As you may or may not know, Autodesk University is coming up in just a couple short months. It’s an annual tradition of design geeks of all shapes and sizes coming together to teach, learn, and share in each others’ passions and struggles for the software they use to get the job done. AU2011 is November 29th – December 1st out in Las Vegas and you can find out more information here.
Last year at AU I was a lab assistant for 2 classes, attended a bunch more, took part in …

You may or may not have noticed, but there was a big gap in time where no posting was going on at Indydrafter.com, or it was sparse at best. It wasn’t due to a lack of writing or creative ideas, however. I was busy creating posts for the IMAGINiT Technologies Civil Solutions Blog where I contributed many articles covering Civil 3D and Map 3D tips and techniques, as well as details regarding the new 2012 products Autodesk released in April/May.
Below, you will find a list and links for all the …

Microsoft didn’t include the Jet engine with 64-bit operating systems and thus disabled for use within 64-bit versions of Autodesk software (i.e. Map 3D 2010 and Civil 3D 2011). As you can probably guess, this causes a lot of problems and should raise alarm. For one, there are literally thousands of .mdb files out there based upon the Microsoft Access 32-bit architecture which can no longer be utilized for geospatial data. What’s a person to do in this scenario?
Until recently, the only options available were to install a 32-bit version …

Whether you are an architect, urban planner, civil or environmental engineer, municipality, or utility company you have probably come into contact with GIS. GIS stands for Geographic Information Systems, and they are far more useful than most people realize. Even if you aren’t in one of these professional fields, you’re still utilizing these systems (in a lesser level of detail and functionality) every time you search for driving directions online or with your GPS device. Join me for the September AUGIndy meeting as I lead the discussion on utilizing GIS …

In either AutoCAD Civil 3D or Map 3D, we often find ourselves designing a set of plans or planning a utility layout with aerial photography in the background. Most designers will do most of their drafting with the image either unloaded or turn off the layer it is on as this reduces the amount of processing time for simple actions such as panning and zooming. There is a small “flaw” with the default settings that many people have run into with an aerial or any background image,which I’ll be getting …