In the Pipes

Hello world & upcoming AutoCAD Plant 3D Beta

And now for something different – a guest blog from my colleague in arms Pat Jenakanandhini (Pat J12i for short). He's a great addition to our team, and more involved in day to day product creation than I am as of late. I'll let him introduce himself as he takes a shot at blogging. -- Ursula

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Hi World! I want to introduce myself and join my colleague Ursula in blogging about all things in the pipes – well maybe not all things. J My name is Pat Jenakanandhini and I am one of the Product Managers working on Plant Solutions at Autodesk. My background includes degrees in Process & Piping Design, Computer Science and a recently completed MBA. I also spent a lot of time early in my career working for another plant design software maker. I have two wonderful kids (2 yrs and 1 month), an incredibly supportive wife and family, and live in the great state of New Hampshire. Ursula has graciously offered to let me try guest blogging through her blog – so here goes!

AutoCAD Plant 3D 2012 was released just a couple of months back. The engineering team have been hard at work and we are getting close to having new beta of Plant 3D soon. Yes – that's right just a few short months and we already have a beta of the next version. We need YOUR help though. We need your feedback and help with looking at the new beta and finding problems with it. This will help our team fix as many problems as possible and deliver a high quality product that will delight you.

So, you are ready to help! What next you ask?

1. Sign up at http://beta.autodesk.com The picture below shows the site. If you have previously participated in Autodesk beta, you can just login with your existing login information. If you are new, click the link for new users and register.

   

    

2. Once you are logged in, click on "About Me" link on the left side.

   

3. Scroll down and select the products you are interested in providing feedback on. Select AutoCAD P&ID and AutoCAD Plant 3D of course!
   
4. That's it! Once the beta starts, you will get added to the project and notified with further instructions. You can then download the latest software and give us direct feedback on what works or more importantly what doesn't work.

So there you have it – my first blog post. I'll be back with more posts in the future. Please give me your feedback or let me know if you want to hear about any particular topic. Thanks.

Isometric Generation in the Cloud

We released our 2012 Plant Design Suites earlier this fall – and one of the key new components in AutoCAD Plant 3D was a new isometric drawing creation engine. For some time now, customers have requested we look into creating a new solution for generating isometrics from a 3D piping model. This was our first release containing the newly developed Autodesk isometrics generation engine. 

Now, we’ve taken the engine into the cloud. On Autodesk Labs, we have just gone live with our AutoCAD^® Isometrics WS technology preview.  This preview takes an uploaded PCF (or a zip of many PCFs) and generates isometric drawings.

Check out the service here: www.autodesk.com/autocadisometricsws

Also, check out Scott Sheppard’s It’s Alive In the Labs post on the Isometrics WS Technology Preview for more information and details on how to give feedback.

We created a short video showing the AutoCAD^® Isometrics WS technology preview in action :

PS:  As a technology preview – its free!  Check it out and let us know what you think.

Thinking about the release after next, and beyond

Most of this week I’ve been attending one of the most interesting meetings of my year. Each year, the Autodesk Plant team invites in about a dozen people from the Plant industry to discuss strategic goals and direction.  We call this our Plant Strategic Advisory Board meeting, and this year was a mix of Owner Operators, people from Construction, and people from Engineering firms, making for an interesting mix of viewpoints. The attendees, hailing from 6 different countries, came together at our San Francisco office to talk about where we want to be in 3 years, 5 years, 10 years from now.

 Autodesk Plant Strategic Advisory Board Members - 2011

This meeting is great, as we all get to step back from our day to day jobs and think about the future. We get time to reflect on how technology trends will affect the plant industry.  We start with big ideas – such as if computing power is unlimited & free, and available everywhere – what will that bring us?

Last year members were quite skeptical of cloud computing and SaaS; this year they understand that there are real benefits and the risks can be managed. Last years meeting there was a lot of concern and unwillingness to trust Plant data to “the Cloud”.  This year, there was more concern about which cloud, and how to keep running if there is network interruption from a backhoe cutting through the T1 line.  (hey, it happens)

Another hot topic this year was around augmented reality – previous thoughts that it was “just a gimmick” gave way to some wows about how useful it could be. If we could project a model of an proposed design atop what is really there, say on an ipad right there in the construction site – wouldn’t that rock as a communication tool?

Still synthesizing the feedback and organizing my notes. So much to think about, my brain is fried. Yet at the same time energized by the interesting things to come.

Step 1 – Get your Autodesk ID

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, hasn’t it? (Sorry! Mommyhood takes all ones free time – who knew?)  We have some exciting things going on at Autodesk, and moreover in the Plant group, so I am motivated to post.  Actually, we always have interesting things going on – but these I can actually talk about.

About a month ago Autodesk launched Autodesk Cloud Documents. This is a cloud storage service with 1GB free storage (3 GB if you are on subscription). 

Store, Share, View.  Extend your desktop. Advance the way you work. Nice tagline, no?

There are a number of interesting things that are happening with this and other cloud services. How can you participate? Step 1 to use Autodesk Cloud – get a Autodesk ID.

Here’s how:

Starting at https://documents.cloud.autodesk.com/Landing, pick the big blue sign in button. 

From here, pick the link Need an Autodesk ID?  Then fill out the presented form – which simply asks for your name & email in order to create the ID.

That’s it – you now should be able to login into the Autodesk Cloud. 

Go ahead, Store, Share, View – and keep your eyes open – more is coming soon!

Process Industry Practice (PIP) Spec now available

We continue to post more and more specs and catalogs on Plant Exchange. This content is free for download and use in AutoCAD Plant 3D. Recently the Plant Content team announced the update of the Process Industry Practices (PIP) specs content pack. This content pack contains a total of 92 (!!!) PIP specs for Carbon, Stainless, and Alloy steel from class 150 to 1500. This allows users to directly download the specs and use them with their project with minimal tweaks.

Content packs Link: http://autocad.autodesk.com/?nd=plant_content_packs

Readme Link: http://autocad.autodesk.com/ama/orig/plant/README-PIP_Specs_added.pdf

For more details on the Piping material specification, please visit www.pip.org.

Once again, thank you Plant Content Team!

Back in the Saddle

I really wanted my first blog post back to be something significant, full of monumental announcements written in a witty engaging style. But after two weeks back, and a calendar that has already filled up, Autodesk policy against un-release product announcements, and an pint-sized office assistant who demands attention, well, it has been difficult to be witty about anything longer than a tweet. 

Today, the best I can do today for witty is to forward along this:

The team has been busy these past months, of course. I’d recommend you check out Plant Exchange for the latest happenings. In particular, we have an ever growing list of content packs and an active discussion forum, among other plant topics of interest.

Finally, I’d like to thank everyone for their congratulations on my new arrival. She’s 3 months old now - we’re doing well.  We had a fun Easter and now looking forward to a fun Queensday tomorrow.  We even have new orange hats!

If you haven't already heard, the AutoCAD Plant 3D 2011 hotfix 1 and AutoCAD P&ID 2011 hotfix 1 are now available. For information about the hotfixes and what they include, visit:

http://autocad.autodesk.com/?nd=servicepacks

Thanks!

Hi, all:

This is Eileen Foran, Community Program Manager for the Plant Solutions group at Autodesk.

I'm thrilled to be writing on behalf of Ursula to announce the birth of her beautiful baby girl, Erika. Erika was born at 5:44 PM 1-FEB-2011, weighing in at 6 lbs, 14.5 oz and 19.75 inches in length.

Urusla will be on maternity leave for a while, so you won't be seeing her posts on her blog until springtime.

Meanwhile, I will keep the blog fresh with guest posts from our Plant group. We'll keep you informed of what's happening in the Plant world. This might be a good time to ask you what you'd like to hear from us? More of, less of, etc...

Please feel free to comment away, and don't forget to send Ursula your well-wishes! You can reach her here on her blog or at ursula.sadiq@autodesk.com (alas, she is checking her work email occassionally).

Until next time,

Eileen

Autodesk Plant Keynote Video

The Plant Keynote at Autodesk University was arguably THE highlight of the show for Plant.  This 1 hour presentation had nearly 250 customers in attendance. Presented by our 3 guest speakers: a customer, Mike Denholm (Bateman), a reseller, Carsten Beinecke (ACPlant), and a highly involved community member, Dave Tyner (davetyner.com Digital Plant Design Community), the overall message delivered was that Autodesk brings together proven software products with a powerful ecosystem of partners, community, and innovation to advance the plant design industry.  This was extremely well-received by the attendees.  I believe our customers left the session feeling excited and hopeful about the opportunities with Autodesk Plant Design software.  I hope you take a moment to view it yourself: http://autocad.autodesk.com/?nd=auplantkeynote.

Project X – Must Watch Presentation

Two and a half minutes of sheer awesomeness – presented at the Autodesk University 2010 Plant Keynote yesterday.  (This is the full version of that trailer posted in my last blog entry.)

Project was done in AutoCAD Plant 3D 2011 in 2 weeks by a distributed team of 13 designers from USA and Canada.  Sweet!