Micro Concepts CAD Clinics Announced

You are invited to reserve a free CAD Clinic session where you can ask questions relating to manufacturing software you are either currently using or looking to invest in. Maybe you just want to find out a bit more about the latest CAD technology?

Any and all questions are relevant!

There will be no fixed agenda, you are invited to come along during an agreed time slot and get the answers to your questions and meet some of our team.

There will be two events:

Micro Concepts Bristol - 18th Feb 2011

Micro Concepts Cambridge - 25th Feb 2011

To register or if you have any questions please call 01223 716200 or email info@microconcepts.co.uk 

Modify Visible Inventor File Properties for Windows Explorer

When you hover over an Inventor file in Windows Explorer you might have seen a small list of File Properties appear, as below:

Microsoft SQL 2005 retirement

Mainstream support for SQL 2005 is to be stopped by Microsoft this year. (http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=2855) While Autodesk have not made any announcements, we expect all Vault installations currently using SQL 2005 will require an upgrade to SQL 2008 when upgrading to the next release of Vault.

Most Vault installations use the SQL Express databases that can be upgraded without additional software costs. If you use a full version of SQL 2005 (Developer, Workgroup, Standard or Enterprise) an upgrade may need to be purchased. Most companies purchase SQL directly from their Microsoft suppliers, not through Micro Concepts. Please speak to your IT Departments to start budgeting.

We will clarify the situation as soon as we have full details from Autodesk. Your existing Vault 2010 or 2011 installations will not be affected by this change by Microsoft.

Import and Export Formats in Inventor 2011

A question that comes up often on support is what formats we can open into Inventor and those formats we can save to. Therefore we have put together some information in reference to this below for all to see:

Format	Import	Export
AutoCAD 2D/3D (*.dwg, *.dxf)	R12-2011	R12-2011
Alias (*.wire)	all versions	-
CATIA V4 (*.CATPart, *.CATProduct, *.model)	all versions	-
CATIA V5 (*.CATPart, *.CATProduct)	R6-R18	R10-R18
IGES (*.igs)	all versions	5.3
JT Precise (*.jt)	7.0, 8.0, 8.1, 8.2, 9.0, 9.1, 9.2, 9.3. 9.4	7.0, 8.0, 8.1, 8.2, 9.0, 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 9.4
NX (*.prt)	3-6 (7 in SAP)	-
Parasolid (*.x_b, *.x_t)	up to ver 22.0	9.0-22.0
Pro/ENGINEER (*.prt, *.asm)	up to ver 5.0	-
Pro/ENGINEER Granite (*.g)	up to ver 6.0	1.0-6.0
Pro/ENGINEER Neutral (*.neu)	all	all
SAT (*.sat)	4.0-7.0	4.0-7.0
SolidWorks (*.prt, *.sldprt, *.asm, *.sldasm)	2003-2010	-
Rhino (*.3dm)	(in SAP)	-
STEP (*.stp, *.ste)	AP214, AP203E2	AP214, AP203E2
STL (*.stl)	-	all
XGL/ZGL (*.xgl/*.zgl)	-	all

The Current File Is Not The Latest Version

When working in Inventor and switching between multiple files within the same assembly you can in one particular scenario, encounter a message such as:

• A later version of this file has been saved by <username>. Saving the file would overwrite changes, which is not allowed. If you wish to preserve your changes, use the Save Copy As command.

This message appears because at some stage you performed an Open From Vault and chose to overwrite the local files when this message appeared:

• File 'path\filename' is checked out to you. Are you sure you want to overwrite it with data from the Vault?

You can avoid this by changing the response from the Default Yes to No.
This is an extract from the Cracking the Vault, Manufacturing Community Blog

What Does The Backup Validation (-VAL) Switch Do

We had a query recently from a customer asking why their backup was taking different times every night and what does the -VAL switch actually do. They compared the times listed in the ADMSConsolelog files for different nights that the Validation was running.

05.01.2011 01:27:17 Validating backup databases ... 2/3
05.01.2011 02:01:32 Validating backup databases ... 3/3

01.01.2011 01:57:37 Validating backup databases ... 2/3
01.01.2011 03:25:20 Validating backup databases ... 3/3

Firstly the -VAL Validation runs as a background process. Therefore, other higher priority processes can easily cause the backup time to vary.

Regarding what the Validation actually does, it does two things. It compares the backed up database to the live SQL database via SQL. It also compares the checksum for each individual file in the Filestore with the backed up Filestore. If there is a mismatch, it will report the error in the ADMSConsolelog file.

This is an extract from the Cracking the Vault, Manufacturing Community Blog

Apply Superscript or Subscript Formatting to Text

Have you ever needed to make text subscript and/or superscript on a drawing? There is an easy way using the Caret symbol (Shift + 6 on the keyboard).

• To subscript, type in the following with the Caret: ^required text
• To superscript, type in the following with the Caret: required text^

Once you have typed your text, highlight the text (including the Caret symbol), right-click and select Stack from the flyout menu.

Help to Plot Raster Images on Drawings

This is a tip for printing drawings with high-resolution images or multiple aerial photographs. There are a couple of settings that affect how AutoCAD handles memory when dealing with raster images:

• RasterPercent: Sets the maximum percentage of available virtual memory that is allowed for plotting a raster image. The default is 20% - consider increasing this to 90%.
• RasterThreshold: Specifies a raster threshold in megabytes. If the plotted raster image exceeds this threshold, the availability of system memory is checked. The plot is aborted if the image is too big for the available memory. The default is 20 MB - consider increasing this to 100 MB.

This is an extract from the CAD Digest Blog

GrabCAD - New 3D model sharing website

 

GrabCAD is a free CAD library with an engineering marketplace

• Download thousands of free CAD models
• Share your work, get feedback

Visit the GrabCAD website for more information: http://grabcad.com/

Happy New Year from Micro Concepts

Just a quick post to wish everyone a Happy New Year from the team at Micro Concepts. Hope you all had a good festive period, and Santa brought you some nice things :-)

Just incase you missed the London Fireworks display this year, which were pretty spectactular, see below: