It’s a bird…it’s a plane….

It is actually neither.  When you are using a laser scanner a short laser pulse is emitted away from the scanner and is reflected back by objects it hits.  A part of the reflected radiation comes back to the scanner where it is detected by a sensor.  Because the light-speed is known the time elapsed between emission and reception of the pulse can be measured and divided in half for the distance of the object.   The sun emits radiation on the same wavelength as the scanner, so when the receiving lens is pointing at the sun, it reads the sun’s radiation as well as the scanner’s reflected pulse. The second part of the measurement when discussing a Time of Flight scanner is time.  Since the scanner is timing the reflection relative to the emitted pulse, and the sun’s radiation “adds to” to the laser pulse and alters the timing and the result is an artificially high reading that seems to drift off into space.

URGENT: A bug in Carlson Software regarding daylight savings

There is  a bug which can lead to the settings loss (menu and toolbar customization) on Carlson 2010 or 2011 and AutoCAD 2010 or 2011.

If you are running one of these combinations and have not yet opened your Carlson 2010/2011 since the daylight saving time change, please follow these instructions:

1) On Windows XP: Navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Carlson Software\Carlson2010 (or/and Carlson 2011) folder.
On Windows Vista or 7.0: Navigate to C:\ProgramData\Carlson Software\Carlson2010 (or/and Carlson 2011) folder.
Some of the folders in this path are hidden so you may just need to copy/paste this path into the Explorer window or enable display of hidden folders.
2) This folder will contain one or more sub-folders. For each of the sub-folders starting with R18.0 or R18.1, please repeat the following steps:
3) Download and save, overwriting the existing files, the following tow files:
http://update.carlsonsw.com/upload/file.php?id=6584&ps=ix1zo3j17g
http://update.carlsonsw.com/upload/file.php?id=6583&ps=gd4w4vsx2a
as a check, you should be seeing the existing files with the same name there and overwrite them
4) It is now safe to launch the program as usual

If you did not receive this email in time to prevent the loss or the menu was still replaced, please follow these steps:
1) On Windows XP: Navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\Your user name\Application Data\Carlson Software\Carlson2010 (or/and Carlson 2011) folder.
On Windows Vista or 7.0: Navigate to C:\Users\Your user name\AppData\Roaming\Carlson Software\Carlson2010 (or/and Carlson 2011) folder.
Some of the folders in this path are hidden so you may just need to copy/paste this path into the Explorer window (adding your user name in the process) or enable display of hidden folders.
2) This folder will contain one or more sub-folders. For each of the sub-folders starting with R18.0 or R18.1, please repeat the following steps:
3) Change into R18.0* or R18.1* sub-folder, then SUP sub-folder and finally BACKUP sub-folder.
4) Locate cs10base.cuix or cs11base.cuix in BACKUP folder and copy it into the SUP (one folder above) folder.

Time in jail for a good cause…

On Thursday June 24, 2010 I went behind bars for a good cause, Jerry’s Kids.  Every year Muscular Dystrophy Association does various fund raising drives and their “Lock-up” is just one of the ways they work to raise money for the kids affected with Muscular Dystrophy.

If you followed me on Facebook or Twitter or were one of the lucky ones to get the emails from me asking for “bail money” then you know the story of why I volunteered to do this (aside from it being a great cause).  Our oldest daughter has been involved in the Miracle League at Town and Country for the last few years now, going to every game possible to help as a buddy.  You can learn more about the Miracle League by going to their website here.  She signed up the first year and for a young teenager I have to be honest I thought she would make one or two games and get bored and move on to something else.  She proved me wrong and I am very proud of her for doing that.

When I got the call from M.D.A. to get locked up, I said yes.  I got a chance to help out Jerry’s Kids, as well as follow in the footsteps of our daughter and help others.  By helping children living with a condition that some of her baseball players live with it was also my own little way of giving back to her for her hard work.

When I arrived at lock up I had already raised just over $1500 and was very close to reaching my “bail amount” of $2000.  I raised an additional $200 during my lock up and am inching my way closer to the finish line.  Even though I am out of jail donations can still be made by clicking here to make a secure, tax-deductible, online donation.  I have a little under 30 days from today before my site is closed and I would love to not only see that $2,000 but possibly even $3 or $4,000!  Big dreams I know, but you never know what big hearted person is going to come across this blog and give to a great cause.

Thank you to M.D.A for letting me be a part of this, and for doing such a great job for some very special people.  Thank you to Shelby for being my inspiration and for all that you do.  And to my friends and colleagues that took time out to go to the site and make a donation, thank you.  Thank you for supporting me and for supporting this wonderful cause and giving to these deserving children, for making a difference in their lives.

To learn more about what M.D.A. does go to www.mda.org
To learn more about the Miracle League at Town and Country http://miracle.tandcsports.org/
To make a donation on my MDA site go to https://www.joinmda.org/MyLockup/MyHomepage/tabid/134209/Participant/pmcarlson/Default.aspx

Autodesk Floats Design Tools in the Cloud

Company releases new details on Project Butterfly collaboration tool and outlines plans for cloud computing offerings around MoldFlow and Inventor

Beth Stackpole, contributing editor, software/hardware — Design News, May 17, 2010

Autodesk filled in some pieces of its vision for putting design tools in the cloud, releasing new details on its Project Butterfly collaboration tool and announcing two new Software-as-a-Service initiatives surrounding Inventor and its MoldFlow offering.

Project Butterfly, as described by Tal Weiss, lead software development manager at Autodesk, allows AutoCAD users to view, edit and collaborate in real time on DWG files online. With this cloud computing technology, anyone with a Web browser can log onto a site and access the same version of a file as opposed to the current way many engineering teams collaborate, simply by e-mailing files around.

“Our intent is to enable AutoCAD users to take any AutoCAD file and upload it to the cloud using this application, and share it with anyone at a remote site without the need for the software,” says Weiss, who came to Autodesk last November when his company, VisualTao, was acquired as the foundation technology for Project Butterfly. “The only thing they need is a browser — there is nothing installed on the disk and they can pan and zoom, annotate and edit files.”

Dave McGee, lead CAD technician at Lacy and Ebeling Engineering Inc., a structural and industrial engineering firm, has experimented with the Project Butterfly technology preview. Most recently, he and a client at a remote site conducted a co-editing session on a 2-D AutoCAD drawing showcasing a load-out facility for a truck. “Rather than the time-consuming task of having to send him a PDF, then calling him and having him tell me he wanted something in the northwest corner, we didn’t have to do any of that,” McGee says. “He was looking at his 2-D drawing, I was looking at mine, and I just followed his pointer and it was pretty obvious what he wanted.”

Weiss wouldn’t say when Project Butterfly would be commercially available. Users can download the technology preview at Project Butterfly.

In related news, Autodesk announced a couple of other SaaS efforts: Project Cumulus, which leverages the cloud computing model to deliver more computational horsepower for MoldFlow plastic design simulations; and Project Centaur, which lets Inventor users offload simulation tasks to the cloud. Both technology pilots, currently available to select Autodesk customers, leverage the cloud to lets users perform simulations they traditionally wouldn’t be able to do on the desktop.

“We’re letting users leverage the untapped potential compute power of the cloud to bring optimization into the equation,” says Jeff Wymer, Autodesk senior product line manager, digital simulation. “We’re allowing the MoldFlow designer to optimize their design and get the best results with unrivaled performance and capacity compared to the desktop.”

The new technology will run as a lightweight desktop, allowing MoldFlow users to set up their geometries and input locally. Once they hit “solve,” the lightweight application will transmit the data to the cloud for computation and will return the results back to the desktop when finished. The amount of processing time will vary depending on the complexity of the design, however, the technology works asynchronously so it allows users to conduct normal computing during the simulation.

Project Centaur, aimed at mechanical engineers, is focused on the pervasive problem of design optimization, helping users reduce material weight while achieving quality targets. Similar to Project Cumulus, Project Centaur will run as a small plug-in on the desktop, allowing users to retain the user of their computer while the simulation is in progress on the cloud. Project Centaur is also aiming to push the envelope in terms of usability, delivering simulation capabilities in such manner that they can be utilized by the broad spectrum of mechanical engineers, not just simulation experts, Wymer says.

There is no official availability date for either Project Centaur or Project Cumulus.

Stretchy Thingy….

Why can’t things just be easy? How many times do I open AutoCAD and need to stretch an object only to create a huge headache? Rubber band stretching may be great for a polyline, but when I have a closed shape I need some linking, something to keep the objects relative to each other. Think…Microsoft Word, stretching a picture. Grip one corner and begin moving and everything adjusts relatively.

Why do I have to do offsets and stretch, and stretch again?

Ask and ye shall receive…