Inside Hues
Product Marketing Manager Lisa Crounse takes you on a behind the scenes tour of what goes into developing a new technology for Autodesk Labs. Lisa introduces you to members of the Impression development team and shares their unique ideas and insights.
Latest Post
- posted 08/27/07 by Lisa Crounse See you at AU?
- Its that time again - time to sign up for Autodesk University which will take place November 27 - November 30 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
As always, there will be a ton to learn and see. This year, there are 5 different classes which will focus specifically on Impression.
Here's the roster -
A Quick Spin on Autodesk Impression - Taught by Travis Jones, the content expert who is helping us develop some new training content, this Hands-On Lab will be a great way to get up to speed on Impression. (Chances are if you are reading this blog, you know a lot about Impression, but maybe you have colleagues that could use some hands on training...)
FYI: Fueling Your Impression - Your design documents provide the fuel for creating great-looking presentation drawings with Autodesk Impression. Getting superb output in the Impression rendering pipeline starts with understanding the options available to get the best input into the system. In this class, Ron Palma -- the author of several “AutoCAD” and “AutoCAD for Architects” books and a frequent lecturer in Revit workshops -- will demonstrate the best ways to work with Impression and Autodesk design applications. We’ll explore topics such as document preparation, output options, and best practices for streamlining the flow from design to illustration. We’ll discuss utilities within Impression, such as Style Mapping, Block Substitution, and CAD Refresh that permit automated, iterative rendering of CAD works in progress.
Signature Styles and Entourage for Autodesk Impression - Want to take full advantage of the Styles and Blocks in your Impression drawings? Yan Schober, a member of the Impression Product Design team will show you the ins and outs of creating custom styles and entourage elements. Yan knows Impresison backwards and forwards so this is sure to be a great class (but thats just my opinion...)
Integrating Autodesk Impression into Your Workflow - A look at methods of integrating Autodesk Impression into your presentation drawing workflow, with a focus on preparing your AutoCAD drawings -- both 2D and 3D -- for use in Impression. We'll also look at other best practices when using Impression for great presentation drawings...brought to you by the author of the famous Impression Skycraper image, Ged Trias!
Using Autodesk Impression to…Make an Impression! - Do you want to “wow” your clients with stylish AutoCAD-based 3D models or 2D drawing presentations? In this session, we’ll explore the powerful capabilities of Autodesk Impression and how you can quickly and easily develop traditional renderings and colorized presentation graphics from DWG and DWF files. You’ll learn how to create and apply styles, substitute AutoCAD blocks with stylized blocks, and how to apply similar styles to other CAD files. This class is part of the AutoCAD 3D Power Track.
As always, members of the Impression team will be on hand in the Exhibition center to chat about your experiences wih Impresison. More on that as we get closer to the show.
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Previous Posts
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Working with Revit Files in Impression
Posted 08/22/07 by Lisa Crounse
We get a lot of questions about working with Revit files in Impression. Here is a high level summary of what you need to do to get your Revit files ready for Impression. (Credit goes to the Impression Help system)
Prepare the Revit Drawing
The basic steps for preparing a Revit drawing are as follows:
1. Make a copy of the Revit file. Save the file locally to prevent accidental modification of the source drawing.
2. In that copy, prepare the view you want to stylize.
- Create a new view if necessary.
- Delete any geometry that is not required for the illustration.
- Set the rotation or viewpoint of the objects in the view.
3. Add the view to a new sheet.
4. Export the sheet to a DWG (preferred) or DWF format. This activity creates three files:
- Large DWG file representing the 3D model.
- Smaller DWG file representing the view.
- PCP file containing the plotter configuration files.
Open and Stylize the Revit Drawing in Impression
After you have exported your Revit file, as described above, open and stylize the view in Impression.
1. Open the smaller DWG or DWF file that contains the view.
Note: Specify a plot style as the file is opened in order to preserve information about how the original drawing was rendered.
2. Edit block styles, or explode blocks in order to apply styles directly. Many materials textures are converted to blocks in Impression. To apply stylizations, do one or more of the following
- In the Styles palette, under Block Styles, select the block style and edit its settings in the Style Editor.
- Explode the block. Then set the resulting objects to be bylayer (to inherit the layer style) or apply the style as an object override.
3. Edit textures that are imported as hatch fills. Some materials are imported as hatch fills, which can be edited just as you would edit any other hatch style.
4. Apply styles and area fills to finish the drawing. See Apply Appearance Styles and Add Fill to Closed Areas.
NoteWhen Impression imports 3D views, “hidden” objects are deleted or clipped. If objects in the foreground need to be removed, you may want to update the original drawing and then update the CAD geometry.
Have some suggestions for how we should better address Revit/Impression interoperability? Please post your suggestions to the Impression Wish List. -
New Content from iSymbol
Posted 08/10/07 by Lisa Crounse
Looking for more pre-built blocks for your Impression drawings? Be sure to check out the new bitmap block libraries from iSymbol that are posted on the Impression Community Content Exchange.
They include everything from shrubs and trees to sinks and sofas.
Take a look.
iSymbol Webpage - http://www.isymbol.eu/
Coming soon - more Entourage from the Impression team. -
Ready for a bit of Impression online?
Posted 08/08/07 by Lisa Crounse
Autodesk Impression functionality now appears in Project Freewheel! With this functionality, you can apply a few different styles to your 2D designs.
Check out the latest with this Labs project.
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Impression on the Pod waves
Posted 08/03/07 by Lisa Crounse
Autodesk Geek Shaan Hurley was recently interviewed for a CADTIMES podcast. Shaan runs our beta programs, and hosts a popular blog so I figured that the interview would be about all that stuff. Somehow he ends up introducing the CADTIMES world to Impression up front and central. Who knew our little software application would become a star?
Listen to Shaan's interview at http://www.cadtimes.com/blog/?p=18