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[Update: See Disable AutoCAD InfoCenter] I’ve noticed more frequent posts in the Autodesk discussion groups about slow startup problems since AutoCAD 2008 was released, and I have the same problem on my development system. Part of the problem is .NET loading, due to the new .NET gadgets like the dashboard palette. Another long running startup hassle is the communication center (WSCommCntr1.exe if you check running processes in task manager) that Autodesk products use to call home. ...

I’ve heard the word “brutal” used more than once during conversations with Autodesk employees about the Autodesk sponsored discussion groups. It’s true that raw unfiltered feedback can be brutal, and it can also hurt your ego if you happen to be the target of criticism. The trick is to learn how to interpret the feedback. If you can master that skill, that raw feedback is a fast, unbiased, low noise-to-signal-ratio predictor of the future. I’ve seen many recognizable Autodesk names come and go since the days of Autodesk’s original online discussion group, the CompuServe ACAD forum. Oftentimes, they came espousing the virtues of such a vibrant community, only to wilt away after they got singed a few times in the inevitable flame wars. Some Autodesk names (Art Cooney comes to mind) have been around forever, and still take it all in stride. Personally, I view the discussion groups as one of Autodesk’s biggest competitive advantages, even while they go largely untapped. This week saw too issues erupt into what could fairly be termed brutal feedback. The first was caused by the Autodesk University registration site failing under the load of opening day registration. Several threads (“Dear Carl Bass” and “AU2007 Registration is now open!!!") called Autodesk to the carpet for blowing it again, after a similar fiasco in 2006. The second event occurred when AutoCAD product manager Eric Stover announced a new “bonus” tool called CommandComplete. I pity the poor guy or gal that wrote this tool (on their own time, I’m sure), all excited to see how it is received, only to become the victim of a flame war. Okay, not really a flame war in this case because Eric employed his finely tuned flame retardant diplomacy skills to prevent it from getting out of hand – so let’s just call it a “venomous reaction”. There is a moral to this story. Some companies would kill to have access to this kind of critical, unfiltered, instantaneous feedback from the unwashed masses. I hope Autodesk recognizes the goose that lays the golden egg.

OpenDCL 4.0 has finally been released. If you’re not familiar with OpenDCL, check it out at www.opendcl.com, or on SourceForge at sourceforge.net/projects/opendcl. OpenDCL, based on the original commercial ObjectDCL software by Chad Wanless, is a modern replacement for the old DCL dialog control language in AutoCAD. The current OpenDCL Runtime supports AutoCAD 2002 through 2008 (except AutoCAD 2008 x64). It is designed to give AutoCAD end users and AutoLISP application developers a simple yet powerful way to design and use rich user interfaces in their applications. The goal for version 4.0 was to get it stable and fix all the bugs, with minimal new feature development. OpenDCL 4.1 will add support for AutoCAD 2008 x64. After that we will start working on localized language versions, and adding new features. OpenDCL is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) open source license, completely free to use, and source code is available on SourceForge.

AutoCAD 2004 introduced the ability to digitally sign drawing files when they are saved, but very few people use this feature. Even fewer use the time stamp feature that goes along with it. Time stamping a digital signature is important when it’s not only important to know who signed it, but also when they signed it. For time stamping to be reliable and trustworthy, you need an independent (and trustworthy) third party to provide the time stamp, along with a verifiable receipt so that anyone can verify the authenticity of a claimed time stamp in the event of a future dispute. Since the inception of the digital signature feature, AutoCAD has included three default time servers for this purpose. Unfortunately, none of the three are accessible any more. If you need to digitally sign drawing files with a time stamp, you’ll have to modify this list of time servers. The list of time servers is maintained in a file named timesrvr.txt in the AutoCAD installation folder. You can edit the file with notepad, and the format is obvious and straightforward when you view the file. If you just want to play around with time stamps, try adding the following to the end of the file (you do not need to restart AutoCAD to see the new servers): NIST A [Maryland] (time-a.nist.gov) NIST B [Maryland] (time-b.nist.gov) As of this writing, both of these NIST servers are available and working, but you get what you pay for. For officially incorporating time stamped digital signatures into your workflow, I recommend subscribing to a commercial time service with guaranteed uptime and a web based time stamp verification console. I can’t recommend one, because I have never used a commercial time service myself, but a good place to start is the list of public time servers maintained by NTP.org at http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Servers/.

I’ve received several emails recently from users of my VC Build Hook utility that mention switching the ‘UseVC7Paths’ setting on and off depending on the build configuration they are working on. If you are doing this, you need to change your project structure! ...

If you use of any of these ManuSoft products, preliminary AutoCAD 2008 support has been available for several weeks at the Download Center for registered users. The QuikPik and Periscope updates are now officially released, and the shareware versions of QuikPik and Periscope are now available as well. SuperPurge will be officially released in the next week or so. My free AcadStatusBarButton library has also been updated for AutoCAD 2008, and is now available for download on the Freebies page. The only change is the addition of a blank status bar pane beneath your floating buttons so that the new annotation scale buttons in AutoCAD 2008 don’t get covered up (the blank panes force the annotation scale buttons to the left of your custom buttons). If your button position is fixed (i.e. not floating), the blank pane will not be used. As always, if you encounter any problems, please let me know!

Reading the discussion about the reluctance to move to 3D/BIM in the latest issue of upFront.eZine reminded me of the principle of rational ignorance. The principle of rational ignorance applies when the perceived cost of obtaining knowledge is greater than the perceived benefit. It’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario, where individuals rationalize their decision to remain ignorant based on their perception of the (lack of) benefit in the very thing they are ignorant about. It is interesting to think about the 2D to 3D paradigm shift in terms of shifting the balance in the rational ignorance equation. I think there’s also another principle at work here: Newton’s Third Law. The harder the collective movers and shakers try to push, the harder the end users resist. Maybe if the software companies stopped pushing so hard, the shift would occur naturally with much less resistance. By the way, I noticed a familiar theme in the upFront eZine discussion: those resistant to the paradigm shift lament the lost art of drafting and fail to believe that the new paradigm no longer needs artisans. Obviously there are other factors at work here – factors over which no amount of logic will prevail.

Deelip Menezes asks what got me started on lamenting the sad state of the CAD industry in my previous post. Good question. It all started with a Fox News story about a French architect’s claim to have solved the “Pyramid Secret”: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,262981,00.html. The article links to Dassault Systemes’ web site: http://khufu.3ds.com/introduction/. My snake oil alarm went off when I saw the site. I’ll admit I didn’t read it, but it looks like a slick marketing ploy. I was irritated that I fell for it. It reminded me of how insideous and incestuous this industry has become, now reaching out to mainstream media in search of new victims.

In some ways the CAD software industry is a lot like the fashion industry. The movers and shakers are trying to establish new fads that are just recycled from older fads, while guiding the unwashed masses into adopting new trends that have been carefully molded to ensure perpetuation of the system. Meanwhile the up and comers try desperately to get a share of the action, while an entire industry of hangers-on tries to eke out a living from the scraps left behind by the big players. It’s a tired old symphony played on the world stage, with pretty much the same players today as twenty years ago. The same seamstresses making the same old faux fluff, dressing it up a bit, draping it over a new model, and parading it down the same old runways. Bah! I’m going outside, maybe that’ll cheer me up.

No, Microsoft didn’t really try to patent photons, but check out the the ironic twists described in this account of a recent US Supreme Court hearing. Here’s a summary (exaggerated a bit for effect): 1. Microsoft argues that software is not patentable, therefore it is not guilty of patent infringement. 2. The US Government argues on Microsoft’s behalf that software is patentable, but photons are not.

I pointed out in a previous post that while the press release headlines pronounced that Vista will support DWF natively, the fine print says otherwise. What Vista does support natively is Microsoft’s new XPS (XML Paper Specification) format. Autodesk has since clarified that they are working on a new DWF format called DWFx that is, essentially, a DWF in XPS format. A quick test verified my suspicions that XPS files produced by the Microsoft XPS Document Writer are much larger than comparable DWF files. The jury is still out on DWFx file sizes, but a recent post on Scott Sheppard’s blog (http://dwf.blogs.com:80/beyond_the_paper/2007/02/autocad_2008_dw.html) has buried within it a telling comparison point between DWF and DWFx. The chart uses a neat gambit by comparing both DWF and DWFx file sizes to the completely different DWG format, but the math cognoscenti among you will notice that “typically 1/20 the size of the DWG” for DWF and “typically 1/10 the size of the DWG” for DWFx translates into “DWFx files are twice as large as DWF”. There is no information on file generation times, another metric worth monitoring. Autodesk has been pretty generous lately, first giving away Design Review, now perhaps gearing up for an exclusive two-for-the-price-of-one deal on DWFx. I haven’t heard too many customers requesting larger file sizes, though.

AutoLISP programmers may remember a product named ObjectDCL, by 3rd Day Software. ObjectDCL was released as open source in the summer of 2006 by developer Chad Wanless due to his inability to continue supporting the software because of “health reasons”. At the time, many users of ObjectDCL hoped that someone would update the code to work in AutoCAD 2007. Programmer David Robison did some work to get AutoCAD 2007 supported, but the project has been languishing, almost to the point of extinction. After being asked by several ObjectDCL users whether I could help, I decided a few weeks ago to contribute to the community by getting the original C++ code updated to support AutoCAD 2007. As I am wont to do, I’ve ended up re-architecting much of the code in the process. The results of my work are available now at the new OpenDCL project on SourceForge. The new 4.0 release is still in the alpha testing phase. If you program in AutoLISP and want to create rich user interfaces for your applications, check it out!