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Spectrum CAD Viewer $99 Sale – Freedom from Incompatible CAD files

September 12, 2009 in CAD, Kubotek

 

Dynamic Man Freeing the world from Incompatible CAD files

What problem is shared worldwide by product designers and the manufacturing supply chain?

Incompatible CAD files.  Just the ability to view “non-native” files would help productivity in most cases.  Entrenched CAD companies will tell you that there is no problem, just make sure that everyone in your company and your suppliers and consultants all use the same same (their) CAD package and tools – problem solved!

We all know that this is not the solution.  And honestly things get lost in translation – many times from one version of the same CAD package to the next – Airbus learned that lesson a few billion times… the hard way from their CAD vendor!

Kubotek is on a mission – to free the CAD designer and the supply chain from the tyranny of proprietary CAD files.  So in celebration of this and just because we are the opposite of German negativity day 9-9-9, we have put the Kubotek Spectrum Multi-CAD viewer on sale  – only $99!  This viewer views the most popular CAD packages including Catia, NX, ProE, SolidWorks, Inventor, DXF, DWG, IGES STEP and many more.

Its very easy to use to view, measure, print, get mass properties, manipulate the CAD files.

And if you want to be able to edit all of these formats – you can do this with our Multi-CAD CAD packages – Kubotek KeyCreator.

Need to compare or validate translated CAD data – you can do that with our Kubotek Validation tool.

Since we are the masters of geometry – our ability to read, edit and recognize features in CAD data (and edit them) has no equal.

So, celebrate 9-9-9 with us and download a free 7 day trial version and come back and purchase.  And give our CAD and other tools a try too.

As always – thanks for reading.  If you found this interesting and useful please pass this along.

Scott

PS – Who is that superhero fighting proprietary CAD formats?  It’s Dynamic Man.  He’s joined forces with Kubotek to free engineers in Design and Manufacturing from the constraints of history and proprietary CAD files.  Watch for him in the webisphere…

 

Source: CAD Freedom and Precision – Views and News from KubotekUSA – Spectrum CAD Viewer $99 Sale – Freedom from Incompatible CAD files
Go to Source: CAD Freedom and Precision – Views and News from KubotekUSA

Manufacturing Productivity Tip – Multi-CAD Viewers for Manufacturing

September 12, 2009 in CAD, Kubotek

Tired ManIt’s 5 O’clock and the deadline has passed for the RFQ that you have buried under a pile of papers on your desk.

Missed another deadline.

You’ve got capacity on the manufacturing floor.  You could really use more orders, but you can’t afford to buy and get people trained on many expensive CAD packages.  And the CAD jocks you have are busy, getting jobs out the door. So they don’t have time to stop open the OEM’s CAD files or even draw up a model to be included in the quote.

How can you increase the number or quotes you are completing on time without utilizin your valuable CAD resources.

One essential tool for today’ contract manufacturers and job shops to do quoting and estimating is a Multi-CAD viewer.  Inexpensive CAD viewers are available that allow you to open, view, measure, get mass properties and print. These are easy to use – no need to bother your valuable engineers.

This is a two prong boost to your productivity.  You can complete more quotes, more quickly and for more customers and you can increase the amount of time that your engineers stay focused on your current projects. This easy to implement, low cost CAD tool will add to your top line and bottom line simultaneously.  For more easy ideas on how to reduce wasted time and to increase your profits download the following White Paper:

5 Easy Ways Manufacturers can turn Wasted CAD Activity into Profits

Source: CAD Freedom and Precision – Views and News from KubotekUSA – Manufacturing Productivity Tip – Multi-CAD Viewers for Manufacturing
Go to Source: CAD Freedom and Precision – Views and News from KubotekUSA

Why Job Shops and Contract Manufacturers need a Multi-CAD viewer

September 11, 2009 in CAD, Kubotek

Who uses Multi-CAD viewers?  Many people up and down the supply chain.  Kubotek actually entered the viewer market by giving away our Spectrum Multi-CAD viewer. We gave away thousands.  If you were one of the lucky thousands who received a free viewer a few years back, congratulations!

(For those of you that are not familiar with our Multi-CAD Viewer,
Kubotek Spectrum is an easy to use professional grade viewer.  You can
view many file types including the basic IGES and STEP and DXF files
but also high end Catia and NX files and most everything people are
using today to in 2D and 3D deisgn.  List of CAD files supported by Kubotek Spectrum )

How are Multi-CAD viewer used?

Many contract manufacturers and job shops will be sent CAD files to view and get measurements for repsonding to RFQ’s.  These folks are many times in sales, not design or manaufacturing engineers.  The Spectrum Viewer is a great tool to view, measure, make some estimates and quickly get the quote out the door.  

For those without a multi-CAD viewer at their disposal, the sales folks need to ask an engineer to stop productive work, and open their file and get the measurements for them. Even worse, if the company needs to ask the OEM for drawings or to send the file in another format,  the manufacturer looses time or the ability to quote altogether.  This can be very costly, and time consuming.  Quotes that arrive late to the OEM do not get considered.  Quotes that are timely and accurate win the business.  Show me a sales office with piles of incomplete RFQs and I’ll show you an office without a multi-CAD viewer.

Here at Kubotek, we like to think of ourselves as “Masters of Geometry.”  Maybe its a little geeky and not such a slick marketing term, but I think the term fits pretty well.  Our ability to make a multi-CAD viewer that is easy to use, to create views, get measurements and print what you need, with a friendly UI is a talent. Try giving a Catia file to a SolidWorks CAD jock and ask them to open it, good luck!  We really are Masters of Geometry.

Now, many of these contract manufacturers and job shops support a miriad of expensive CAD packages, not becuase they want to, but becuase their OEM has sent them files in these formats. Sometimes the manufacturer is mandated purchase these packages, but what they do is open the files in these expensive, hard to use CAD programs and they quickly move the work into something easier to use, sometimes a 2D package, with all of its limitations, sometimes a robust Direct Modeling package such as KeyCreator CAD.

Well if our viewer can open a slew of CAD files types doesn’t it make sense that our CAD solution, KeyCreator, also has the ability to open a slew of files? In fact all of the files that our Spectrum Viewer can also be opened, and edited by KeyCreator.

So we figure, that if companies need a viewer to open all of these file types, wouldn’t it make sense to also own a less expensive, easy to learn, easy to use CAD package to edit & simplify models, create drawwing and prepare work instructions in one package?

So, for the month of September, we have decided to offer our Multi-CAD viewer at a dramatically lower price.  Kubotek Spectrum $99 Multi-CAD Viewer – limited time offer. We also sell a Multi-CAD viewer that includes the ability to view Catia V5.  The product’s retail price is $2,500, we have also discounted this product for the month of September to $599.

 

We aim to capture new customers that will be delighted with our viewing capabilities and then help them to wean themselves off of the 3-5 CAD systems that many Job Shops and Contract Manufactures are supporting.  The job shops will not only reduce cost in maintaining all of these systems.  But they will also improve their speed in getting their models onto the manufacturing floor.

So, if you know a contract manufacturer that is tired of the cost of maintaining multiple CAD systems, and all of the associated expense of training and transaction costs.  Please introduce them to our Spectrum Viewer sale.  I am sure they will love the viewer and then its up to us to have them try our robust yet easy to use 3D/2D/Solid/Suface/wireframe Kubotek CAD.

Happy viewing and modeling.

Scott

 PS – If you own one of those free version Viewers from a couple of years ago, this is a great opportunity to replace it with one that is really quite inexpensive, one might even say cheap, and you will be able to open all of the latest versions of today’s CAD files and view and measure them. (And get mass properties too!)

Source: CAD Freedom and Precision – Views and News from KubotekUSA – Why Job Shops and Contract Manufacturers need a Multi-CAD viewer
Go to Source: CAD Freedom and Precision – Views and News from KubotekUSA

Highly flexible CAD – TCT Magazine Kubotek KeyCreator Review

September 11, 2009 in CAD, Kubotek

Kubotek KeyCreator CAD Model Mower

Here is a recent review of Kubotek KeyCreator CAD by Time Compression Technologies.

 

Highlights:

  • KeyCreator is a Steal
  • Model Defeaturing
  • Healing & Repair
  • NC
  • Part Validation
  • Price
  • Data Translation

Thank you for reading

 

Source: CAD Freedom and Precision – Views and News from KubotekUSA – Highly flexible CAD – TCT Magazine Kubotek KeyCreator Review
Go to Source: CAD Freedom and Precision – Views and News from KubotekUSA

Transparency of Images

August 25, 2009 in AutoCAD, CAD

If you tried to set an image transparent with the normal transparent tools you found out it only works with one color. If fact all it does is turn off that color you select and is not really making anything transparent. Transparent as defined by Merriam-Webster is “fine or sheer enough to be seen through”. There is no see though when you just turn off a color. Using the data connect with FDO we can make polygon features transparent should we be able to do the same for images? Well we can with a little trick.

First we need to use the data connect to add the image to our map. Then save the image layer to “LAYER” file. When you save the layer it creates a file with an extension of layer,  If you are not aware of what a layer file is, it’s an xml file that contains information on the data file as to how it is connected to the map, the data it contains (spatial & data),  and how it is displayed or theme. Once you saved the image file to a Layer remove that image layer from the display manager and disconnect from the file(s) in the data connect palette.

Now browse to the image.layer file you created and open it in “Notepad”. Scroll down until you see the tags;

“<FeatureName>rasters:Name</FeatureName>” “<Geometry>Image</Geometry> “

Now insert between the two tags

<Opacity>0.5</Opacity>

layer_edit

Save the file after you edited it. The number 0.5 is the amount of transparency with the larger the number the more transparent the image will be. 0.9 is almost translucent and 0.1 is of little transparency. Now use the Load Layer tool from the Data Icon in the Display Manager to add the image to the map.

So why would anyone need an image to be transparent to start with when we can place it at the bottom of the draw order and make all the other layers transparent?  First off, how often have you reopened the map to find out the draw order was not as you had it set when you closed the map drawing? Another reason you may want to set an image to be transparent would be if you have overlapping images in the map. Maybe you have an current aerial image and an aerial of the same are that is 10 yeas ago and you need to do a time lapse study of the area. Toggling the images on and off can get frustrating after a while, where as having one transparent will allow you to see though it to do the analysis a lot easier.

Here are a few before and after screen captures of the results.

Normal

How we normally do it with the image layer at the bottom of the display draw order and the polygon with transparency.

image_Transparency

Here is with the image with transparency at 0.5 and the image layer at the top of the display draw order.

closer_look

A closer look of the above. Notice how the street centerlines show though the image file.

If you look close enough you will see a grid pattern in the image after we make it transparent, I only guess that is the way Map3D renders the image but after a test print of the map the grid is not getting plotted so I see no harm in it being there. Also do not forget about the MAPPLOTTRANSPARENCY command if you want to plot with transparency.

Source: Map 3D and Murphs Law – Transparency of Images
Go to Source: Map 3D and Murphs Law

SolidWorks Labs

August 13, 2009 in CAD, SolidWorks

One of the more fascinating groups at SolidWorks Corp is SolidWorks Labs.  The R&D members in this group really have no central location from which they operate.  They are dispersed throughout the world.  They work by taking tons of input from many different sources and funnelling these into their group for development.  Technology they develop [...]

Source: SolidWorks Legion – SolidWorks Labs
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Where is the Standard AutoCAD Ribbon?

August 5, 2009 in AutoCAD, CAD

One thing that’s is missing from AutoCAD Map3D 2010 is the Ribbon interface for standard AutoCAD functions. Sure we have the Map Classic Workspace still, but do you see the new parametric tools under any of the menus? How about the Constraint tools or the the tools that let you drive the design by the dimensions? Looks like the developers on the Geospatial team forgot that most  Map users or the GIS guy still have to do some drafting now and then.  I remember in my days of being  the “Map” guy at a electric utility co. that once or twice a month I would have to draft up some new piece of equipment or something. Either a concrete pad for a UG transformer or doing simple one line drawings for the substations. The new features in AutoCAD 2010 would of make it a lot easier back then. So why was a quick and easy access to those tools left out of Map3D 2010?  Who knows? To fix it is an easy little task that you can take on. All you need to do is create a new workspace and add the correct ribbon panels to the ribbon. Here’s how I did it. Start by opening up the Customize User Interface, entering CUI on the command line will do that part. Now if you hear all the horror stories about the CUI and workspaces from others rest assure it has improved since it was introduced in 2006.

Now that you have the CUI open go ahead and resize it to where you can see both sides, the left and right panes. In the left pane highlight Workspaces and right click then select New Workspace. Provide a name for the new workspace, I used “Standard AutoCAD 2D” for mine.

NewWorkspace

Now over on the right pane of the CUI it should be listed under the Workspace Contents. Click on the Customize Workspace button.

Customize

Now all we need to do is go back to the left pane and select the Ribbon Tabs we want in the workspace. Expand the Ribbon and Tab tree then start checking the tabs to place on the ribbon, as you check them on the left pane they will appear in the right pane under your new workspace.

Ribbon_Tabs

The tabs you choose is up to you the ones I selected are in line with Standard AutoCAD. Once you select the tabs click on the Done button then the apply button at the bottom.

Done

Now you should have all the tools in standard AutoCAD with in quick reach by switching to that workspace. You can also create another workspace for 3D AutoCAD commands if you do 3D designs and rendering.

Source: Map 3D and Murphs Law – Where is the Standard AutoCAD Ribbon?
Go to Source: Map 3D and Murphs Law

Conditional suppression

August 4, 2009 in AutoCAD, CAD

AutoCAD Tips and Tricks

If you’ve ever wanted to suppress a feature if a parameter reached a specific value, there is a great way to do this at the feature level. To see how this is done, I will  create a rectangular extrusion with a shell on it that has a condition to suppress the shell if the size [...]

Source: All About CAD – Conditional suppression
Go to Source: All About CAD

The ultimate CAD/BIM accessory, a Fiat 500 Mouse!

August 4, 2009 in AutoCAD, CAD

It looks great, should handle OK but I wonder about the wing mirrors being a bit ‘pointy” on your hand. What could be better than Revit & AutoCAD Architecture 2010, running on a PC with Windows 7 64 and [...]


Source: RobiNZ CAD Blog – The ultimate CAD/BIM accessory, a Fiat 500 Mouse!
Go to Source: RobiNZ CAD Blog

Dana Probert to present at Team Blue22’s Civil 3D University NZ Event

July 28, 2009 in AutoCAD, CAD

The announcement below just arrived in my inbox. I only know Dana from her Blog and Tweets but it’s great that she will be presenting at  the New Zealand Civil 3D University. If you are an AutoCAD Civi [...]


Source: RobiNZ CAD Blog – Dana Probert to present at Team Blue22’s Civil 3D University NZ Event
Go to Source: RobiNZ CAD Blog