Up and Ready

Maya 2013: Using mental ray Satellite with Windows 7

We have had users report that mental ray satellite 2013 is not running on some Windows 7 machines.  Users have reported errors of failed connection to the satellite machine or even running the service will fail with errors.

For more details, please check out this post via the Maya Station:

http://mayastation.typepad.com/maya-station/2012/04/mental-ray-satellite-2013-windows-not-working-on-machines.html

Autodesk Suites: Showcase uses a lot of GPU and will make some of your products "slower"

Autodesk Showcase 2013 which is in most of the Autodesk Design & Creation Suites is basically like a real time renderer.  Basically, you apply a shader and go and the result is awesome.  IMHO, you can use the print screen option and use the image in your demo real or portfolio*! To make this techology work, Showcase requires serious GPU muscle and it will use all of it. 

Issue

"One of the side effects is that if you are running AutoCAD, Inventor and Revit at the same time as Showcase, you may experience some slow downs."

Solution

"Autodesk Showcase uses the graphics card to its full potential.  This may sometimes lead to other applications not having enough resources to maintain acceptable performance and responsiveness. 

In particular, the Task UI feature in Showcase is most associated with such performance degradation in other products.  Turning this Showcase feature off by temporarily toggling Options -> Show Task UI  (Q) will restore the previous performance levels in your Autodesk product."

Reference:

AutoCAD 
http://usa.autodesk.com/getdoc/id=TS19324337

Revit
http://usa.autodesk.com/getdoc/id=TS19334350

Inventor
http://usa.autodesk.com/getdoc/id=TS19334343

 

*An very interesting article on renderfarms is here:

http://www.slashfilm.com/cool-stuff-a-look-at-pixar-and-lucasfilms-renderfarms/

Epilogue

As of May 10th, 2012, this issue is resolved when you install Showcase 2013 SP1.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/index?siteID=123112&id=2334435&linkID=9242539

Navisworks Manage 2012: Insert WSE 3.0 Disk and click OK Message

Here is an interesting scenario and solution from a customer, when installing Navisworks Manage 2012:

Error: Insert WSE 3.0 Disk and click OK.

We even downloaded the WSE 3.0 from the Microsoft site and pointed it to the extracted location and it would still not install the software.

The solution was to install the software in the 'primary' Administrator account.  It would not work using the [Manage] User's account even though it was added to the Administrators group.

Thanks to Sean Gitter for confirming that this workflow solved the problem.  

Epilogue

Thanks for James Smith for finding this download that does work! This is the Web Services Enhancements (WSE) 3.0 for Microsoft .NET Redistributable Runtime MSI.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=6545

Autodesk Revit [One Box]: Licensing and Installation FAQ

What is Autodesk Revit [One Box] in the Building Design Suite Premium / Ultimate and how do I install and deploy it if I still have access to the other Revit Suite licenses?

In this case, I am going to use the following scenario to help illustrate how the licensing works:

• AutoCAD Revit MEP Suite 2013 x 50 licenses
• Building Design Suite Premium/Ultimate 2013 x 5 licenses

Autodesk Revit [aka Revit One Box] does not cascade down to the AutoCAD Revit MEP Suite license, or the standalone Revit vertical licenses.  It will cascade up to the Building Design Suite Premium, Building Design Suite Ultimate, Educational and Multi-flex offerings.

• Autodesk Revit MEP and AutoCAD MEP products installed through the Revit MEP Suite will cascade up to the Building Design Suite Premium/Ultimate pool.

• If you have multiple license types in the pool, Autodesk Revit [aka Revit One Box]  will always pull a license from the Building Design Suite Premium/Ultimate pool.

We would recommend installing/deploying Revit MEP from the Revit MEP Suite media as the general practice. Only if somebody truly needs the multi-discipline capabilities of Autodesk Revit, should they install that version, since it will always pull a Building Design Suite license from that pool.

Autodesk Revit can only be purchased as part of the Building Design Suite Premium or Building Design Suite Ultimate.

The Trial version of Revit is indeed a [One Box] version and includes Revit Architecture, MEP and Structure.

Reference:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?id=6668606&siteID=123112

http://usa.autodesk.com/building-information-modeling/

http://thebuildingcoder.typepad.com/blog/2012/04/migrate-building-coder-samples-to-revit-2013.html

Epilogue

A quick note about the deployments, if your site has Revit Architecture Suite 2013, Revit MEP Suite 2013, Revit Structure Suite 2013 and Build Design Suite Premium / Ultimate 2013, you will need to create 4 types of deployment for each of the Revit types in order to cascade the licenses correctly.

AutoCAD MEP 2013: Another APPCRASH issue resolved

We recently got a case come into Product Support in which we had an APPCRASH with AutoCAD 2013 MEP.

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: acad.exe
Application Version: 25.0.55.0
Application Timestamp: 4f309abd
Fault Module Name: StackHash_6446
Fault Module Version: 6.1.7601.17725
Fault Module Timestamp: 4ec4aa8e
Exception Code: c0000374
Exception Offset: 00000000000c40f2
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 6446
Additional Information 2: 6446f7187a4e6d14520f2df8295a07b0
Additional Information 3: 000c
Additional Information 4: 000cf6aa7a2c242e8417175e6b9d2189

The problem was caused by a hang during the Migrate Custom Settings option.  In this case the solution was to completely uninstall AutoCAD 2013 and the reinstall it. You can always migrate your settings at a later time as well.

Reference:

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2011/05/autocad-family-migration-custom-settings-file-zip-is-empty.html

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2011/08/autocad-civil-3d-2012-migrating-your-settings.html

http://usa.autodesk.com/getdoc/id=TS45252

Thanks to Tad Byrne for sharing this tip to the community.

Quick Start: Some tips when using & installing Commercial and EDU versions of our software

Here are some of my favourite posts [Quick Start] when dealing with Educational users of Autodesk software.

1.   In AutoCAD, *.dwg files that were created by an EDU version of the software will always have a Plot Stamp embedded in the file and there is no way to get rid of it. Please check out this post for further details:

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2011/08/consequences-in-using-drawings-or-components-from-drawings-created-with-a-student-version-of-autodesk-products.html

2.  If you had installed an Educational version of the software and you at some point install the Commercial  version, you will need to perform some additional steps when installing it on the same computer:

Windows
http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2011/10/autocad-family-edu-and-commercial.html

Mac
http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2013/02/reset-standalone-licensing-on-the-mac.html

3.  Here is another post from the Without a Net blog site to quickly test if a *.dwg  file has an Educational Plot Stamp in it: 

http://withoutanet.typepad.com/without_a_net/2012/02/using-dwg-convert-to-identify-drawings-that-contain-content-from-an-educational-version.html

 

Downloading Software: Be careful when using your filters

We have received some cases in which you don't have any downloadable options in the Subscription Center.  Just be careful when using using filters. For example, the Product Design Suite is only available in Windows so if you select a Mac/Linux option as a filter, the software listing will be blank.

Thanks to Jose Lucio Bielski for this tip.

Inventor 2012 Family: Cannot embed PDF files in a 64 bit version of Inventor

Please read this new technical article if you experience problems when linking or emdedding PDF files in Inventor.

via beinginventive.typepad.com

General Licensing: Windows System Requirements [2013] for the Network License Manager 11.10

There are many ways to find this information, in the case our latest server tools 11.10 system requirements can be found in the Wikihelp here:

Windows

http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Alias/enu/2013/Help/0000-Alias_In0/0179-Autodesk179/0201-Network_201/0202-Planning202/0207-Windows_207

Mac

http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Alias/enu/2013/Help/0000-Alias_In0/0179-Autodesk179/0201-Network_201/0202-Planning202/0209-Mac_OS_X209

Linux

http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Alias/enu/2013/Help/0000-Alias_In0/0179-Autodesk179/0201-Network_201/0202-Planning202/0208-Linux_Sy208

Reference:

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2012/03/licensing-autodesk-network-license-manager-1110-is-ready.html

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2011/09/general-licensing-windows-system-requirements-for-the-network-license-manager.html

For the Mac and Linux, you can actually check the Autodesk Certified Hardware list as well to get an idea on what operating systems are in the test matrix.

Epilogue

http://usa.autodesk.com/getdoc/id=GS18229122 created on July 23, 2012.

Uninstall Tool for AutoCAD Design Suite 2013

Last week Autodesk released a tool specifically for uninstalling AutoCAD Design Suite 2013 and any products and plug-ins that can be installed as part of those suites.

The tool gives you the option to uninstall the following programs and plug-ins (if found):

• AutoCAD 2013
• Autodesk Raster Design 2013
• Autodesk Alias 2013
• FARO LS
• Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2013
• Autodesk Alias 2013 License
• Autodesk Backburner 2013
• Autodesk Composite 2013
• Autodesk Revit Interoperability for 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design 2013
• Autodesk Essential Skills Movies for 3ds Max Design 2013
• Autodesk Showcase 2013
• Autodesk SketchBook Designer Plugin for AutoCAD 2013
• Autodesk DirectConnect 2013
• Autodesk SketchBook Designer 2013
• Autodesk Mudbox 2013
• Autodesk Design Review 2013
• Autodesk Inventor Fusion 2013
• Autodesk Inventor Fusion Plugin for AutoCAD 2013
• Autodesk Workflows - AutoCAD Design Suite 2013
• Autodesk Material Library 2013
• Autodesk Material Library Base Resolution Image Library 2013
• Autodesk Material Low Resolution Image Library
• Autodesk Material Library Medium Resolution Image Library 2013
• Autodesk Content Service
• Autodesk CAD Manager Tools
• Autodesk Network License Manager
• Autodesk Cloud Sync

How to perform an automated uninstallation of the AutoCAD Design Suite 2013 family of products?

via withoutanet.typepad.com