Blowing my own horn Archives

BLADE, Blowing my own horn, BricsCAD, Bricsys, CAD Management, Hexagon

More coverage of the Australasia BricsCAD Conference 2019

By Steve Johnson 10 April 2019, 2:27 pm 10 April 2019 itemprop="discussionURL"1

As I described earlier, on 19 March I attended and presented at the Australasia BricsCAD Conference 2019 (ABC2019) at the Brisbane Conference and Exhibition Centre. Here is some further coverage of this event: Bricsys Blog ABC 2019 – Australasia BricsCAD Conference I’d like to point out that despite what it says on the Bricsys Blog, I covered a lot more about what’s new in BricsCAD V19 than just BLADE! I’d also like to thank Heidi Hewett for going at breakneck speed to ensure her presentation finished on time, which allowed me to do the same for Michael Smith’s all-important closing …

BLADE, Blowing my own horn, BricsCAD, Bricsys, CAD Management, Hexagon

What happened at the Australasia BricsCAD Conference 2019

By Steve Johnson 20 March 2019, 10:07 am 20 March 2019 itemprop="discussionURL"0

Yesterday (19 March 2019) I attended the Australasia BricsCAD Conference 2019 (ABC2019) at the Brisbane Conference and Exhibition Centre. The presenters were Michael Smith, Heidi Hewett, Pieter Clarysse, Damian Harkin, Jason Bourhill, Ralph Grabowski, Jonathan Taylor and myself. I wasn’t entirely happy with my own presentation, which I shared with Heidi Hewett. It started with an uncooperative PowerPoint wasting too much of the short time I had available. This led to me abandoning my painstaking preparations and winging it in order to finish in time for the closing address. I hope my talk was informative nevertheless. To see what went …

Announcement, BLADE, Blowing my own horn, BricsCAD, Bricsys, CAD Management, Hexagon

Australasia BricsCAD Conference 2019

By Steve Johnson 27 February 2019, 7:41 pm 27 February 2019 itemprop="discussionURL"0

I will be presenting alongside Heidi Hewett at the Australasia BricsCAD Conference 2019 (ABC2019), to be held at the Brisbane Conference and Exhibition Centre on 19 March 2019.

Presenters will be arriving from USA, Canada, Belgium, Australia and New Zealand. These include Ralph Grabowski, Michael Smith, Pieter Clarysse, Damian Harkin and Jason Bourhill.

If you’re using BricsCAD or contemplating moving to it, I believe the day of your time and the $100 ticket will be a sound investment. Among the subjects covered will be the business case for BricsCAD, parametric constraints, mechanical design, BIM, structural steel and site design. Heidi and I will be demonstrating some of the new features in V19. Third-party products will also be on display.

Last year there was no Autodesk University Australia and I don’t expect we’ll see one in 2019 either. So if you’re in Australasia and interested in attending a CAD or BIM conference this year, you should give this one serious consideration.

Disclosure: Sofoco will be covering my flight and accommodation expenses and providing a per diem payment.

BLADE, Blowing my own horn, BricsCAD, Bricsys, Bricsys Conference, CAD Management, Customisation, Development, DWG, Fun, Interview, LISP, Maintenance, Navel Gazing, Nostalgia, Video

The BLADE video watchlist

By Steve Johnson 19 February 2019, 9:43 pm 19 February 2019 itemprop="discussionURL"0

I did my third and final (for now) BricsCAD Unplugged webcast about BLADE last Wednesday. Here’s the video:

Before I dig into DCL, I start with a brief description of an absolutely brilliant feature that was added to BLADE in V19. If you code in LISP, you’ll love this feature.

Then I move on to some ancient history. Did you know that we can thank the far-sightedness of some slightly renegade Autodesk OS/2 developers in the early 1990s for the dialog boxes we use today? Did you know that you could program dialog boxes for AutoCAD for Mac in 1993 but you can’t today? Can you spot the items of interest in the background?

The rest of the video is dedicated to describing DCL programming and debugging, and I explain how BLADE is the best tool for that job using examples.

If you want to watch all three of the BLADE videos in a row (that’s 1 hour 49 minutes of viewing), Matt Olding has created a YouTube playlist for this series.

It has been an absolute pleasure working with the Bricsys people in putting this series together. Torsten Moses has informed me about yet another bunch of enhancements that are coming very soon to BLADE, so maybe you haven’t heard the last from me on this subject on BricsCAD Unplugged.

BLADE, Blowing my own horn, BricsCAD, Bricsys, Bricsys Conference, CAD Management, Customisation, Development, DWG, Fun, Interview, LISP, Maintenance, Navel Gazing, Nostalgia, Video

Video – who is that masked man?

By Steve Johnson 20 December 2018, 10:39 am 20 December 2018 itemprop="discussionURL"0

Last night I made another guest appearance on the BricsCAD Unplugged webcast series. This time I was discussing the LISP development environment, BLADE. Here’s the video:

Bonus points will be awarded for identifying three items of interest in the background. No, not counting my dog Sunday asleep at lower left.

Despite going way over time, there was still nowhere near enough opportunity to describe the full LISPy awesomeness that BLADE represents. I am therefore scheduled to return for another two or three episodes beginning in February. In those, I’ll be doing more of a step-by-step demonstration rather than the overview and V19 new feature description I did in this episode. If you have any particular requests for what you want covered, please comment on this post.

I also showed how the tools in BLADE (e.g. the (inspector) function) are still worth having for any DWG-based CAD Manager or power user, even if you’re not a full-on LISP programmer. If you have to work out what’s going on with dodgy DWG files, you’ll want to have (inspector) in your set of tools.

The BricsCAD Unplugged webcast broadcasts run on the Bricsys Facebook page and are then quickly transferred to YouTube. This was the last episode for 2018 because of Christmas and New Year.

Announcement, BLADE, Blowing my own horn, BricsCAD, Bricsys, CAD Management, Customisation, Development, Interview, LISP, Maintenance, Video

Wielding BLADE on BricsCAD Unplugged

By Steve Johnson 14 December 2018, 11:03 pm 14 December 2018 itemprop="discussionURL"0

In September I was the special guest on the BricsCAD Unplugged episode BricsCAD Unplugged – Steve Johnson 5 surprises moving to BricsCAD. Next Wednesday I will return, this time to wield BLADE, the best thing to happen to CAD LISP in nearly 20 years. I’ll be introducing it and demonstrating a few things, including the new features that came with V19. These live broadcasts are run on the Bricsys Facebook page and are then quickly transferred to YouTube. This broadcast will start at UTC 15:00 (3 PM) on Wednesday, 19 December 2018. Here’s that time in a few handy time zones: …

Announcement, Blowing my own horn, Fencing, Navel Gazing

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible

By Steve Johnson 7 December 2018, 10:34 pm 7 December 2018 itemprop="discussionURL"1

You may have noticed things being a little quiet around here lately. Don’t worry, things are going to ramp up again soon. I have had about a dozen things on the go and for various reasons, some to do with travelling and some technical, I haven’t quite finished any of them. But you should see a flurry of activity before too long. Here’s some of what I’ve was doing while I was travelling and hoping in vain to get some work done: Also, my daughter Emma capped off a great fencing year by competing for Australia for the first time, …

A & B Tips, BLADE, Blowing my own horn, BricsCAD, Bricsys, Bricsys Conference, Bug, CAD Management, Cadalyst, Customisation, Development, DWG, Fun, Interoperability, Interview, LISP, Maintenance, Navel Gazing, Nostalgia, Video

Video – Steve on BricsCAD Unplugged

By Steve Johnson 13 September 2018, 12:17 pm 13 September 2018 itemprop="discussionURL"0

Following on from Lynn Allen and Robert Green’s guest appearances on the BricsCAD Unplugged webcast a couple of weeks ago, this time it was my turn. Last night (my time) I was the special guest on the episode BricsCAD Unplugged – Steve Johnson 5 surprises moving to BricsCAD. I’m introduced at 2:12 and appear at 3:30. Here’s the full video: In this week’s episode, you’ll witness: Me discussing the five biggest things that pleasantly surprised me about BricsCAD. (I have more than five, but time was limited). Don Strimbu bribing me with drinks containers. An actual printed copy of Cadalyst …

Announcement, AutoCAD, BLADE, Blowing my own horn, BricsCAD, CAD Management, Development, Interoperability, LISP, Video

Steve’s BLADE presentation at the BricsCAD New Zealand and Australia Roadshow

By Steve Johnson 23 April 2018, 9:11 pm 23 April 2018 itemprop="discussionURL"3

Sofoco (Australia) and CAD Concepts (New Zealand) recently ran a series of seminars throughout Australasia demonstrating BricsCAD. I attended the last of these in Brisbane on April 19 and gave a presentation about BricsCAD’s LISP, with reference to AutoCAD compatibility and the tools available to CAD Managers and developers, including BLADE. The talk was aimed at anybody who is writing or maintaining LISP code for AutoCAD or BricsCAD. I had the just-before-lunch slot, which is never desirable for a presenter. People are dozing off and/or bursting to go to the toilet, and time adjustments have to be made if earlier …

Announcement, BLADE, Blowing my own horn, BricsCAD, CAD Management, Development, Interoperability, LISP

Steve at the BricsCAD New Zealand and Australia Roadshow

By Steve Johnson 11 April 2018, 2:22 pm 11 April 2018 itemprop="discussionURL"0

Sofoco (Australia) and CAD Concepts (New Zealand) are currently running a series of seminars throughout Australasia demonstrating BricsCAD. Here are the dates and locations: Auckland – 9 April 2018, Jet Park Hotel and Conference Centre Christchurch – 11 April 2018, Christchurch Community House Melbourne – 17 April 2018, Airport Motel and Convention Centre Sydney – 18 April 2018, Stamford Plaza Sydney Airport Brisbane – 19 April 2018, Royal on the Park Each seminar is in two parts. The morning session is for leaders and decision makers and the the afternoon is less structured and goes into more details, with informal discussions, questions and answers and …

AUGI, AutoCAD, Autodesk, Blowing my own horn, Bug, Navel Gazing, Nostalgia, Video

CAD Nostalgia Video

By Steve Johnson 22 February 2018, 7:50 pm 22 February 2018 itemprop="discussionURL"6

For the first video in the new cad nauseam YouTube channel, I’ve had a bit of fun. I unearthed a bunch of my old stuff to show you. Does any of this take you back? Enjoy!

3D, AutoCAD, BIM, Blowing my own horn, Development, Fail, Navel Gazing, Nostalgia

That awkward moment when I just failed to create BIM

By Steve Johnson 18 February 2018, 10:44 pm 19 February 2018 itemprop="discussionURL"1

I recently updated my resume, and I thought it might be relevant to include an episode from my early career. This post is an expansion on what I had to say about that episode. I was managing a tiny CAD training and development company, Educad. Much of my time there was spent developing software called NIDIS (originally called NEEDS), a project that was started in 1987 or 1988 with Nixdorf Computer as the client. It was intended to take over the market among first the home building companies of Western Australia, then Australia, then the World! What’s special about NIDIS …

Blowing my own horn, Fencing, Fun, Navel Gazing, Win

Steve’s fencing year 2016

By Steve Johnson 20 December 2016, 12:32 pm 20 December 2016 itemprop="discussionURL"0

Some of you may be aware I’m an active veteran fencer. I’ve been a bit quiet over the past month because I’ve been away, attending two major fencing tournaments. I’ll post some video later, but here are my national and international medal results this year: Australian Fencing Circuit 1, Melbourne, Australia Veteran Men’s Sabre – Bronze and 50+ Gold Asian Masters / Oceania and AFC 3 Veterans, Perth, Australia Asian Masters / Oceania Veteran / AFC3 Veteran Men’s Sabre (50+) – Gold Asian Masters / Oceania Veteran / AFC3 Veteran Men’s Foil (50+) – Bronze Asian Masters / Oceania Veteran …

Category: Blowing my own horn