Category Archives: News

Looking for Eugine Pandala

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The “Inside-Outside Mega Show” this year took quite a while to go through and there was a fair amount of new stuff (after you’ve been to many of them, a sort of staleness creeps in). The nice part is that the organisers hold lectures at the end of each day.

The theme for 2004-05 was Conservation and Environment. I was very happy to attend the talk by Professor Eugine Pandala, an architect from Kerala on “building with natural materials”. Had to rush off after the lecture so didn’t have time to get his email ID. Now if only I can find a way to contact him by email. After much hunting, I came across a postal address to maybe I’ll have to do it the old fashioned way and kill a tree…

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Malshej Ghat

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I’ve been to Malshej Ghat before but this time it was well after the monsoon had withdrawn from Western India. We stayed at the Flamingo Resort which has deteriorated a lot since the last visit. It was in private hands for a while and now that the MTDC has taken it over again, it seems to be going to the dogs. It’s a pity because the location is so beautiful and there’s no competition for a hundred kilometres.

I was with a group of amateur entomologists from the Bombay Natural History Society. The BNHS has been conducting distance learning in that subject for the last few years and since I’ve always been interested in the little creatures, going into the wilds with like-minded people gives me an extra kick. The highlight for me was seeing – for the first time – a beautiful butterfly known as the Indian Red Flash [Rapala melampus]. I don’t have a worthwhile image but you will find one here.

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Educational Version Watermarks in Dwgs

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A few months ago, I’d downloaded some car drawings from a CAD exchange site. There was a Ferrari 248TS and a BMW 850i, not to mention a Mustang Mach-III and a Viper GTS. Now, I’m not much into roadsters, but they’re always nice to spice up your drawings. So, anyway, I inserted these blocks into a number of drawings before I realised they’d been created with trial versions of AutoCAD because, when I tried to print them, I had this terribly embarrassing watermark around the edge of the sheet saying “Created with an Educational Version of AutoCAD” or some such thing. It was my fault I suppose – I should have checked beforehand.

I jumped through a number of hoops trying to salvage my work – all to no avail. Autodesk seemed to have it covered. Copying and pasting didn’t work and I can’t remember if converting the drawing to DXF and back again did the trick or not.

Then a couple of weeks ago, I hit upon a solution by accident. I was trying out the new version 2.0 of a free CAD software called A9CAD from a company whose “mission is to develop quick-to-learn, easy-to-use, affordable yet powerful software products for engineering professionals and students“. While the interface was clean, it crashed too often at startup.

Okay, since the software claimed to be compatible with DXF as well as DWG files, (and since I was unwilling to try it out on production drawings) I thought, why not open and save the offending car blocks and see if that removes the watermark.

Bingo! But before you get all excited about the program, let me tell you that it’s still a long way from being good for much else. Having said that however, I still consider it a CAD resource because it can be used as a free drawing viewer/redliner. Give it a spin – the download is about 15.24 Megs.

Update 7th August 2014:
The A9Tech site <http://www.a9tech.com/> shows a blank page.
I’d strongly recommend using DraftSight instead.

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Flop Show

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I received an invitation to a Trade Show at Bandra-Kurla complex and thought it might be a good idea to take a client and my contractor along since a few things needed to be finalised at a particular interior design site.

I was aghast when they wanted to charge my companions Rs. 100 each to enter. And after all that, it was a terrible, terrible, exhibition. All gloss and absolutely no substance – exactly the kind I can’t stand.

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Amboli Camp

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Going to Amboli [1st – 5th] was worth it, I have to say. The train was an hour late while returning and 7½ hours late when we went!

Among other things, the 45 species of butterflies we saw included at least three first time sightings for me including the Malabar Spotted Flat [Celaenorrhinus ambareesa], Grey Count [Tanaecia lepidea] and the Redspot Duke [Dolpha evelina].

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Beach Cleanup up after Ganpati

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It’s the day after the popular Ganesh festival here in Bombay and, as every year, I headed to the beach to clean up the mess the revellers left behind. Being an old hand at this, I was put in charge of the volunteers who came from various colleges in the area. As usual, it was a depressing sight when they arrived in the early morning. By the time we were through though, there was some semblance of cleanliness. The municipal workers were there too and some of them did give us strange looks…

Anyone not familiar with the festival can read this article. Some time late last month on an Yahoo Group called Indian Environment, someone had written defending this method of celebrating the festival. My response to his original mail follows:

If you want to read the entire thread you’ll have to be a member of the IndianEnvironment group.

Dear Professor,

As someone who has been involved with cleaning up after the revellers for the last several years, let me reiterate:

  1. Most of the idols are made of Plaster of Paris. PoP does not float back to our already dirty and polluted shores but becomes a mucky layer that chokes the sea-bed.
  2. Pieces of thermocole and styrofoam do settle on beaches – sometimes many miles away. Are volunteers able or willing to monitor our entire Konkan coast? I don’t think we have either the time or the resources for that.
  3. Most important, these idols are coated with paints containing toxic heavy metals even though less harmful alternatives exist. There is no need to tell you what damage these colours cause.

Yes, we do have a huge country and people do need entertainment to liven up their otherwise dreary lives; yes, it does happen only once a year (thank goodness!) and yes, these things will not change overnight.

But that doesn’t make it right or desirable. We do need to make people aware – and as a professor you are in a better position to do so than most of us. It is nobody’s case that the festival be scrapped; but it can be carried out in a way that is as holistic as it is holy.

Naturally it will be a long and uphill battle. But it is a battle that can – nay, it must – be won.

Simply accepting it is no longer an option.

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Construction begins at Khairne [2P]

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The office building that I’ve designed at Khairne is coming along at full steam, now that the monsoons seem to be subsiding. The external plastering is almost complete and very soon the interior work and finishing will begin.

Am trying my level best to explain to the clients that double-glazing will pay for itself in the medium term because of reduced air-conditioning costs. Have also specified water-saving cisterns for all the WCs. This is an area where water is relatively expensive, so for a change, that argument is easier to make.

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Detailing for Pune Bungalow

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I’ve had this project on the back-burner for a while since the papers have been submitted to the Pune municipality and it will be another month at least before they come through. In the meanwhile, I’ve worked on most of the details and am happy that the clients like the results.

I know; I’ve been promising to make a separate dedicated page in the design section for a while now… It’s a matter of getting down to it and spare time has been relatively scarce these past few months.

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A9 Cad

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A freeware 2D CAD program that supports the industry standard DWG/DXF (upto R.2000) format. It’s recently been launched by a company of the same name. It features a graphical interface that bears a remarkable similarity to popular commercial CAD software. AutoCAD command-liners will find it way too basic, but for irregular users, it could be useful. I’d recommend it for viewing, red-lining or printing of drawing files by consultants/clients who otherwise don’t have access to CAD.

HOKI108 – Situs Slot Online Paling Gacor Terpercaya #1 di Indonesia


~15 Megabytes

Edit: The A9 Tech site is often down these days and there are better alternatives around but if you still want to, you can get A9 CAD from c|net.

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