In the Machine

Back from the St. Louis User Group

This week I attended a user group meeting in St. Louis (SLAMSUG) and had a great time covering some of the new features in Inventor 2009. I was a little worried that I wouldn't make it due to a long delay in Chicago but I was able to show up right before it started.

I was able to show many new enhancements in Inventor 2009.

• Sketch enhancements (constraints, trim/extend, text along arc and imported splines)
• New substitution for large assemblies
• Sheet metal enhancements (multi edge mitering, styles, corner overrides and large radius bends)
• Drawings enhancements (crop view, display interfering edges, COG, part list filter, sub/super script)
• Simulation (analyze spur gears, mobile groups and integration with studio)
• Studio (Depth of Field, soft shadows, video compositing and animate camera along path)
• Frame Generator (create custom profiles and new selection types)

 

This is just a quick list of what we covered in the two hour user group. I had a great time and as always received some great feedback for future enhancements.

There are user groups in many areas that often help Inventor users learn and share new ideas. If you don't presently attend a user group, I would encourage you to see if there is a local user group in your area and attend it from time to time to see whats out there.

Take a look at the various events in the Manufacturing Portal to see whats in your area.

 

The Joy of Rental Cars

(Warning, this post is very far off topic!)

I am out on the west coast now with our reseller KETIV Technologies presenting Inventor 2008 at a few user group meetings in the LA area. It’s my 3rd trip in 2 weeks and I’m getting a little cranky. Last week in Boston, during the aftermath of a snow storm, Hertz ‘upgraded’ me to a cherry red 2 door Ford Mustang – just what I needed – a muscle car to be driving around in snow and ice! This week they did it to me again! Only this time it is a convertible and to add insult to injury, it is actually raining here in Southern California!

While I have a lot in common with many of my Autodesk colleagues, a love of cars is something I do not share with them…. Give me a nice Mom car any day and I’ll be happy. I am clearly not the target market for the Mustang – I can barely see out of the darn thing. If you could see me you would surely have a good laugh.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled CAD program. -Amy

Postcard from Brazil

Last week I visited the 5th largest city in the world - Sao Paulo, Brazil. Do I have a cool job or what! I knew from the vast expanse of high rise buildings and urban sprawl that this was a big city, but I didn't know HOW BIG until I checked. Over 20 million people in the metropolitan area. And it would seem from the traffic that a good number of them own cars. The traffic was unreal, worse than any I've experienced anywhere in the world. In the older center of town you are only allowed to use your car on certain days of the week -based on your license plate number. Apparently they thought it would encourage people to use public transportation or carpool - unfortunately those who could afford it just purchased another car.

We'd been warned in advance that it was 'winter'. Hah!! The weather was in the 70's or 80's the whole time we were there. Essentially this is the same as our summer here in Oregon. I had some extra room in my suitcase so I event brought a lightweight jacket - what was I thinking!

The food was simply outstanding. We weren't able to stay long enough to do any sight seeing so our only way to experience the culture was to eat and boy did we. We had Brazilian BBQ the first night and the great food never stopped. We also had a great Japanese meal for lunch on Thursday. Turns out Brazil has the largest ex-patriot population of Japanese in the world. Who knew?

This was my first trip to Brazil so I was there to really learn about the Inventor business. It is very strong- we outsell our competitors by over 3X. I met with 2 really strong resellers - Mapdata (www.mapdata.com.br) and Skynet ( www.e-skynet.com.br). The Skynet team was probably tired of our Terminator jokes by the time we left - if you recall Skynet was the name of the company that was going to destroy the world in the Arnold Schwarzenegger Terminator movies. I failed to get any good pictures, but I have a few really interesting customer stories that I'll share later on this week.

We flew back on Thursday night- the evening after the terrorist arrest in the UK. It was pretty chaotic in the airport but I was grateful to just be on my way home.

-Amy

Travel Woes

Where has all the time gone! You'd think with all the sitting around in airports I've done lately I'd be able to post more. My excuse is that I've been on vacation again and then off traveling. We were in Boston for a week visiting friends and family and for a change we actuallly took the kids into the city (see photos for proof). We also had to load up on Red Sox gear. Unfortunately our favorite team was out of town...



In Faniuel Hall, with one of the cows from the parade of cows.



My favorite bridge.

Now to the travel woes.... the night before we left Boston part of the airport tunnel collapsed killing a person. Thankfully our friends woke us up extra early so we could start our crazy expidition through downtown Boston to get to the airport on time. I don't miss big city traffic one bit! Apparently even weeks later there are still problems. When the accident happened they instantly needed to know a lot of the as-built details about that part of the tunnel and had to find out what other areas used the same construction practices. On a project of this size I can only imagine how difficult it was to locate this data.... naturally this all made me think of our Building Systems Division who works with customers to design, build and maintain these types of projects.

Last week I was stuck in SFO twice - both times trying to take the 8:10pm United flight to Portland and both times delayed by several hours. You'd think I would learn my lessson. The first time there was a power outage at LAX that had planes grounded for 3 hours and the next time they gave our plane to a bunch of people going to Alaska who apparently needed it more than we did! Also last week I had the pleasure of spending time in the Vancouver airport.... Which is actually a very nice airport except for one thing - MOVING WALKWAYS... they need some - we have some customers who would love their business! The walk from the US arrivals to the Canadian flights must be over a mile. And a tip if you are flying on British Airways and checking in in Vancouver - arrive early, very early. In all my years of travel I have never seen such a line- it went on and on ...

This week I am homebound and happy about it. Lots of catching up to do!

-Amy

Antique Machinery

On my recent vacation to Alaska I couldn't help but notice some of the 100 plus year old mining, logging and railway equipment. Much of it was cast iron and had developed a deep rusty color that was a stark contrast to the lush green environment. And most of it had largely been discarded in favor of more modern methods. Of course my kids had fun just climbing all over it.




Here is a water canon that was used to soften the earth so the dredging equipment below could be used.








One picture I wish I had snapped was of a big screen TV sitting in a plywood box inside a decommissioned lumber mill. It played a movie on the lumber industry in Alaska. The contrast was a bit hard to take.

-Amy

Back from My Alaska Vacation

Well I am finally almost caught up on laundry but way behind on my blog posts. I took another vacation- this time a week long cruise up the Inner Passage to Alaska. It was fantastic. We've never been on a cruise before and it really made me think that maybe in my next life I could be a travel writer and blog from all over the world - how much fun would that be!

I'd never been on a cruise or to Alaska and recommend it highly. We took the kids and it was also a great family vacation. For example here are my kids eating ice cream in the hot tub while my husband and I enjoyed the beautiful scenery. Something for everyone! Alaska is truly fascinating - so much culture and history - so few people and so much LAND.



We took a ride on a narrow gage railroad built in 1898. It's in Skagaway and is called the White Pass and Yukon Route. It was basically created originally to bring people to the Yukon territory in Canada following the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898. Unfortunately when they got there most of the rush was over. It goes up 2865 feet and is just stunning. Hard to believe it was built with hand axes, hand-held drill bits, and horse drawn scrapers. The tunnels were a bit erie and thankfully we did not have to travel over the ancient trestle pictured below.





I took literally hundreds of photos and none do this beautiful land justice. I'll post more later after I catch up on some of the Inventor news that's been happening.

-Amy

Road Kill and Construction

Today I am in Pittsburgh PA, visiting customers with one of our resellers -Sam Runyon of Mesa CAD. Even last night as I picked up my rental car I was struck by how much construction there is here on the highways and today's drive up to Erie only emphasized that more. The other thing hard to miss was all the road kill- there must have been dozens of deal animals in all shapes and sizes littered all over the road on our 150 mile round trip journey - and that doesn't include the bugs on the windshield. Amazingly enough we don't seem to have a lot of any of these things in Oregon- we don't have snow plows damaging the roads because we don't have snow, nor do we seem to have a lot of bugs ... we do have lots of wild animals however they seem to keep off the roads.

After our visit to an Inventor customer who retrofits locomotives to run as hybrids relying on predominately electric power I also had time to stop by the ANSYS user group meeting. This year is their biggest meeting yet with over 800 users present. Pretty impressive! We were there showing off our integration between our dynamic simulation and ANSYS based stress analysis that is part of Inventor Professional 11.

Tomorrow I'm visiting 2 more customers and speaking at an Inventor user group meeting - assuming I can navigate all the construction and get there safely!

-Amy

Kimchi Anyone?

Did you know that in Korea you can get Kimchi at the Outback Steakhouse? It was kind of a strange experience. In general when I travel internationally I like to eat the local food, but today they took us to the Outback for lunch. Not exactly the same menu we get in the US but lots of similarities. It's also spring here and has been really beautiful. I'm looking forward to some sightseeing on Saturday.

-amy

User Groups Anyone?

This month is a busy one for User Group meetings. The Inventor team is participating in a few and that got me thinking there might be more.  Simon Bosley (he's been on the team since June) will  be in Pittsburgh at Mesa CAD's user group on Sept 28th. Pete Lord is on his way to the Netherlands for a meeting and I'll be in Sweden next week for a user group meeting in Stockholm. We love getting out and meeting users at these events- so if you know of one where we could participate don't hesitate to ask. Just send a message to [email protected].

-amy

Inventor, Asia Pacific Tour

Jeff Wymer (top right) and I recently completed a fast paced trip to visit with customers, partners and Autodesk teammates in Tokyo, Taipei, and Singapore.  The focus of our visits where to listen to customers and analyze their manufacturing needs, as well as, share our vision and validate forthcoming solutions.

Tokyo, Japan

A beautiful modern city which rivals the excitement of New York's Time Square. 

A view of Mt. Fuji from the Autodesk Offices in Tokyo.  All of the views from the training room were outstanding.  It was hard to pick one.

The Team: Autodesk teammates, partners and customers at the Tokyo Inventor 10 Gunslinger where we tried to shoot holes in the product.

We've done it, Jeff Wymer (Novi, MI) has eaten his first Sushi.  Coming from Ohio, he likes his food cooked.  With a little coaxing from the team, he dove in.  Fortunately, he saved enough for the rest of us.

Taiwan

A great whirlwind visit from beautiful Taipei to the harbor of Kao-hsiung.  The pace was fast and we unfortunately left the camera in the hotel room.

Singapore

Beauty like the Hawaiian Islands without the Volcanoes.  An impressive mix of high-tech industries, wondrous gardens and a thriving culture.

We visited a host of customers from many different industries and spent a day with the teams from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand.

We were in time to see the decorations for the Chinese New Year celebrations.  On the next visit we hope to visit China, as well.

Nothing can replace the value of meeting customers, partners and our local Autodesk teams at their facilities to listen to their manufacturing needs. 

We really appreciate the hospitality of everyone we met and the memories will be long lasting.

Cheers,

-Andy (top left)