Mix up your AutoCAD Ribbon Panels

The whole AutoCAD interface is highly customisable, but mostly requires users to delve into the CUI (Custom User Interface) to make changes. An easy, quick change that everyone can use is to move Panels off the Ribbon when you need certain tools or even move Panels onto a Ribbon TAB where you use them more often (more of a drag and drop affair).

• Simply click on the dark bar along the bottom of any Panel, then drag down onto the workspace. This will detach the Panel and create a Floating Toolbar.

Quicker AutoCAD Selection with Fastselect

There are a lot of different selection methods in AutoCAD, but a powerful tool which often gets overlooked is Fastselect (FS).

This tool enables you to select a piece of geometry and then automatically pick all geometry touching it.

• To do this type fs at the command line, then select a piece of geometry as prompted, by default this will be the geometry immediately connected to the selected piece.

Autodesk Customer Success - Gaoh Energy

Gaoh Energy, an ambitious start-up focused on a range of renewable energy sectors, is using Digital Prototyping software from Autodesk, Inc., to help deliver innovative solutions into the onshore and offshore wind markets and the tidal energy sector.

Gaoh Energy joined the Autodesk Clean Tech Partner Program, which provides software for emerging clean tech companies in North America, Europe, Japan and Singapore, on the recommendation of Autodesk reseller, Micro Concepts, which provides its IT support. Since joining the program, in November 2010, the company has been using AutoCAD and increasingly making use of the Autodesk Product Design Suite, including Autodesk Inventor and Autodesk Showcase. It uses the Autodesk software in particular to provide design and engineering solutions to clients developing wind farms and demonstration sites.

Autodesk Customer Success - Kocurek

Kocurek Excavators Ltd has been awarded the Manufacturer's Innovation award at the annual Demolition Awards in Amsterdam.

The company saw off stiff competition from the likes of Liebherr, Trevi Benne and Montovanibenne to have its HDI Beast named as the industry's greatest innovation of the year.

David Kocurek (left) and Brian Carroll (right) receive their award from IDE president, John Woodward (centre).