TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:AT: (Askance of topic): Purty pik-tyoors From:KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 22 Feb 2001 16:35:36 -0500
Survey time.
This expression of curiosity is for those of you who
employ depictions of hardware in your docs.
Some of you draw your own. More power to you... <g>
Many of you are associated with hardware engineering
groups who design boards and boxes and devices and
doohickeys. Those folk use some kind of CAD software,
and you probably use some kind of image from that
source.
OK, so far?
Bear with me.
Where I work, our hardware design guys use PRO-E,
and it is a fine thing they have, and a fine thing
they do.
PRO-E is intimately associated with Product Viewer
and PRO-Interlink. What that means is that a person
(like me) with either a stand-alone viewer OR a
browser plug-in, can poke around in the designers'
database, fish out any drawn object or assembly,
and display it in semi-beautiful 3D. That is, I don't
need the multi-thousand-dollar PRO-E seat. I just
need to grab one of the floating Product Viewer
licences, and I can latch onto any hardware I need,
rotate it, explode it, section it (or parts thereof),
dimension it, etc., etc.... and export as an image
format that FrameMaker likes. Woohoo!
We got this delicious toy just last Autumn, and I must
say that the shine has yet to wear off (especially
since we just received an upgrade with even more
capabilities). I'm in love.
So finally, my question(s) are:
1) How many of you have the same tool?
2) How many of you have a similar tool that connects
with a different CAD software (i.e., the one used
by your local designers), but has much the same
remote-twiddle capabilities?
3) How many of you who DON'T have either (1) or (2),
wish that you did?
In other words, am I just late to the party, and this
kind of capability is common as dirt? Or is this viewer/
manipulator quite nifty and rare, as yet?
Thanks,
/kevin
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Develop HTML-Based Help with Macromedia Dreamweaver 4 ($100 STC Discount)
**WEST COAST LOCATIONS** San Jose (Mar 1-2), San Francisco (Apr 16-17) http://www.weisner.com/training/dreamweaver_help.htm or 800-646-9989.
Sponsored by ForeFront, Inc., maker of ForeHelp Help authoring tools
for print, WinHelp, HTML Help, JavaHelp, and cross-platform InterHelp
See www.forehelp.com for more information and free evaluation downloads
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
