CAD design article..

I just finished an article called Exploiting CAD for Fuselage Design which is published in preliminary form on the PAMPA web site as an HTML page.

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The link is http://www.zianet.com/pampaeditor/cad.htm

Your comments and suggestions are welcome.

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"If you ever reach total enlightenment while you're drinking a beer, I bet it makes beer shoot out your nose." -Jack Handy

LAST EDITED ON Aug-11-03 AT 04:23 PM (CDT)
 
>I just finished an article called Exploiting CAD for
>Fuselage Design which is published in preliminary form
>on the PAMPA web site as an HTML page.
>
>
>The link is
>http://www.zianet.com/pampaeditor/cad.htm
>
>Your comments and suggestions are welcome.
>

As usual with your stuff, first rate. Learned a couple of new tricks myself.

One thing you might want to add is the the ability to take a polyline and convert it to a spline using pedit. This is very handy when dealing with complex curves. You can put in a five to ten point polyline and move the points around until it is close to the desired outline. Use the Polyline edit function to convert it to a spline and the figure gets nicely smoothed out. You can even explode it after that and then reconnect it as a polyline, although this time it will have a lot more points.

This gets real useful when doing wingtips, stabs, and airfoils, but that is another subject... .

Bob

Added Later: Reread your article, and realized that you are doing virtually the same thing with splinefit as I am doing with polyline edit. Cool.

One other thing. For those who want to laser cut, best results seem to come from continuous polylines. To do that and join polylines together, a CAD user needs to know how to use snaps to get the endpoints of the two lines at precisely the same position in the drawing.

BK

Larry,

Yes, we do need another article like this. Only a quick scan through before (trying to) save it as a web page, complete, but it looks very good!

I wonder what guys who've never tried to learn AutoCAD make of terms like spline, pedit, explode, etc... <G>

Thanks, guys.

It's still preliminary, I have some missing data to supply. I'll try to incorporate suggestions.

(Bob, I too love the SPLINE..)

Apologies for the inefficient HTML page created by Microsoft WORD and slow loading of graphics files.

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"What do you call a boomerang that doesn't work? A stick."

GREAT STUFF LARRY, I was wondering how you did that...

Thanks
John Jolley

Larry,

The lowest common demoninator for Stunt News articles are my Bad Boy Stunt columns. As it is painfully apparent how low my standards really are, if you can exceed them by even the smallest percentage we simply cannot complain.

Send your stuff in. I have zero interest in the subject matter. But you better believe I will read it.

Dan,

I have a problem with this type of article going in to Stunt News.

It has numerous graphics files, and I'm afraid they'll get "munged" by the desktop publisher program. I've had it happen before with technical articles and it completely destroys their usefulness.

If I could email my Word .doc file for it, and have it somewhat faithfully reproduced (I don't care about fonts, etc. but my graphics need to be in sequence..) I'd be game.

(Also, Dan, I read you too, Hon.)

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"A distributed system is one in which the failure of a computer you didn't even know existed can render your own computer unusable." -Leslie Lamport

Larry,

Now see here, we have the same problem: The only points of controversy in any of my writings for Stunt News were munged files, poor choice of format, chunks out of sequence, etc., etc.

Of course, that still doesn't explain why Walt Prey is so very upset at something in the most recent BBS column. Yes, the one about ARF Flite Streaks and their potential uses. Seemed like a relatively straightforward subject and column to me. But ya ought to hear--yes, I saved them!--the two messages he left on my answering machine...

Don't call me Hon. I am not trans-testicled.

Hahahaha! I love SSW...it always lets me know who in the stunt world is p*ssed about whatever the pissant issue of the moment is, before I hear it from any other source. Normally it takes me a week to get to the back of stunt news, but now I'm off to page 89 to see what you said. Thanks for the tip!

Oh, by the way, in internet-speak, "Hun" is the usual remark of endearment between those involved in cyber cheek-tweaking. Isn't "Hon." simply the abreviation for honorable?

Bill Groman

(Well, sometimes Dan wants to get a little sweet on me..)

He still owes me a sermon and a stinging rebuke as well as a jobation. Instead he's trying to be nice.

I keep remembering that remark: "Cunningham, you don't know that much." And that look!

I have to admit that I do always read Dan's column, and as soon as my SN shows up, I'm headed for his column to see who he has upset now..

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"Masochist: Hurt me! Hurt me!
Sadist: No! No!"

Lou Crane asked, "I wonder what guys who've never tried to learn AutoCAD make of terms like spline, pedit, explode, etc..." I have tried and am contiuing to try....and my answer is, "What the heck are you guys talking about?!"

Larry,
I like it... Another Cad guy.

Larry & Bill,

A deal: You guys both read current BBS column with an eye toward something which might have jarred Walt Prey slightly off center. Well, more than "slightly," as he both times called in a rage, taking his anger out on...my answering machine.

Third call we actually spoke for a few moments, I questioned his level of intelligence, he blurted out the exceedingly original and thoughtful phrase which begins with an "f" and ends with "you," I thanked him for proving my point. And he slammed the phone home in its cradle.

Anyway, y'all come back to me with your ideas as to what set him off. I'll supply the winner with a half dozen Commie Filters.

Good luck. You ain't never gonna figure out Walt's problem. Even after I supply the answer, you still won't get it. Hoping both of you are up to a challenge such as this, I remain a friend in Stunt.

(Even if Larry's politics..., never mind, I really am trying to be nice.)

"something which might have jarred Walt Prey slightly
>off center. Well, more than "slightly," as he both times
>called in a rage, taking his anger out on...my answering
>machine."

Dan,

You are at the end of a long line of people who have "jarred Walt Prey slightly off center". In my case, out of the blue, he wrote me an 11 page letter telling me in no uncertain terms what a "...useless piece of c..p that my pushrod adjuster (advertised in Stunt News) is complete with diagrams and circles and arrows. I sent back a really polite, professionally written letter thanking him for his critique and pointing out the differences and similarities in my adjuster and an "early Ford spring spreader".

I then received 5 more ten to twelve page letters from him ridiculing my product which I answered each time with a polite letter. By this time I was having a good time reading and answering his critiques. He would begin with his critique of the basic design and end with a critique of the metallurgy with many points in between. Oh, yeah, he also threw in a few pointed comments about the poor color schemes on my airplanes and the people that I fly with (Bob Whitely, Jerry Silver, Jim Armor, Gordan Delaney, and others).

In the end, along about scathing 9 page letter #6, he included a money order for one pushrod adjuster, stating that he thought he'd better buy one just to shut me up! I saved all of the letters in a file that is about 3/4" thick just for the heck of it. Walt is a complex kind of guy, I guess, definitely one of a kind, very talented in many ways and sometimes difficult to deal with.

As far as I'm concerned, keep up the good work with your BBS column...I always read it and get a good laugh along with the good info.

"trans-testicled"??

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"Procrastination is the thief of time..." -Edward Young

LAST EDITED ON Aug-14-03 AT 10:52 PM (CDT)
 
>Larry,
>
>The lowest common demoninator for Stunt News articles are my
>Bad Boy Stunt columns. As it is painfully apparent how low
>my standards really are, if you can exceed them by even the
>smallest percentage we simply cannot complain.

My X-Wife always used the term low and I think there was the word life in there too every time I got a child support check from her, but her voice was really high.

Your articles in Stunt News are great.

EDIT: I'm on that list too. He bought one of my engines several years back, sent it back demanding his money back ( which RSM gladly gave him) wrote a 3 page letter on how bad it was and had never even started it. Something about loose metal all over in it. I run every motor and pull the back plate before I ship it. Unlike Bill I never contacted him.

>
>EDIT: I'm on that list too. He bought one of my engines
>several years back, sent it back demanding his money back (
>which RSM gladly gave him) wrote a 3 page letter on how bad
>it was and had never even started it. Something about loose
>metal all over in it. I run every motor and pull the back
>plate before I ship it. Unlike Bill I never contacted him.

>Larry Foster

Larry,
As you know, I bought one of your earliest L&J Fox .35's in 1994. I broke it in on the bench per your instruction sheet using 10% nitro, 23% castor oil, 5% Klotz oil, and the balance methanol, and have been using that fuel to fly it ever since.

I installed it my Sterling Yak-9 (copy of kit using genuine balsa, not the wood in the Sterling kit) and have been flying it ever since. As you saw at the Palmer meet out here the Yak is still flying with the same engine, still starts in one to two flips, and runs great. If it had any metal in it when I got it I would be very surprised as I know how carefully you run in and check every engine. I have never had the engine apart, it is now going on ten years of flying and no problems.

However, we know the source of the complaint you mentioned so I'm not surprised at the complaint, 99.999%+ imaginary.

Thanks for the Kind words Bill, looking foward to seeing you here in Tucson in September.

Larry,

I read the article and some of it even made since.. I have just started playing with autocad and you talk about some very good stuff. The only thing that confused me was the mention of the airfoil generator and the cad library, I looked all over the Pampa website and couldn't find them. I would be very interested in future articals like this. A little on the tech side but I was able to follow fairly well.

>Larry,
>
>I read the article and some of it even made since.. I have
>just started playing with autocad and you talk about some
>very good stuff. The only thing that confused me was the
>mention of the airfoil generator and the cad library, I
>looked all over the Pampa website and couldn't find them. I
>would be very interested in future articals like this. A
>little on the tech side but I was able to follow fairly
>well.
>
>

I apologize. These were on the FTP Archive link, which was killed by Zianet, and still hasn't been restored.

In the meantime, you can get STUNTRIB with the following link:

http://www.zianet.com/pampaeditor/stuntzip.exe

That is a 57K self-exploding ZIP file.

For the AutoCAD library, use this link:

http://www.zianet.com/pampaeditor/acadlib.zip

That is a 952K conventional ZIP file.

You should be able to download and save both these files.

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"The value and rank of every art is in proportion to the mental labor employed in it, or the mental pleasure in producing it." -Joshua Reynolds

Great stuff Larry

However, I tried to save the page for future reference but the graphics are not in the saved version. The same thing happens with all your construction articles. Is there any chance of making them available as Word files or PDFs?

Geoff,

From the Windows IE 5.0, help on 'Save Entire Web Page'

To save a Web page on your computer

On the File menu, click Save As.
Double-click the folder you want to save the page in.
In the File name box, type a name for the page.
In the Save as type box, select a file type.
To save all of the files needed to display this page, including graphics, frames, and style sheets, click Web Page, complete. This option saves each file in its original format.

To save all of the information needed to display this page in a single MIME-encoded file, click Web Archive. This option saves a snapshot of the current Web page. Note This option is available only if you have installed Outlook Express 5 or later.

To save just the current HTML page, click Web Page, HTML only. This option saves the information on the Web page, but it does not save the graphics, sounds, or other files.

To save just the text from the current Web page, click Text Only. This option saves the information on the Web page in straight text format.

Notes

With Web Page, complete and Web Archive, you can view all of the Web page offline, without adding the page to your Favorites list and marking it for offline viewing.
When you choose Web Page, complete, only the current page is saved. If you want to view Web pages and the pages they link to while offline, see Related Topics.

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"People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built." -Eleanor Roosevelt

Sorry Larry

I've tried all that you suggested using IE 6.0 SR1--I think, it's the latest. The pages do not save for me. Is it possible that your computer, because it already has all the good info on it, is delivering a false image?

I'm OK with good computer software but I am pretty hazy on the inner workings of web sites and html. THerefore, I wish I could enjoy the web info that you guys have access to from here in teh wilds of Sydney, Australia.

Cheers

Geoff,

I avoid using IE myself, have switched to Mozilla..

However, I've heard it claimed that it works. It does make up
a MIME-compatible file or something..

Watch your email for a message from me.

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"My dental hygienist is cute. Every time I visit, I eat a whole package of Oreo cookies while waiting in the lobby. Sometimes she has to cancel the rest of the afternoon's appointments." -Steven Wright

You're right, I just tried it with IE 6.0 and it even saves the support file directories. However it (nor any other browser) can successfully display the graphics files in its saved .htm files!

I guess it is a bit much to expect Microsoft to have such a web page saving feature actually work..

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"Sometimes too much drink is not enough."

I was able to save it as a Word document by selecting 'Edit with Microsoft Word for Windows' from the file menu. I you have a word processor on your system which is associated as an HTML editor you should have this option. The word document that was created is 1.45Mb and completely self contained. IE did at one time have an option to save a website which enabled you to save several layers of links and images along with it. IE would create a master directory and then the appropriate sub-directories under it. I guess too many people were abusing the ability to do this by stealing complete websites (or some brainchild at Microsoft decided that it was an expendable option and took it out).

Darn! I was just starting to think that the bugs were actually features and they removed them.

LAST EDITED ON Aug-15-03 AT 08:41 AM (CDT)
 
>You're right, I just tried it with IE 6.0 and it even saves
>the support file directories. However it (nor any other
>browser) can successfully display the graphics files in its
>saved .htm files!
>
>I guess it is a bit much to expect Microsoft to have such a
>web page saving feature actually work..

Try saving web page as web archive single file format: .mht file. Here's an example(unzip first)

The mht file saves the text well, but still references the website for the graghics. That is unless you found an option on the save which allows for the images to be downloaded and stored. The painful way would be to save the page then right click and save each graphic, then recode the image references in the html file. I hate it when MS does stuff like this..

if you check the attached zip file, the mht file does include pictures. A couple of weeks ago when PAMPA web site was having difficulties, I was able to keep reading those articles and see the photos as well. I like re-reading all 10 articles regularly. Every time I find interesting things that I haven't noticed before.

Bill Byles,

Consider it a threesome; you certainly come to the party with impressive credentials.

Walt can actually read and write? Hmmm, I have been known to fire off a blazing missive or three, I'll hold that option in reserve.

And you should be ashamed of yourself. I mean, flying with cretins such as Whitely, Delaney, Armor (Armour?), and Silver does show a certain lack of class.

Larry,

Apologies for what we have done to your thread. All in good fun, however. And just think, you may be the lucky winner of some pinko fuel filters.

LAST EDITED ON Aug-16-03 AT 00:29 AM (CDT)
 
If you want to suck the entire contents of a web site off the web, try this program:

http://download.com.com/3001-2377-10149393.html)

I'd suggest not trying it with the Stuka Stunt Forum...