Klimp Fasteners

A job recently came in and the crates used Klimp fasteners.  They "clip" into place and secure the crate without the use of bolts.  The package we received to do work on was about 5 years old, and had seen international travel, so they had help up pretty well as an alternative methodology for crate construction.  

While obviously useful for its normal use for crates, I would be curious to see if it would be a useful piece of hardware for scenery in rep theatre - though obviously it would be limited to 90 degree corners.

Troubleshooting Today Update

Back in  April 2007 , I described an error in AutoCad.  A couple days ago I got an email from James with a screen shot:

Thanks for sending the image James - it is certainly just as funny now as it was before!

Technology Training Free Resources

I came across IDC Technologies September 2014's newsletter technical download page, and thought that it is good information to keep as well as to pass on. The page offers a number of links ranging from project management to mechanical Design Concepts for Non-Mechanical Engineers to a train the trainer document.  They also have webinars available, that would be worth looking into.

Electro-magnetic Boards

I recently received an email about a product called Justick.  Its basically a bulletin board without pins, tapes, etc - where notes just stick, without any additional aid.  This works via an electromagnetic field, generated by AA batteries.

While this probably is not robust enough to hold up in some environments, I could see uses.  If you could control the power remotely, things could easily fall onstage.  But I could see it more in use backstage, or for use in meetings where you may not have a post it note, but need to make a note.

Quote of the Day

"You can fix it on the drawing board with an eraser or you can fix it
on the site with a sledgehammer."
-Frank Lloyd Wright

Tech Shop

Tech Shop is a workshop (only available in 7 locations) that allows a large group of people access to a variety of tools. They have cnc machines, milling machines, lathes, even laser cutters, and 3-d printers. The idea is that you buy a membership for access, and you can use these tools (and elarn how to use them) as a low cost alternative to purchasing fabrication services for prototypes. I think this is a really great idea - many people don't have access to shops - so from building something simple for themselves or developing new ideas is very difficult. Even with a pretty decent home shop, the average person is fairly limited with teh equipment they can own. And theatres fall into this as well - maybe we have access to a cnc router, but what about printing, 3-d printing, laser cutting, water jet cutting and so forth - each of these machines are large purchases and need a good deal of maintenance. While I know that a theatre couldn't take over the whole facility - I could see a special project goingthrough this service. I really think that this type of technology access and collaboration is something that is needed for the future.

Arcitecture and the Lost Art of Drawing

The New York Times ran an article called Architecture and the Lost Art of Drawing. out of that article I particularlly liked the following:

For decades I have argued that architectural drawing can be divided into three types, which I call the “referential sketch,” the “preparatory study” and the “definitive drawing.” The definitive drawing, the final and most developed of the three, is almost universally produced on the computer nowadays, and that is appropriate. But what about the other two? What is their value in the creative process? What can they teach us?

The referential sketch serves as a visual diary, a record of an architect’s discovery. It can be as simple as a shorthand notation of a design concept or can describe details of a larger composition. It might not even be a drawing that relates to a building or any time in history. It’s not likely to represent “reality,” but rather to capture an idea.

These sketches are thus inherently fragmentary and selective. When I draw something, I remember it. The drawing is a reminder of the idea that caused me to record it in the first place. That visceral connection, that thought process, cannot be replicated by a computer.

The second type of drawing, the preparatory study, is typically part of a progression of drawings that elaborate a design. Like the referential sketch, it may not reflect a linear process. (I find computer-aided design much more linear.) I personally like to draw on translucent yellow tracing paper, which allows me to layer one drawing on top of another, building on what I’ve drawn before and, again, creating a personal, emotional connection with the work.

I have never really thought about the three different types of drawing before - but it is true that when I first start to look at how something goes together, there is often a series of napkin sketches that puts some preliminary ideas onto paper. I also commonly see people sketch on one drawing about opposing views of construction - or elaborating on others sketches - and I think that these steps are important in the technical design process.

I think that with computers it is occassionally too easy to make something work on paper that really isn't practical to do in real life.

Finally, I thought this was interesting:

As I work with my computer-savvy students and staff today, I notice that something is lost when they draw only on the computer. It is analogous to hearing the words of a novel read aloud, when reading them on paper allows us to daydream a little, to make associations beyond the literal sentences on the page. Similarly, drawing by hand stimulates the imagination and allows us to speculate about ideas, a good sign that we’re truly alive.

It is true that upon reading, I occassionaly (or even often) pause and reflect - or skim a statment over again. Either to make the idea more firm in my mind or to think about the implications. While this is certainly true when reading educataional or informative information, it is also true in fiction. Sometimes its interesting to pause and think about what is next, or what might relate to the story outside of the book. And, while I like to listen to audio books - for convienence, it is harder to replicate that - you have to think more about actually stopping the process to reflect.

Enkerboll Designs

While looking for some architectural moldings I can across Enkerboll Designs today. They have a large variety of moldings, rosettes, onlays, finials, and other moldings. It is a good reference.

We also source moldings from Moulding and Millwork. They have a variety of catalogs that you can download on the site.

If money was no object

I would have one of these. I can think of tons of fun things to do with one of these - and could definately see it's use around the shop, especially for props. Take a look at the PlasmaCam and see what you think.

Sketching w/ AutoCAD

Lynn Allen recently had a post about sketching in AutoCAD. It starts with a 3-D model of an object that you can sketch over with an AutoCAD add-in. Sketching and creating organic shapes has always been a little tedious, this looks like a very advantageous design tool.

And, if you aren'y familar with her blog, you should take a look - there is alot of good information there.

Trace

Adobe has a PDF that describes their TRACE command that will help you convert a rastor image into vector art (in CS2). It also explains the difference between the two well (often a difficult concept for unfamilar people to grasp).

Additional information about how to use the trace command:

Adobe Design Center
Watch a tutorial video
Tutorial 9 site

What is nice about CS2 is that it really helps to relate graphic work to CAD. We can lay something out that has a printed graphic and send that to be printed, and CNC the substrate all from the same file and be assured that they will line up nicely (always depending on type of material the graphic is printed on off course).

Similar to the other converters, if you aren't using CS2 (or the new additions) already in your work, it may not be cost effective.

Rastor to Vector Image Software

Arbor Image has two products that are interesting for drafting; Draftsman Cutting Shop and Draftsman 2002. These programs take rastor images (like a photograph or scanned in drawing) and covert it to vector art. Vector art can be used for cnc cutting. With the listed prices, you would need to see how much you would use it before it would be cost effective, but it sure would beat importing and image and "tracing" over it, which I have often done in the past for scenic units such as ground rows, proscenium edges and other decorative cut pieces (both for hand cutting and cnc work).

USITT Notes

OnThere are no bad ideas, the recent entry asks about what is missing on the USITT expo floor. I think I would ad to his list the Hossfeld people, and perhaps hardware / caster suppliers.

The Daily AutoCAD blog had a tutorial for getting section views from 3-D solids, relating the the 3D Studio Max comments I made the other day.

The track that I liked from Thern can be seen here:
http://www.hallstage.com/uploads/documents/T60%20Leaflet.pdf
http://www.hallstage.com/uploads/documents/T60%20Details.pdf
http://www.hallstage.com/product/productlist.asp?catid=4
http://www.hallstage.com/uploads/documents/T70%20Leaflet.pdf
http://www.hallstage.com/uploads/documents/T70%20Details.pdf

I like the built-in alignment system.

USITT - Saturday

Today's excitement on the floor was Foy, ZFX, and Hall Associates flying people. The above picture is the ZFX rig.

Besides spending a few remaining minutes on the show floor, I saw two sessions today. The first was "Technical Design / Direction - In a Disney Theme Park". Chuck Davis gave an interesting view into the scale and process that goes into creating a major park element. I think what was interesting to me was the degree that they come up with an idea, but they have to internally sell the idea to get funding. Since these projects are worth millions, they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars proving the ideas and methods as they proceed. While we certainly don't produce on the scope of Disney, we also often don't invest in enough time planning and determining if something will work before we are well into the process and committed. I think sometimes we would be well served to remember that spending some preliminary funding to investigate a technique before commitment allows for a smoother process, and money saved in the long run.

Next I went to "Draw Me a Picture: Collaborative Problem Solving through Digital Storyboarding". It was chaired by Robert W. Johnson, and the presenters included Gregory K. Bell, and Greg Stump. The session was an interesting view on how technology is improving and growing as a communication tool. Some of the packages that we receive are fully storyboarded, and 3-D rendered, and I suspect that much of that is to sell the product, not really for building, but it helps on the build side as well. In 3D Studio Max they showed off the section tool to get 2-D sections from a complex 3-d shape. That is a handy feature, but not enough for me to buy the program. They also talked about modeling a complex 3-D shape (a bust for Mozart) and then doing a section about every 1/2, which was then used to machine the shape. After that they did fine tooling, and made a mold from the piece to make multiples. As great as cnc machining is, I take from this, that it still isn't to the place where it is easier to simply machine something than it is to make a mold and cast duplicated. (Which for complex 3-D items is true where I work as well). The other design they talked about was a structure used for Jesus Christ Superstar where the cross was on a cantilevered beam, and after being crucified, the cross slid back, leaving Jesus hanging against a black background. The set was cool, and the 3-D software helped them animate the sequence to make sure that everyone knew what they were looking for and to help start the technical discussions. The middle part of the session was about how they accomplished the effect. The last part largely revolved around SketchUp. having heard and seen alot of the program, I fully agree to its usefulness. The presenter showed using it to define the structure, and building off of drawings created by SketchUp. This is certainly intriguing, and though he said the tolerances were much more precise than what we need in theatre, I still am suspect. For instance I know some people who routinely use it for preliminary design development, but when it comes time to build, the tolerances are usually +/- inches - far too big to use for build.

The last session of the conference for me was "Tricks of the Stage - Stage Magic". It was nice to see so many prop related sessions this year, and I enjoyed this one as well. John M. Lavarnway chaired the session and went through, with input from his other panelists, how to put together the effect. He stressed defining the effect, research, covering liability concerns, reliability concerns, and how to work with the Actors with the trick. They then showed a variety of effects such as using solenoids for Blithe Spirit, the throwing knife trick, and turning wine into water.

By the time that session let out the expo had been closed for about 45 minutes or so, and the strike was quickly proceeding.

AutoCad Randomness

I learned a couple things today about AutoCAD (2007). First, if you have an ole object, for it to print you need to have the plot set to wire frame or as displayed. While that is fine for what I am working on - I could see where this could be a problem if I had a 3-D file.

This same variable also effects your text. I am printing something that has large text for the Cover the Walls diplay at USITT. When printed full size (3/4" tall), if the "hidden" option is toggled in shade plot, the text prints as outlines. Along with the ole objects, to get the text to fill, it must be set to wire frame or as displayed.

Array

So taking a breather from Pojects I was thinking about the post I did regarding the mirror command (using mirror and rotate at the same time). The more I think about it I wonder which is faster - the mirror copy/rotate or a simple polar array. Granted, the array will create 4 lines instead of 2- but they would be the correct size and orientation. I think bits like this is what makes AutoCAD so interesting yet challanging - there are lots of ways to do things, and each person may accomplish the same thing in different ways. So once you get to a certain skill level, and are accustomed to a certain way that they are comfortable, it is hard to pick up new ideas since the tricks are often in the subtle details of easy commands.

One of these days I am going to challange myself to see how many commands I use on a simple drafting package. I think there would be more dimensioning / text / and layout commands used than most of teh rest of the drafting.

Hatch Boudries

Lynn Allens Blog has an entry about a few new things coming in 2010. Since I just recently started with 2009, I suspect it will be a while before I can check this out first hand. However I will be eagerly anticipating the change.

I particularly thought that the hatch boundaries gap help was useful. I wonder if it will also work with Bpoly (boundary polyline) - a command I use when creating cnc files to create a closed polyline within a defined space. Gaps create problems with the cnc machine - so hopefully this will help spot errors prior to opening the file in the cnc software.

Mirroring in AutoCAD

The Daily AutoCAD blog routinely offers tips for drafting that are useful for starting and intermediate drafters. While there are often lisp programs, there are entries about drawing inclined lines and filleting corners as well.

Todays blog talked about using mirror to create a centerline mark. I think mirror is a command that is often under used because people don't think about how to fully utilize it.

When I used to teach drafting one of the challenges I would set forth was to draft an object (say a flat) using the fewest number of commands. While using mirror to copy and rotate the 2nd center line may not make you a 100% faster, thinking about how you use basic commands more efficiently on a global scale can make your drafting quicker and more accurate.

Updates

I wanted to post a couple of updates.

First, for the custom tool chests, I have updated the blog to show the company and link to their site. The company is Matco.

Also, I have enabled comments. I have always intended comments to be available, but evidently there was a second place I had to enable to get them to work correctly.

Lastly a few additional comments on drafting and autocad, picking up from my last post.

-When I taught AutoCAD there were two things I always told my students. There are numerous ways to do every command, and theatrical use of AutoCAD barely scratches the surface of the programs true capabilities. Following that was that AutoCAD builds on itself in every version. While a button or a pull down menu may be different from one version to the next, or one users set up to the next, text entry hasn't failed me yet. The downfall, is that sometimes you can take or leave the added features.

-More directly to the last post, I have a little better understanding of life before paperspace. I started on R14, but really got into the groove in 2000, and soon after, the 2002 version. Paperspace was introduced in R11. From then to R14 annotating in Paperspace was very different. You can take a look at a tutorial here.

Since I learned the more in the newer versions, I am used to the ease of those versions. And, I have if from other users that date back to R13, that annotating in paperspace is the way to go (He doesn't have much choice either way - its the drafting standard where I work). So if you haven't done it, you should try!

AutoCad Text

Beth Powell on Bethscadblog (9/19/08 post) wrote an entry on writing text in model space versus paper space. She acknowledges the controversy, but I was very surprised by her opinion. First, she says that most people use model space unless the info goes on all layouts. I do the opposite (depending on 2D or 3D) mostly, though if it was project specific text that would apply to all title block I would use other options.

Secondly, she allows that scaling text is easier than it used to be, as is controlling what you see in each viewport in paper space with the freeze function.

Finally, I think the telltale line is "While I have always dimensioned my model in model space". For those who put text in model space she says that "it turns out that users may have just been taught to dimension in paper space or to have simply not known any other way due to lack of more formal training."

My thoughts:
-Despite who easy rescaling your text is, why go to the extra work. If you do your text in paper space its always the right size. i can't tell you how many times I can look at a printed drawing and tell that the text and annotations where done in model space because they are different sizes when different scales have been applied on the same page.
-One of the beautiful things about paper space and good layer control is that you can draft items on top of each other. Your maso floor line can be under your flats. When you do your layouts you freeze or thaw the correct layers, and everything separates out correctly. If you dimension in model space you have to either create multiple layers of dimensions (which when in model space would end up getting turned off instead of frozen for clarity) so that you can turn on the right ones on paper space. This adds confusion in model space, demands more careful layer control, and/or turned off layers.
-Third, frankly, I can't really fathom putting text on a 3-D drawing in model space, and expecting it to transfer correctly to the inevitable multiple layout views.
-Yet, in interest of being completely honest, I will admit that on a quick, simple, "napkin sketch" I will put text and dimensions in model space. But for those drawings I don't usually bother with a title block at all, or use paper space.

While I hate to disagree with Beth because her blog has lots of great stuff on it, I can't be convinced of her arguments against paper space.

Opinions? Let me know!