HatchKit 2.6 CAD Hatch Pattern Editor and Generator

Long time Vicaug member and supporter Hugh Adamson of Cadro Pty. Ltd. has announced a new version 2.6 of Hatchkit. It features:
Windows clipboard support
Draw and view your own custom hatch patterns.
Scale and transform patterns.
Edit existing patterns.
Translate between hatch pattern file formats.

Windows clipboard support in 2.6 works really well for most systems such as AutoCAD and DataCAD but unfortunately not yet for Revit. It’s very, very quick – any vectorial element can be selected (but not, of course, bitmaps.)

HatchKit works, not only on AutoCAD, but also on many other CAD programs such as Alibre, AllyCAD, DataCAD, DesignCAD, General CADD Pro, IntelliCAD, MegaCAD, MicroStation, Revit, SolidWorks, Spirit, TurboCAD, VersaCAD and VisualCAD. Future support is also planned for Archicad and Vectorworks.

You may remember a Vicaug meeting a few years ago, when Hugh gave us an impressive demonstration of an earlier version of Hatchkit.

More info from http://www.cadro.com.au/hatchkit/

CAD Manager Position Available

CAD Systems Manager / Building Services Mechanical Designer

• Leading multi-disciplined Building Services Engineering Consultancy
• Permanent Staff appointment, Excellent Remuneration, City Fringe location, Start ASAP
• Career focus, considerable Development potential

A leading Melbourne-based multi-disciplined Building Services Engineering Consultancy with additional interstate offices, is seeking to appoint a highly skilled and innovative individual to a key role involving dual responsibilities in Mechanical Services Design Drafting and CAD Systems Management across a LAN of 20 + AutoCAD workstations (in Head Office).

This represents an outstanding opportunity for someone wishing to be instrumental in the future development, delivery and implementation of CAD technology across a significantly well placed business with planned growth in all states of Australia over the next few years.

If you’re interested, give Mark Miller a call on 0419 507 830 or email at trousers.mark.miller@securency.com.au (as always, remove trousers to reply!)

Minutes of Committee Meeting 15 Nov 2006

MINUTES OF VICAUG INC. (A0013467S) COMMITTEE MEETING
HELD ON: WEDNESDAY 15 NOVEMBER 2006

Attendance: 5 Committee members were in attendance.

Apologies: were received from 3 Committee members.

Opening: The President declared the meeting opened at 8.30 pm.

Minutes of Previous Committee Meeting (10th. October 2006):
The Minutes of the previous meeting were adopted as a true record of proceedings.

“Items of Interest” in Business Out of the Minutes of Previous Meeting (10th. October 2006):
a. Secretary & Public Officer not to nominate or to be (re)nominated for 2007/08:
The Committee will deal with this matter in due course.

Treasurer’s “Finances and Membership” report:
a. Bank Balances and Financial Report – as at 15 November 2006: Satisfactory.

b. 2006/07 Membership report: Satisfactory.
The Treasurer has sent “reminder notices” to members who have not yet paid their 2006/07 subscription/renewal fees.

c. Financial management: The Committee will assess costs to ensure that expenditure does not exceed income.

d. Change in charges by Austral Credit Union: An account provider letter advised of an increase in fees. The Committee discussed this matter and decided that here was no known realistic option and accepted the additional charges.

General Business:
1. Dates for General Meetings for 2005/06 (subject to confirmation):

The dates for General meetings, subject to confirmation, are:
– 2006: 04 Dec.
– 2007: 05 Feb; 02 Apr; 04 Jun; 06 Aug; 01 Oct; and 03 Dec

2. Notices of General Meeting/so:
Notices of Meetings will emailed to members and uploaded to the “Vicaug News” (blog”).

Presentation Topics:
a. December 2006:
“Dynamic blocks” (Part 1): Peter Godfrey; “News from the Pews”: Mark Miller; “Tips and Tricks”: Mark Miller; (any) :others”: to be advised (by Mark Miller)

b. February 2007:
“Layers – management”: Peter Godfrey; “Dynamic Blocks” (Part 2): Peter Godfrey; “Strict Plus”: Peter Coburn – Mark Miller to advise.

c.
April 2007:
AutoCAD 2007: Steve Hunter – Mark Miller to advise.

d.
Possible topics for future meeting/so (to be determined/confirmed):
Various computer/computing-related general interest and AutoCAD-specific interest items – by various Committee members; AutoDesk “Inventor” – Mark Miller to advise; “Shareware” and “Freeware” (various) – Mark Miller to advise.

4. General Discussion and Speculation (On-going):
General discussion on CAD, computer, training and employment matters.

“Other” matters:
There were no “other matters”.

Next Committee Meeting:
The next Committee meeting will be held on Wednesday 13th. December 2006.

Closure:
There being no further business, the President Closed the meeting at 10.30 pm.

(M.J. Ginnane)
Secretary and Public Officer.

Update to ABS 2007

Apparently Autodesk have had some issues with getting Autodesk Building Systems (ABS) 2007 to talk to Revit. Something to do with licensing, they say. So, they’ve rejigged ABS2007 to fix the problems and have made it into a whole new release, called ABS2007.1.

Those of you on subscription to Revit Series Systems will be getting new disks in the mail shortly.

Free AutoCAD Drawing Viewer Available

One of the few free products that can read the AutoCAD 2007 DWG file format, Informative Graphics has release a free drawing file viewer. It can view measure and control displayed layers in both DWG and DWF files.

I’ve tried it out here (on Acad 2006 DWG’s) and it does work well. However, a limitation in the free version is that you can’t print anything. To get printing ability, you have to “upgrade” to the paid for version. Oh well.

Still, it’s a useful addition to your toolbox and at least the price is right!

Get it at http://tinyurl.com/fpuwc

Next Release of Inventor to be called 2008, not R12

Evidently Autodesk are bringing all their products into the same naming scheme. The next release of Autodesk’s Inventor product. currently called Inventor 11, will be called Inventor 2008. This follows the naming scheme which AutoCAD and most other Autodesk products have had for some time.

Not only that, but it seems that this next release of Inventor shares more than the name with AutoCAD. Rumour has it that Inventor 2008 will contain more AutoCAD-like features.