The Cool-CAD Corner

Pecha Kucha Night

2007-08-27T20:18:00Z

What is it? Devised by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham (Klein Dytham architecture), Pecha Kucha Night was conceived in 2003 as a place for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. Yeah yeah, I already hear you say "been there, done that, ..." but here's what makes this initiative stand out. Every presenter (designer, architect, ...) can present 20 images (designs). Each image is shown for 20 seconds. This way every presenter gets exactly 6 minutes and 40 seconds in the spotlight. Why this approach? Because this keeps presentations concise, the interest level up, and gives more people the chance to show.

Have a look at the Pecha Kucha Night homepage and check for events near you, there's plenty of them all over the world. Also have a look at the Klein Dytham website for cool images of previous Pecha Kucha Night editions as well as more detailed infroamtion.

Although I think this is a cool concept, I haven't been to one of these local Pecha Kucha Nights myself, but maybe some of you have? If so, pls feel free to share your feedback and comments via this Blog post. I'm eager to find out what you guys think about this initiative.

Pimp-up my PDF

2007-08-22T20:12:00Z

Did you know you can easily share all your 3D MicroStation designs via an interactive PDF document? Just imagine, instead of sending your customer a long boring document with flat drawings of your project proposal, you can now - by the push of a button - provide them with an intelligent and interactive model of what the end result will look like. As long as your customer has Adobe Reader 7 installed, he/she can not only view your 3D model, but they can also interact with it. Make sections, change lighting, rotate, fly through, change color, measure dimensions, ... basically it can do everything short of cooking and cleaning their kitchen (and even than ;-).

This is probably the marketeer in me geeking-out but I truly love this capability! Especailly since it's a native feature of MicroStation (and even Bentley RedLine) and doesn't require any add-ons to be installed. Just have a look at some of these real-world examples and tell me this is not the coolest thing you've seen all day/week/month/year! Especially don't miss the following interactive PDF examples:

3D helicopter animation
BDP proposal
Storage tank installation animation

Everything you always wanted to know about Bentley's BIM apps... but were afraid to ask

2007-08-17T14:37:00Z

If you're looking for practical tips 'n tricks on how to use the Bentley BIM applications (and even MicroStation), than check out this BIM PodCast page. It's setup and kept up to date by my fellow Bentley colleague, Lawrence Eaton... outside office hours of course (Lawrence, if you're reading this, you really do need to get yourself a hobby :-).

The PodCast sessions are rather technical in nature, but thanks to Lawrence's British lecturing capabilities, even a technicaly-handicaped marketing person such as myself gets it. Each session doesn't take up more than 10 minutes and is easily downloadable. This way you can store them for viewing later (via iTunes) or even take them with you on your iPod.

BeLux CAD-people unite!

2007-08-08T12:54:00Z

Are you a CAD-user located in Belgium or Luxemburg? Are you eager to learn about new trends and improve your CAD skills? Than mark 19 September in your agenda because the BE User communities from Flanders, Wallonia and Luxemburg are hosting their annual BeLux user meeting in Brussels. CAD-users from various industries will be attending, as well as Bentley's CEO Greg Bentley.

Full details about this event, as well as a registration form, can be found online:

IMPORTANT: You don't need to be a Bentley user to attend. Autodesk and other CAD users are also more than welcome to join.

I'll see you there!

A tribute to the (Bentley) user

2007-08-07T17:18:00Z

The following is probably one of the most usefull and interesting pieces of Bentley content I've seen since I joined the company last year: The Project Yearbook 2006. Unfortunately we kindo keep it hidden away quit well :-)

OK it's Bentley content, but that doesn't mean it's not interesting for non-Bentley users as well. In fact it's even more relevant for non-Bentley users I'd say. Just have a look and browse through some of the most remarkable projects our users accomplished last year. The handy search feature (at the top of the page) makes sure you don't need to waste time searching for the projects that are relevant to you. Just type in what you're looking for (industry, country, company,...) and... boom, start reading!

As soon as the 2007 edition goes live (not sure exactly when this will be though) I'll make sure to post it as well. Oh and ah, before I forget, you can also look up "older" projects ('04 and '05) right here.