I'm in love with my new 3D Connexion CAD Mouse!!!!

My new 3D Connexion CAD Mouse arrived today!!!! In a nutshell, after using it for just a couple hours, I'm never going to use another mouse again! The single biggest win for this device? A dedicated middle mouse button for panning in viewports.

After I unboxed it (nice packaging too), I downloaded the driver, installed, plugged the mouse in and found a reboot is required. One of the first things I noticed after unboxing it is the USB cord. It is advertised as a braided cord, however in person, looks more like a rope to me and seems out of place on a typical office desk. I like it though! Its cord length should be long enough to head under the desk for those that like their computers out of sight. Its lightweight too, it feels lighter than it should for having that metallic type finish around the base of it.

Once my reboot completed, I immediately sensed a noticeable change in on screen movement of the mouse cursor. It's hard to describe really, more my perception than anything, however it does seem easier to point to a specific object. The buttons seem easier to click and my initial reaction on the middle/right buttons is that it is going to take some getting used to - especially with finger placement (more on this in a moment). The size of the mouse is on par with the Logitech M/N M-U0007, only wider in the mid-body and toward the front. The Logitech mouse allows most of my hand to rest on it with my pinky finger and half of my ring finger hanging off. The old Dell mouse I had been using (M/N M-BAC-DEL5) is even narrower than both the Logitech and CAD Mouse, resulting in half my hand resting on the mouse and 2 fingers hanging off. The wider CAD Mouse design resulted in the whole width of my hand resting on the CAD Mouse and only my pinky finger hangs off the side of it which is just enough to grip it adequately.

The Gesture button does take some effort to click due to its placement on the mouse, yet offers immediate shortcuts in general Windows interface and typical MS Office apps. Things like opening your default browser, copy/paste, top/bottom of page, etc. are all found on the Gesture menu. The cool thing is that it only takes one click to use - click the Gesture button, then slide your mouse in the direction of the command you want which will then activate it without clicking. When the Windows Desktop has focus, Gesture button can access the CAD Mouse properties.

Always one to explore configurations, I found I needed to make an immediate change to default settings. I'm not sure why the CAD Mouse precision defaulted to a Sensor Polling Rate of 250Hz when product is advertised as capable of 1000Hz sampling. After adjusting this to 1000Hz, I felt I needed to increase my default speed settings slightly to match the enhanced sampling rate.

Now that I felt I had a handle on the settings of the CAD Mouse, I decided to give it a shot in Revit.  I noticed the Gesture button has different application specific gestures - I need to look into these more after getting more accustomed to the mouse. Zooming with the scroll wheel is grippy from any non-ergonomic angle and immediately noticeable on how easy it is to scroll. One thing with recent mouse design that drives me bonkers is their tendency to have the ability to roll the wheel left/right in addition to forward/backward. This has been disastrous in my opinion to having a scroll wheel work well as a Pan tool. After 5 minutes using it in Revit, OH MY GOODNESS I DON’T HAVE TO PAN WITH A WHEEL ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Getting used to middle mouse button for Pan should take about 5 minutes or less… I can't describe how great it is to be freed from using a wheel to Pan and just use a regular button. It takes me back in time more years than I care to admit, when mouse design was simpler and not driven to appeal to the masses of internet users.

The icing on the cake, so to speak is that I also got the CAD Mouse Pad from 3D Connexion along with the mouse. This is a great, high quality mouse pad. Its also BIG - almost 3 times as big as my old mouse pad (approximate dimensions: old 7.5"x7.75"@58sqin & new 9.75"x13.75"@134sqin). I'm sure they intended it to be placed long side facing me (think widescreen), but then it gets in the way of where I have my laptop docked so I've got it oriented vertically (think vertical video syndrome). Either way, its still way bigger than my last mouse pad - RIP CAD Monkey. The surface provides a seemingly friction-less surface and has a nice rigidness to it which could allow me to mouse on the sofa if I wanted to.

In summary, the two things I love the most on this CAD Mouse are the extra grippy scroll wheel & the dedicated middle mouse button. I do wish it had a wireless option and that the Gesture button wasn't so far back on the device. Otherwise, everything else is just an added bonus that adds up to something more that the sum of its parts. I look forward to using it in more applications too such as AutoCAD & 3ds Max. I have to admit that I was skeptical about it based on its price at first. Now after having spent some time with it, I have to say I would easily justify its cost. I've attached some of my pictures I took to this post, for more info such as detailed specs, pricing and more, head on over to: http://www.3dconnexion.com/products/cadmouse 

CAD Mouse

CAD Mouse Pad

Autodesk University 2014 : It's a Wrap!

74,000 plus steps - more than 21 miles walked this year at AU. Multiple classes, business meetings, great keynote sessions, a real life hoverboard and more made up for a great AU.

For me, the class highlight was seeing an entire train maintenance yard modeled in Revit. Rails, ties, utilities, structures, signage and more was all done in Revit. Great tips for challenges encountered along the way. Check out the class if you can! CV5504-P Case Study for a Civil-Based BIM Project Using Revit

The keynote highlight had to be the hoverboard. As a kid, Back to the Future II hit a sweet spot for me and I grew up wishing I had one. Now they are real! Well, difficult to obtain and challenging to find a surface to ride them on but definitely real! Check out HendoHover for more info.

Now I need to bring together the ideas found into the everyday workflow our projects see, should be a fun 2015 lurking right around the corner!

USC Practical BIM 2012 Highlights

USC Practical BIM 2012 event this year was excellent! Great speakers sharing what they've done to make BIM practical for them and how we can do the same. For those that weren't able to be there, here are some of the highlights from the day.

Session 1A: Practicing Practical Practice

Some called this slot the BIM Dream Team as Marcello Sgambelluri, Jay Zallan & Troy Gates presented topics. Marcello talked about project budgets and not allowing over zealous modelers eat away your fees by generating unneeded geometry. Just because its spatially correct, doesn't mean its nessecary. Talk with the whole project team, including the owner, to ensure you are working towards a common goal. Jay mentioned that AutoCAD processes don't always require architectural practices to be good, whereas BIM processes do - something I'd agree with. This means planning! Plans are nothing - planning is everything! Do you plan out how you will execute your next BIM project or simply hope it will go well? Troy spoke about how his company always follows a BIM execution plan for BIM projects they work on. It's essential for seamlessly integrating all the teams and the technology used. In all, I'd have to say these 3 sessions were the highlight of the entire day!

Session 2A: Connection : Customization : Cloud
Johnson Fain showed off some of their design work done in Revit to kick off this session - great designs were shown! It was interesting to see their software history shown as having gone from AutoCAD to Revit around 2005. Dennis Sheldon, CTO of Gehry Technologies, shared some insight on projects they are working on, including a massive shared project with over 200 concurrent shared users accessing the model, 80 trades involved & spread internationally across 12 countries. Mario Guttman presented some of the great tools he has been developing for Revit, specifically those found at Whitefeet. Go check them out if you haven't already!

Session 3A: Integration : Collaboration : Ownership
Michael Cervantes from LACCD presented their efforts on BIM from an owners perspective. They are holding lofty standards on their projects done in BIM to ensure they can take advantage of the data downstream after project completion. This was also the first time I'd see a presentation done with Prezi - really slick presentation tool that's way better than PPT.

Session 4A: BIM Implementation

It was great to see David Graue & Gautam Shenoy present how they've approached bringing BIM into HNTB. They likened BIM to Warcraft - A Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMPORPG). Everyone has a role to play - learn to rely on each others strengths as you go on your campaign!

Session 5A: Real and Virtual

Kimon Onuma presented the efforts that Onuma Systems have put into with the California Community College District (CCCD) on getting all campus facility data into an online system. Due to the efforts they've put into it, you can view the majority of info about CCCD facilities in Google Earth. You can also continue to add info and data as new projects are completed or as existing buildings are retrofitted. Kimon closed by asking "What would you do with 71 million square feet of BIM"? Why not surf it?



Hopefully, you too will find success on your next BIM project by applying practical efforts to it!

2013 Autodesk products are coming!

Yesterday Lynn Allen posted "what's new" for AutoCAD 2013, due to be available soon. While I'm really excited for the pending next release of Revit, we still have a need for AutoCAD and you may too. So go check out what's next for AutoCAD!

A Little Bit of Yesterday...

I found AutoCAD 2000 on a computer today - still running! It took me back more than a few years seeing that familiar red and yellow icon...

Fortunately, I won't need to worry about using it today!