Tom Lazear Archway Systems, Inc. 2134 Main St. #160 Huntington Beach CA 92648 714 374-0440 phone 714 374-0441 fax [email protected] Versa Central California: Greg Crossley PO Box 382 Prather CA 93651-0382 559-977-9105 Northern California George McMeans 56 Nichols Ave Point Richmond CA 94801 CAD 510 231 0502 Versatile Computer Aided Design www.versacad.com Volume 5 Nov 04 Number4 Upcoming Events VersaCAD 2004 for Macintosh Oct 14 Battling Complexity Cypress CA Work continues on the native OSX version of VersaCAD Oct 18 APWA Keniwick WA Macintosh. R&D spent a week at Apple recently Dec 3,4 CITEA Palm Springs uncovering new possibilites. Alpha testing has started. Jan 18-21 TSC (was AEC Sys) Las Vegas The new release will be on display at TSC (previously AEC Mar 31- Apr 2 CITEA San Jose Systems) January 18 to 21 in Las Vegas. VersaCAD 2004 for Windows Ships VersaCAD helps with educators budget VersaCAD 2004 shipped to Premium Service Subscribers, VersaCAD has announced a special help to CAD educators October 8. New features include a File Explorer which will who are suffering from low budgets for new CAD software find and display all your VersaCAD drawings on your by offering a free unlimited campus license for VersaCAD harddrive, the latest in DWG/DXF translation, several new Windows or VersaCAD Mac. Educator only pays the $595 features, a set of SHX fonts that match VersaCAD fonts, a cost of Premium Service for updates and support. The number of additional symbol libraries plus several “how unlimted campus license includes CDs with VersaCAD and tos” that describe how to use VersaCAD in specific trial 3D software plus complete curriculum including applications, how to do 3D in Rhino from VersaCAD files, course outlines, lesson plans and student guide. Educator and more. This new release continues VersaCAD’s careful has the right to reproduce software and curriculum and to migration to full Windows compliance without sacrificing install on any number of campus computers as well as any of VersaCAD’s traditional productivity features. In the handing to students to install on their home computers. image below, note the traditional single-stroke commands Offer good through December 31, 2004. on the left and the new Windows Explorer for document VersaCAD Corporate License management on the right: Even smaller firms are choosing to update their single licenses to a corporate license because of the peace of mind of knowing that they are legal and for the added convenience of being able to install VersaCAD at work, on their laptop, at home and in the field. Also, subscribers can donate a campus license to school of their choice. The new lower costs of the unlimited license: $1000 for companies Inside… with less than 5 Who's who at Archway Systems..........2 employees, $1500 for Report: Breakthrough in doc mgmt .....2 6 - 10 employees, VersaCAD in 16 new schools ...........3 $2000 for 11 - 19, Training Class Schedule ......................3 $2500 for 20 - 50 VersaCAD Tips and Tricks .................3 employees, $3000 for New VersaCAD curriculum ................3 Archway offers Softimage to pros .....3 51 – 100, etc.. New VersaCAD one day class .4 Recent Comments: VersaCAD Users .4 Who’s who at Archway Systems Rick Plummer Mftr consultant and sales Arlene Black Sales Greg Crossley Central Calif office Tom Lazear Admin, Sales and training Josh Lazear Webmaster George McMeans Sales & training in Nor. Cal. Dan Lazear Administration Mike Lazear Programming & support Greg Hamano Support & Training Sandy Lazear Accounting Oscar Diaz Solid Edge Training Jeff Martin Civil Consultant and training Matt Sloan Administration Erik Wordal Training in Cal coastal REPORT Breakthrough in Engineering document management There are a lot of names for engineering document management: EDM, PDM (product data management), PLM (product life- cycle management), and more. Lots of product names: TeamMate, InSight, ProjectWise, and on and on. We could add Wndows Explorer and Windows Search as those are probably even more commonly used in a practical sense. Have you ever asked yourself why so few CAD installations use a document system, or why so few document management software companies are successful? The answer is: because most document management software is too expensive, too difficult to install, and too different than the way we normally operate. It is confining. Laborious. It doesn’t help productivity, it inhibits. Solid Edge was first to introduce a simpler, kinder document management integrated with CAD. They call it Insight. Design with Insight is the motto, and it does provide a huge jump over previous systems as it integrates directly with Solid Edge. It was introduced in version 14 of Solid Edge, improved in version 15 and now is quite good in versaion 16. The only drawback is that it requires other software, ie Sharepoint and SQL Server, two standard Windows applications that most larger firms have anyway. And it has a huge plus as it has very deep search and other database software attributes. If you are involved in 3D mechanical design, you owe it to yourself to give Solid Edge and Insight a good look. VersaCAD Explorer, as a part of VersaCAD 2004 for Windows, is a huge breakthrough in document managment. Sit down at a VersaCAD station on a network. Press F11 to bring up VersaCAD Explorer, type in the drive letter of your file server and in a few seconds you will see the path and file name of all the VersaCAD drawings on that server. Click that you want to see thumbnails and presto, you see small graphic drawings of all the files you found. Click another button and you see a larger drawing of any of the files that interest you, for a closer look. Double click and you open the file in VersaCAD, in a fraction of a second, ready for viewing, editing or printing. But, wait, if someone else has that file open, you are warned that the file is ‘locked” for editing. You can email, call or walk to the person and resolve the situation. He/she can check the file back in, which is simply closing the file in the usual manner, and now you are ready to work. VersaCAD Explorer is the 80-20 rule solution for engineering document management. Recall the 80-20 rule is: If done cleverly, you can get 80% of the benefit of something from the right 20% of the costs or effort. In this case, you get a practical CAD file management systems with a very short learning curve at zero cost. That is, it comes with the price of VersaCAD, which is among the lowest on the market. Here is a very quick comparison of VersaCAD Explorer and legacy document management software: VERSACAD EXPLORER LEGACY SYSTEMS Cost zero up to $1000 per seat Time to learn about 10 minutes one week training course Software reqd none sharepoint or database software Check-in/out automatic when file opened Explicit function File Locking automatic when file opened When checked out Search/Find anywhere on network In managed work area Thumbnails Yes Yes Preview Yes Usually no Element Eval Yes No View groups Yes No VersaCAD 2004 Explorer: Versatile computer aided design, with built-in explorer for practical document management. Training Class Schedule software, no hassle licensing that enables the school to Archway offers a variety of training classes using the install VersaCAD on any number of computers, anywhere latest of each software. Classes are 1 to 4 days in duration on campus as well as on the home computers of students and cover subjects in depth using certified materials. and faculty. Mac and/or Windows. Curriculum including Classes are offered in Solid Edge, SolidThinking, Rhino, 200 page workbook with exercise files, outline for three MicroStation and VersaCAD. All classes are 8:30 am to 5 different courses, 18 daily lesson plans, plus videotapes and pm. We now have two locations: our Huntington Beach Flash demos for Windows on CD plus support and training center (HB) and Bay area (BA) or classes can be upgrades. (see “VersaCAD helps educators” on page one). delivered on-site. For MicroStation and other Bentley Both Mac & Windows include an intro to 3D. courses, see also: New VersaCAD Curriculum http://bentleyinstitute.bentley.com/search/search.aspx VersaCAD 2004 for Windows includes a complete Upcoming classes: curriculum for educators to use to teach CAD. Three VersaCAD 2004 update- Covers all the changes in course outlines are included: an 18 week course in 2D and VersaCAD 2003 thru 2004. One day class includes intro to 3D, an 8 week extension of a drafting class, and a workbook, lunch and computer. Cost is $245. Oct 15, Oct Comparative CAD course that introduces the student to 22 and Nov 5. VersaCAD and AutoCAD to make the student bilingual. Rhino Level 1 training- Three days on how to model In additon, there is a powerpoint for the first class and 18 in Rhino 3D. Cost is $695. Dec 20 to 22 daily lesson plans plus a student guide and associated Rhino Level 2 training- Advanced modelling in Rhino exercise files. The curriculum makes getting started with 3D. Cost is $795. Jan 19 to 21 VersaCAD easy and fun. Curriculum is included with MicroStation V8 User Update 2nd Edition- Covers V8 VersaCAD and is available to all Premium Service and V8.1 new features. This is a revised, one day class. subscribers. Course includes a workbook. Cost is $300. HB: Oct 29, VersaCAD Tips and Tricks Nov 9, Dec 16 Try this 3rd party website for some really neat VersaCAD InRoads Basics- This is a Bentley certified, 4.5 day tips and tricks: class using Bentley’s InRoads 8.2 training manual.