This is one of those “I never realized” or more like a “duh” moment that I just experienced and thought I’d share since it’s a quick informational post. I promise my next post will be more insightful to those that will be thinking to themselves “duh”, Jonathan’s an idiot, (which of course is well deserved at this moment). But maybe, just maybe, someone will check their batteries to their optical mouse, before they call their CAD Manager or IT Administrator and harass them about why their Civil 3D is hesitating. Yep, that’s it. For a few weeks now, I’ve been noticing much slower zooms using my mouse wheel along with delays in double clicking to edit something. I just figured since I’m working on some big data sets with aerial images that my computer is slowing down. Well, today my mouse completely died on me. I put a new battery in and Voila! No hesitation in any clicks or mouse movements within Civil 3D.
I’m linking to his site instead of the PDF directly, but over on Civil to Inventor, John links to the latest issue of AUGI world where he’s got a real gem of an article. “Why should I buy a CAD card?” runs through all the usual arguments and gets to the bottom of what I consider to be a lot of graphics cards myths. I wish he’d shown price tags in his chart, or done a bang for the buck comparison somehow, but it’s good stuff.
My recent hiatus from the blogworld is due to being in-between computers. My new laptop just came in last week and I am so excited!! However, with a build it is always scary to know if what you are building is just right for Civil3D.
So follow along as I interview Peter Funk – Autodesk’s Civil 3D Product Manager – about new computer builds and especially his passion for Windows 7. Afterward, we will see how well I did with my build.
OK, so it’s not really C3D related, but it’s at least field related. 
Fluidforms out of Austria, has what I think might be the first ever bowl with land development appeal. Based on a Google Map, satellite data, and your own settings for the exaggeration, etc., you get to design your own bowl. While I couldn’t get the pricing or modeling links to work, perhaps you can. There’s also a German version of the site, so perhaps one of our European readers could help me out and send me the link to the builder? I really want to see my neighborhood done up like this!
Edit: It’s all about shockwave. I managed to get it loaded on my VM, and I’m really impressed. Not sure I’m 230Euro impressed just yet, but what a cool merge of tech and craft and all that jazz. JW
I’m shocked, shocked I tell you. In what can only be seen a a complete refusal of Autodesk to listen to my completely narrow and unfounded business advice, they’re changing the dwg format to play along with the WAN guys. You can read the InfoWorld article here. (Exclusive? Come on, Eric, we’ve had cocktails at AU! Hook a brother up!)
It makes sense in light of the upcoming format change, but I wonder if this means that Autodesk will now kowtow to the graphic card and plotter vendors when the new versions break something in those systems. In my opinion, it’s a slippery slope, and generally says that the WAN accelerator market (or at least the big fat subscription customers running them,) is more powerful than many considered. Good for them I guess.
Considering this is still a year away, anyone taking bets that Riverbed and Silver Peak put the kibosh on sales to AEC firms? Me neither.
We’ll be watching this story continue to develop, it’s a good one.
Many thanks to Rizzo and others that sent this over.
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