I’ve accomplished another step in installing the eDiemnsional stereo shutter glasses, unintentionally. I installed the latest NVIDIA display driver, and once that was done, an eDimensional installation tool that was still waiting in the background (after many reboots) noticed the new driver, and proceeded to install the NVIDIA stereo driver.

But still, even with the NVIDIA stereo driver installed and adding stereo settings to the NVIDIA-specific control panel, I can not get the stereo mode to work. Turning stereo mode on displays a test image that shows two strange-looking patterns, one on the left and one on the right. This appears to be the type of image meant for display systems that split the stereo pair on the left and right side of the screen, and then redisplay them via LCD goggles or something else.

But that’s not the frame-sequential method that the eDimensional glasses use, so it’s going to take some more sleuthing to figure out if I’ve got all the correct pieces installed.

Playing a hunch that the order of the devices in between my PC and monitor might make a difference, I plugged the eDimensional stereoscopic shutter glasses adapter directly into my computer, and the KVM switch into the adapter, and was pleasantly greeted with the image I expected on the CRT.

So, with that problem solved, I proceeded to install the eDimensional software and driver, and was troubled by several steps in the process. First was a warning that this install was only for Windows 2000 and Windows XP, and that I should quit and find the Windows 98/Windows Me installer in a different directory on the CD-ROM. I’m running Windows Media Center Edition 2004, which is based on Windows XP Professional, so it should not have given me this warning.

The second problem was that since I told it I had an NVIDIA graphics card, it wanted to install NVIDIA drivers, overwriting my existing driver. The last thing an application should ever have to do is to overwrite a system driver like this. And since I have no idea which driver this is, or if it’s compatible with Media Center, I have refused to install it, which I presume will make using the glasses problematic.

So I’ll be calling eDimensional tech support, to find out why this driver replacement is necessary.

The pair of eDimensional stereoscopic glasses I ordered yesterday arrived this morning, even though I had only paid for the 3-day FedEx shipping.

Unfortunately, when I plugged the interface box inbetween my KVM switch and my CRT display, the computer’s image failed to reach the monitor. I’m guessing that the use of two power-stealing devices is just too much for the poor-old VGA standard, and that I’ll have to ditch my KVM switch and find another way to get access to the other computers under my desk…

I’ve long advocated the stereoscopic viewing of CAD designs, as it greatly enhances the understanding of a design by non-technical reviewers, as well as the productivity of designers because it allows one to instantly see the real geometric relationships in 3D without having to spin the model around to orient one’s view of the model.

To test the consumer-level technology, I’ve just ordered a pair of E-D Wireless Glasses from eDimensional. This company appears to be the last company with a consumer gaming/entertainment focus selling stereo shutter glasses, so even though I’m not convinced their hardware uses the VESA standard 3-pin Mini DIN connector for stereo sync, I’ve decided that it’s the appropriate device to expect CAD visualization software to support. They can be had in a wired model for $70, little enough that governments and design clients alike could afford them for reviewing your designs.

But despite the benefits, the use of stereoscopic visualization in the CAD market has been little enough that the longest stalwart—StereoGraphics—has been acquired by REAL D—a startup with its sights directly on the entertainment market.

I can’t imagine REAL D will leave behind StereoGraphics’ existing customers in the automotive, aerospace, and scientific fields, but whether the new company expends significant efforts in these markets remains to be seen. In any case, if they do, any harmonization between the entertainment and design markets could increase the likelihood of stereoscopic content becoming successful.

I traveled up to IMSI’s Novato offices Friday, to get a demo of its latest product—TurboCAD 11 Professional. Like Ralph Grabowski, I was quite impressed with the new auto-dimensioning feature and the addition of 2D constraints that are actually quite easy to use.

I’ll be taking a closer look at TurboCAD once I receive the product in a week or so, but I was impressed with some of the innovative thinking that went into the new feature set. Most interesting was the ability to add transparency to solid area fills. Mauritz Botha showed me a detail drawing where this was applied to a framing hanger to show how a 2×4 nestled into it far better than could be done with hidden lines or other old-fashioned traditions. Even after several years of finally supporting 24-bit color, not even AutoCAD 2006 has support for transparency. Yet it’s so useful, as this feature demonstrates, that it should be in every CAD package.

Bear with me for a minute. I know this won’t seem like it’s CAD-related at first, but it is.

I bought a lucite sign holder with a pocket for tri-fold brochures at Staples yesterday, and while they had only the less-desirable one of the three variations in size and layout I was interested in, I bought it anyway, as I need a sample to begin prototyping a brochure presentation for one of the amateur radio events I’m involved with.
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Thus far, I’ve avoided commenting on the Autodesk blogger vs. press embargo date fiasco, and I think I will continue doing so. Others have done a good enough job of covering the details and the ramifications, so I’m just going to forget about the gaffe and give Autodesk the benefit of the doubt on its intentions.

And before I get started talking about the new AutoCAD, I need to take a slight detour first, since one of the key elements in how CAD Journal will cover design technology is interaction and interoperability throughout the process, using all the tools that people use in their real jobs—not just the CAD software.

This includes the usual suspects in Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Publisher, but also those infamous tools from Adobe: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat. Which brings me to today’s topic, installing Adobe Creative Suite 1.3 Premium.

Opening the box reveals two obvious afterthoughts. The documentation was written before Acrobat 7 was released, so there is an errata stating that all references to Acrobat 6.0 Professional should read Acrobat 7.0 Professional. The second is that while the main Creative Suite case holds 6 CDs, there are actually 7 CDs in the box, so the 7th comes in a normal jewel case. What’s odd is that this CD is “Installer 3″ and the case is unlabeled—making its location separate and non-obvious from the “Installer 1″ and “Installer 2″ discs.

Accorging to the installer, the whole shebang will take 1,575MB. After installation, I can find 970MB of stuff in the Program Files\Adobe folder, so I’m guessing the rest is either Acrobat 7.0 Professional (turns out that’s what lives on “Installer 3″) or squirrled away in the Windows system folder and other secret places. After installing Acrobat, the total comes to 1.49GB, plus another 219MB in the Program Files\Common Files directory.

So now that I’ve got all the typical tools installed that I believe CAD software should be able to interoperate with, I’ll be testing AutoCAD and all the other usual suspects against these expectations.

The Ides of March markes a turning point for Autodesk—one that has been brewing for some time.

If it weren’t already clear that AutoCAD is no longer viewed by Autodesk as its most important product, today’s press releases drive the point home. There are six major releases posted, and though AutoCAD 2005 is the first of those, this, the 20^th release of AutoCAD, is but one of over 25 applications that Autodesk has announced today. Of course, all or nearly all of the vertical market applications that use AutoCAD as the core engine have been updated to the 2006 version, including Architectural Desktop 2006, AutoCAD Mechanical 2006, Civil 3D 2006, Land Desktop 2006

But also noteworthy are the many applications also launched today that do not use AutoCAD as the core engine: Revit 8 and Inventor 10, the company’s preferred products for architects and mechanical engineers; and VIZ 2006, the company’s main engineering visualization product.

In fact, just visiting the Autodesk home page drives the point home. There is no mention of AutoCAD at all—just the “2006 Portfolio”.

In some ways, this shifed focus is a good thing—I have long held the opinion that most people using vanilla AutoCAD really need to be using something more specific to their industry. (My recent attempts to use vanilla AutoCAD for my Field Day 2005 project bears this out.)

But if Autodesk shifts too many development resources from AutoCAD to the vertical products, the result might be fewer innovations, less interoperability, and lower productivity gains in core AutoCAD, and thus for the vast majority of users who are still mainly working in 2D. As important as I feel 3D and the advanced design capabilities the vertical market applications offer are, there are still some very basic features that need to be added to AutoCAD.

I have long been a fan of the Mozilla browser, ever since the Netscape browser nearly died, spinning off the open source Mozilla foundation in the process. Since well before version 1.0, it has been a better browser than Internet Explorer

But the Mozilla Suite will not be developed further. The Mozilla Suite was a hold-over from the days of Netscape communicator, which was focused on being an alternative to Microsoft’s Outlook integrated calendar/E-mail client, and while I and many others loved the integration, it made updating just the browser or just the E-mail features problematic because the whole suite had to be updated, tested, and launched.

With the overwhelming success of the Mozilla Firefox browser—a lean, mean, fighting machine, the Mozilla Foundation developers have decided to put the Suite on life support. Future enhancements will consist of bug fixes, security patches, and perhaps an occasional update of the core rendering engine.

So the main development focus has switched to the stand-alone applications—the Firefox browser, Thunderbird E-mail client, and Sunbird Calendar. There are enough differences in the interface between the integrated suite and the individual applications that I’ll be relearning and lamenting the death of the suite for a little white, but I think the end result will be far better in the end.

In fact, because of the coming integrated support for SVG in version 1.1, I’ll soon be making Firefox the target browser I design this site for. Users of IE and older versions of Mozilla will find some pieces of content missing or duplicated, but it’s time to leave the old browsers in the history books.

Especially for anyone in any of the design industries.

No excuse for the absense, but a nasty cold and a trip to Chicago for Manufacturing Week conspired to keep me silent for a few weeks.

I missed National Manufacturing Week last year, due to my getting sidetracked into writing about video game development after the demise of CADENCE magazine, and was quite surprised at how small the show was compared with my last experience two years ago.

In fact, the whole show was small enough that everything—NDES, the Plant Design and Engineering Show, and everything else—fit into a smaller space than NDES alone used just a few years ago. And the shrinking size of the show has led Reed Exhibitions to move next year’s event out of Chicago to Rosemont, which is closer to O’Hare, is less expensive, and apparently has fewer union hassles.

I’ll have more details about what I saw at the show that was interesting or surprising over the next few weeks, along with, of course, my perspective on AutoCAD 2006 and the blogging goof.