AUGIWorld Magazine - May/June 2008 - (Page 28)

On The Page Back I spent the first 10 years of my career on the drawing board before switching to CAD in 1980. I used to work with stacks of 3' X 4' paper drawings and 36" rolls up to 12 feet long. When a large drawing is taped down on an eight-foot drafting board, you experience a sense of geography. You know physically where each part of the design is, and where to go later when you need to work out problems. I can’t say that those days were better, but what I can say is, that method of working is still hardwired in my brain. It took some time to adapt that sense of geography to the screen, where everything appears in a relatively small area and at varying magnifications. If I need to retrieve a specific archived view, for me it is still a close call between the virtual approach of trying to remember which drive, file, layout, and view to look for, or the physical approach of pulling open a flat file drawer, thumbing through a stack, and flipping to the right sheet. When I’m checking a drawing, I still prefer working on a full-size hard copy. There is something about the sameness of the screens in the virtual world, and the uniqueness of place in the physical world, that makes the physical approach work better in my brain. I’d like to think that is human nature and not just me, but I’m sure there are plenty of people well-oriented in the virtual approach. DVD, application help files, or Web access. The same electronic content gets published in different formats. In addition, the electronic content adheres to SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model). This is a standard with its roots in the Department of Defense (oh boy, software written by the government!). Content is created in a “granular” manner, David Kingsley Where Do We Go From Here? part will go into a Ford or a Ferrari. Some experienced authors have found it too difficult to work with. Even though I think I have become quite capable on this LCMS, it is still one of the most inefficient and difficult-to-learn tools I have used in some time. Yet there is a strange sense of satisfaction in completing something in it. The movie Minority Report (2002) is a near future sci-fi flick with a lot of cool technology on display. In it, Tom Cruise is seen waving his arms around on a wall-sized screen with an interface that looks a lot like a giant iPhone. Remember when you dreamed of having that big LCD monitor? Imagine a 30-inch iPhone. Fast forward to today and check it out Microsoft.com/surface. Every CAD jockey NEEDS this! If you haven’t already seen it in action, you will when you watch any 2008 election coverage. It is so cool Jon Stewart has already made a parody of it. According to Microsoft, Surface will be available sometime this year. We are very much in a period of technological transition. The stuff we have now is flashy and still new to us. For some technology, I think we have yet to harness it to best serve the needs of human nature. The brain is a pretty hardwired thing. Having evolved over tens of thousands of years, twenty years of technology has done nothing to rewire it. I think as we master new technology it will bend more toward human nature. David Kingsley served from 1999-2004 on the AUGI Board of Directors and is the Director of Electrons at CADPlayer Web Courseware. He can be reached at djkingsley@cad-tv.com. w w w. A U G I . c o m On the surface… Don’t trip over your tools The geography issue reared its head again recently. I have been working with a large LCMS (Learning Content Management System). In short, this is a website where dozens of people are collaborating on the writing of several large technical manuals. Each section of content is destined to be published into book form, meaning small lessons that stand alone. The smallest elements are then assembled into logical groups, chapters, and manuals. One of the tenets of the standard is that end users of the content can assemble it to meet their needs. The downside for authors is that you can compose only one small section at a time and have a difficult time envisioning the end product as a whole. It is difficult to gain a sense of where you are in the document, and what material has already been covered. It is especially challenging to cover subjects that overlap. It’s like making a car part and not knowing what part of the car it goes in and not knowing if the 28 http://Microsoft.com/surface http://Microsoft.com/surface http://www.augi.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of AUGIWorld Magazine - May/June 2008

AUGIWorld Magazine - May/June 2008 Table of Contents The CAD Manager From Drawing to Display: The Value of Autodesk Impression Designing for Auto-Dimensioning The Proof Is in the Footing Managing Customization and Profiles Getting to Know the Display Manager What's Cooking at Autodesk Labs? On the Back Page

AUGIWorld Magazine - May/June 2008

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