Free Online Mindmap Creator

Mindmaps are useful to organise your thoughts, see a free tool that allows yo to create and share mindmaps.
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I've been using mindmaps more or less regularly for some months now. Mindmaps are a useful way to sort of write down your thought in a hierarchical way. Somehow is like creating an index with chapters and sub-chapters of your thoughts/ideas with the extra feature of being able to interlink them to show relationships. Probably the leading commercial mindmap tool is Mindjet's MindManager. I used Mindmanager for a while at work and works pretty good.

But this post is to talk about a free tool called MindMeister. The great thing of it is that has nearly the same features as paying apps (even it allows more freedom on where to place topics than mindmanager), it runs on the cloud so no need to install any software in your computer, and you do not need to go through a registration process, you can use your OpenID to log in. Excellent free tool. I would work a bit more on the connectors , since there seems to be no control over their shape, only over their color.
Even better, the ability to share the map with some collaborators who can edit it too or with the entire worldwide web makes it an excellent communication tool. Below you can see a map with some quick thoughts about the current topics at CAD-Addict.com.



via Carlos Camara.

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SketchUp Plugins: Make Fur / Grass

A Plugin to generate Fur / Grass with a lot of control.
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MAKE FUR (fur_en_v1_2.rb): Is a Plugin to create Fur / Hair or Grass created by tak2hata. It is very easy to use. See the following images.




Once you have installed the Plugin. Yo can access it via Right Click. Select a Face or a set of faces, Right click and select fur_1.2!. There are two options, a web dialog and an Imput dialog box. Either of them works very similarly. You can also access teh Plugin via the Plugins Menu.

You can download the Plugin here.

Via The Daily CatchUp

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SketchUp: Free Course Certificate

Get a 3D Design certificate with SketchUp for Free.
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I just got my "3D Designing with Google SketchUp" certificate for free at AECDaily. They offer a free podcast training and an online examination for free. If you pass the test, you'll get a certificate.


To access the podcast follow this link. If you are new to SketchUp better follow the podcast, if you are an experienced user, you might be able to take the test directly. Just be sure you review the PHOTOMATCH technique since they are quite a few questions about it.

via SketchUpLinks.

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Acrobat Pro: Turn Scaned Documents into Readable Ones

Turn scanned documents into readable (and searchable) ones with a built in function of Adobe Acrobat Professional
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This is again a bit far from the usual trend of posts, but bear with me, I've been doing a lot of writing and copy and paste lately, so not so much SketchUp and Revit fun for some days.
This quick tip is regarding scanned documents. Some times you might need to work with them. Someone sends you a scanned pdf and you wish you could use part of that thext without retyping it. Well you can with just a few clicks.
The tip is assuming you have Adobe Acrobat Pro installed. What you need to do is simply open the PDF in Acrobat Pro (not in Acrobat Reader) and go to Document --> OCR Text Recognition --> Recognize Text Using OCR. See the image below.


After clicking on it, we will get a screen that will let us choose the OCR Language. It is important to select the right language, especially for those languages with special caracters. My mother tongue, catalan has these characters for example: à, è, é, í, ò, ó, ú, ç, l·l. If you don't select the right language some of this characters will be interpreted wrong. Like for instance ó tends to be read as a number 6 if you leave English as a language when scanning in Catalan or Spanish.


The Output is here called "Searchable Image". This is actually a great feature, because it keeps the image almost intact, while allowing you to search for the document on a full text search query.

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SketchUp Plugins: Export 3D PDFs

Export your SketchUp models to 3D PDF format to share them with people that doesn't have Sketchup
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If you want to share your 3D model with someone that doesn't have SketchUp installed or you simply want to integrate your 3D model in a 3D presentation, you might be interested in this commercial plugin.
SimLab 3d PDF from Sketchup allows you to directly export 3D PDF from SketchUP. There is a free trial for 30 days. The license costs 95$.

Click on the image below to see a PDF created with this plugin


The free trial doesn't allow full control of the advanced features though. WIth a more complicated model, I also found some bugs (duplicated elements on the wrong position).

On the positive side, the plugin can export the section planes and it will add a buttpon to toggle them. So it really becomes like having sketchup (without editing tools) inside your pdf file. You can also select geometry and switch it off and on depending on what is it that you want to see.


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Book of the Month: Location-Based Management for Construction

A book about a better way to Schedule and Control construction projects.
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On the lecture I am following about Schedule Management we've been taught so far only CPM (Critical Path Methodology) and PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique). These are the mainstream methodologies nowadays to schedule and control projects. These methodolies could be described as "activity-based" methodologies.

Because a possible job opportunity I was asked to get into an alternative way of Scheduling projects. What it is known as Location-Based Management Systems (LBMS). To learn about this there are many sources online, but the best way is with no doubt with this month's "Book of the Month". "Location Based Management for Construction. Planning, Schedulling and Control" by Kenley and Seppännen is the new "Bible" to learn about Location Based Techniques.

or or

The idea behind Location based techniques is that they allow a better continuity of tasks, they let you see if different crews would interfere with each other and allow you to get forecasts of the project evolution (based on controlling and reviewing project status) and to see if deadlines will be achieved or not. LBMS are also very much related to techniques such as Model Based Estimates (Quantity Estimations from BIM Models) and Virtual Construction Techniques.

The book is not only good to learn about LBMS, but it also gives a good introduction to Critical Path Method (CPM), Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT), the Arrow Diagram Method (ADM), Precedence Diagram Method (PDM) and other mainstream Schedulling techniques. It is expensive, but half the way though it I think it is worth every Dollar/Euro you invested in it.



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MS Office: Collaborate using Google Docs

Use Google Docs collaboration features from your MS Office desktop interface.
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Collaboration is one of the key words in my opinion to improve efficiency. It might be collaboration between team members in the same office, collaboration between members of the same company sitting in different locations or collaboration between consultants to produce common documents.

Collaboration is not only important when we talk about producing drawings or models or BIM. It is also very important when producing documents where more than one stakeholder has to contribute in their production. I am talking about spreadsheets with area calculations or word documents containing technical specifications and so on.

Google Docs is a collaboration tool by Google that allows this sort of multi-party edit and sharing of documents. It can handle spreadsheets, word documents and presentations. In the business environment though, MS Office is the leader in creating this sort of documents, so many might not want to use Google Docs to share their docs because they are used to the better functionality and editing features of the Microsoft proprietary software package. But soon this might change.

There is a new tool to use the best of both platforms. It is called OffiSync and it is intended to allow you to use MS Office desktop programs to create and edit your documents and to use Google Doc sharing and collaboration features to share them and edit them together with your collaborators. See the intro video below.


OffiSync can be downloaded here. There is a free version and a Premium one with different level of features. Try it. Better collaboration is the future.

via Geeks.cat


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AutoCAD: Know the properties of a Nested Object

What is the layer of an Object in an Xref? Does it use color byLayer? List the properties of a Nested Object with this easy to use command.
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If you need to know the layer of a nested object (to switch off that layer for instance) or other of its properties, you might want to use the XLIST command.
This command allows you to see the Object Type, the Block Name (in case the object is neted in a Block), the layer, the Color and the Linetype properties. The image below is an example of the results of using the XLIST command.


The command can also be called on the command line bar, using the -XLIST version. LazyDrafter reported recently that this helps when having very long XREF or Layer names, as the dialog box is sometimes too small to allow you to see the layer name complete.

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Revit Basics: 3D Orbit with Scroll Wheel

3D Orbit in Revit can be done like in AutoCAD... don't panic!!
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Ok, this is another tip many might consider dumb, but since I am learning slowly I am sure there will be people learning like me. It is about using the 3D view and rotating it easily to visualize your model.

At first, I got pretty frustrated when I though I would have to use the View Cube to rotate a 3D view. The View Cube has some nice features that will be explained soon, but rotating the view its not its best one. It works, but being on the edge of the scree makes it a bit uncomfortable. Luckily, I remembered how you can 3D Orbit in AutoCAD and thought: "it must work here too, it's also Autodesk's software". And it does.

Simply press the Shift button and the central mouse button (scroll wheel) and move your mouse. You'll be able to Orbit your model better than using the View Cube. Dumb tip?


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SketchUp Plugins: Better Unfold Tool - Flattery

A new Free Plugin to unfold your Model in SketchUp.
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Some time ago I posted about the Unfold Tool Plugin for SketchUp. Recently I found out throught the Daily CathUp that Pumpkinpirate has released a better Unfold tool called Flattery. I set myself to try it and produced this quick video about it.


The Plugin an be downloaded through the Pumpkinpirate website. Great Job.


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Potoshop: CS5 New Feature - Content-Aware Fill

An amazing new feature that will be available in the new CS5 version.
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Ever wanted to erase some element from a picture using photoshop? Depending on the image, this might take ages, because the background might be very complicated to duplicate. Adobe is announcing an amazing new feature called Content-Aware Fill that apparently makes this a piece of cake. See the video below...It even seems to good to be true...


To read more about the new features of Potoshop CS5 go to the PCWorld Article about it. Photoshop CS5 can be preordered at Adobe.com, it will ship around mid-May 2010.


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SketchUp Plugins: Make your Model 3D-Print-Ready

A Plugin to help you turn your models into STL files ready for 3D Printing
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With the evolution of 3D printing technology, 3D Printing is becoming more and more common during the design process. To get good results with 3D printing we need to be sure that our model is ready for it. Sketchup is a great design tool, but you will agree with me that sometimes a model might get quite messy if we are not paying too much attention to the way we model.

CADSpan has a free plugin to convert your model into what is called a "water tight" model. Water tight models are needed for the 3D printers to be able to produce the physical model in one piece. The Plugin also eliminates duplicated and overlapping faces. It basically cleans up the model and lets you export it to the STL file format system that's the standard. See the video below by CADSpan.


The Plugin can be found at the CADSpan website. There is a Free and a Pro Version of it.


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