There was no Lasagna, but there was side salad and box lunches from Dickie's BBQ at lunch, early on there was coffee and dogknuts and then mid afternoon some pizza materialized.
Not too shabby for gratis.
The real treat for me though were the actual presentations that were worth my time to sit through.
There were 4 before lunch. There were supposed to be a couple after, but they never materialized.
Shaun Thelen who mindbogglingly went from being an AE to sales gave the first presentation. The highlights for me were the schmancyfancy supercar design house they hired to makeover the covers for the new Global EVO (R.I.P. the Global Classic). Some individual decided to use the word 'aerodynamic' to describe the new design. Naturally I had to ask how much better the new covers performed in the wind tunnel than the old covers.
The new flavor has some other enhancements to increase speed by dampening and compensating for vibration generated by the machine movements and what amounts to a "sleep' function for, the time spent surfing the net and goofing off on the forum, err. . . idle times.
Then we get to the lights. They are mounting some multicolored lights up in the tower and some white LED strips to illuminate the table. This lead me to ask how they were generating light without generating heat. It was admitted the lights do produce some heat. I asked how this was a wise idea on a thermally sensitive measurement device and I was told the engineers had said it was ok. Caveat Emptor and all that jazz. There was a 7-10-7 SF on the ground with the lights mounted and I held the back of my hand up next to them and they are making heat. Couple that up with the new eco feature to shut them off frequently during short "idle" times and it ought to be possible to wreck the environment of a good metrology lab IMNSHFO, but I probably have no idea what I am talking about, so why are you still reading?
The middle presentation I found of interest was by a guy from the latest aquisition meal, this one is all about photogametry, and some of it is very very impressive if you got that do rae mi, that is, if you got that dough.
Then Shawn Wissener presented about spatial analyization and the near future of the demon. It was quite good. Some of the highest points.
Top right corner of the forum there is a new "SUGGEST NEW FEATURES" menu item. This goes to an app called "User Echo" which at some point in the next year-ish will be an item in the demon help menu too. Just like the name says, but search first to see if it's already been done 8 or 9 times. Above and beyond that though, you get 3 votes. Use them wisely! Most votes gets the squeaky oil first. Also if they pick your topic, they want you to participate in the development, taking ownership and signing off on the project.
Oh and the Xactmeasure GD&T algorythm libraries are getting a complete revision sometime in the next few releases. *SHOCK* Some of that math was Wrong! */SHOCK* And they tripple dog swear the A-B datum thing will finally actually really work, for sure this time.
Let's all hope that Shawn gets his way and will be able to create/currate a youtube channel full of one topic 2-10 minute videos about what's new and/or how to do this or that.
So Shawn said there are 10 million lines of code in the demon. And he said they bought the use of some dupersooper code analysis app that found all of their memory leaks and they have made great strides in the last 2 years to make Pc-Dmis lighter. I have to say KUDOS. I have noticed 2015 is smoother, less glitchly, less prone to lags and hangs and kaputs.
So if you get the chance, tell your boss I said it is worth your time and to let you go.
HTH
P.S. your mileage may vary
