extinguisher, several tires, fishing rod, foam mattress, 37 tennis balls, a couple soccer balls, pvc pipe, part of a windsurfer, part of a port-a-john, lots and lots of styrofoam, and a great day giving back to the river that gives us soo much.   There are more photos below and a bunch more in the slide show at the bottom.

Cheer

Shane

Wheelie Through the Notch

photo by Jakob Kafer

Fully loaded

photo by Jakob Kafer

The Prize at the end of a great day!

photo by Jakob Kafer

Here are all the photos from myself and Jakob Kafer.

The fellowship of the traveling kayakers

One of the pleasures of paddling is the community it creates. Perhaps because it's such a small sport, those who are passionate about it are supportive of and interested in each other. But it's more than just that. Something about kayaking seems to attract good people. Our home has become a free B&B for visiting paddlers from across the country and across the world.
We were thinking about this during the past weekend, when our friend Keith Wikle was in town for a business meeting and managed to build in enough extra time to paddle with us. We met Keith because we're fellow paddlers and have become good friends. During this visit, we filmed strokes together.

Director Alec atop the dock.

Alec and Keith check out the images.

 Lyn demonstrates effective strokes with a Greenland paddle.

Then we practiced silly kayaking tricks. 

Sharon uses her head, an essential piece of paddling equipment.

Our local paddling community is rich and varied, too. The next day, we set out with Paul Redzimski, who is preparing for a ACA Level 5 instructor certification workshop. Paul wanted to practice rescues, tows and scenarios. We agreed to be his crash-test dummies.

Paul fishes Alec out of 40-degree water.

 Alec safely lands his boat on the rocks.

Sharon ends the day with a roll. No ice-cream headache!

Autodesk opens its doors and we look inside

Its the 6th April 2010 and I have joined other bloggers, press and industry people for the Autodesk 2011 Media day. Autodesk often gets a regularly kicking from the wider user community, so this was a great opportunity to look inside this software machine and something that I have personally wanted to do for sometime. 

Much has been written about the IPD project for the Autodesk Waltham offices, but its not until you actually get here and see the quality of finish and the materials used, that you really appreciate why the IPD process really works. The quality is as good as you would expect from a high quality fashion store such as Gucci or LV. The workspace also looks fun; the guys and girls who work here look like they have a total blast and they are genuinely passionate about what they do.You get the feeling that everyone, I mean everyone wants to make the solutions better and better.

The morning starts with breakfast followed by an formal introduction to the days events from Paul Sullivan and Jay Bhatt. Jay explained that Autodesk where very proud of the 2011 release and that everybody within Autodesk had worked very hard over the last 12 months; especially during difficult economic times. He is well aware of some of the negativity that surrounded 2010, but explained that much work had taken place in terms of foundation building and with 2011 you now start to see the fruits of the labour.

So after the introductions, a number of us (me, Robert Manna, Steve Stafford and David Harrington) where sneaked out the back door for a secret gathering with Chauncey Wilson and Chris Yanchar to discuss, well…… some secret stuff! Time seemed to fly by as grilled us over some stuff (NDA’s are in place, so I can’t talk about the “stuff”). All I can say is it was good “stuff”! :-)

We then took a break for a coffee and the group split. Steve and I then meet with Erik Egbertson and Jean to discuss more “stuff” this time about railings. You should check Eric blog post as he wants your feedback on railing terminology. It was disappointing that time was not kind to us. An hour was just not longer enough as both Steve and I had so much to share with the Eric and Jean on the challenges that the everyday user encounters when using the railing tools.

We then broke for lunch and this was followed by a presentation from Commonwealth of Massachusetts who explained how they where using Revit and the BIM process to deliver their projects.

After this Robert, Steve and I where whisked off to join Greg Demchak for a scoping meeting with some of the other development team to review a “future” Revit feature. This was very interesting as it gives you a good insight into how they scope and plan for features within the time constraints of 12 months. You can see how they plan for immediate delivery as well as the long terms goal.  The whole process of scoping and planning is very much how a design team would work with a client to plan and deliver a building project.

After this we strolled over to catchup with Zach Kron at his desk.Scott Latch (RAC Product Manager) joined us as we all got geeky about adaptive points and massing! Be sure to checkout Zach’s blog and rest assure, he has some create articles coming around some of the 2011 features.

Steve had to split as he had a flight to catch and we said our goodbyes. We where then taken back to the hotel where we freshened up before being take to the Concord Inn for dinner. The Concord Inn dates 1700’s.In 1775, part of the Inn's original buildings was used as a storehouse for arms and provisions.  When the British came to seize and destroy the supplies, the Minutemen met them at the North Bridge on April 19th for what became the first battle of the American Revolution. As you can imagine I got a bit of s**t from all the Americans who where with me for dinner, about how the Yanks kicked are arse at the first battle of the American Revolution! My response was, lets just see you guys fair come the 12th of June 2010 when we meet you in the World Cup! All good fun and if you are in Boston at any time, be sure to go to the Concord Inn.

Then back to the hotel as I had an early wakeup call to catch a train down to the HOK New York office.

I have to say, I would like to extend my thanks to all at Autodesk who made this such a wonderful event. Especially David Mills, who went beyond the call of duty to get us all there and was a great host.

Warm day, cold paddle

Yesterday was warm--very warm. The air temperature topped out at 76 degrees. Yesterday was also windy--very windy. The peak gust measured at the Harrison Street crib was 50 knots.

Yesterday, in other words, was an interesting day to paddle on Lake Michigan.

Alec looks back before paddling past the "dolphins." 

Yes, that's what those pilings are called!

The water off North Avenue Beach was calm because of a jetty and the shape of the land, and the stretch south to Navy Pier was similarly protected (meaning the wave height didn't correlate with the wind speed). The water was bumpy, and we could see gusts on the water before they hit us. It was one of those days when you put into practice what you've read about paddling into the wind. If your casual sightseeing speed is about 3 knots but the wind is reducing that to 1.5 knots, then cranking up your effort to a 4.5-knot pace will effectively cut in half the time it takes to get to your destination. Talk about a good trade-off.

After we passed Navy Pier, such thoughts blew off with Alec's hat and all we could think about was, "Is this such a good idea?" That's when the wind reached its peak speeds. The water was cold (38 to 40 degrees), there was lots of clapotis, and a quick check over our shoulders confirmed that we weren't making much progress. Fortunately, we had options, and the one we chose was turning around and returning to the lee of Navy Pier.

We checked out the Chicago Fire Department boat, which was built in the 1940s and still boasts on its side in bright yellow letters, "We're there when you need us." Barry, who was on duty that day, was out enjoying the weather and appreciating a job that apparently consists of long periods of calm punctuated by moments of absolute urgency.

Barry, with beverage and books, gently informed us that we were paddling in a restricted area.

Then we flew back to North Avenue with the wind at our backs.