I just picked up the awesome new PDFpenPro 6 (Mac App Store Link) from Smile. It’s a superior alternative to Acrobat or Preview on the Mac. I bought the Pro version because it does quite a few things more than the regular version, and right now it’s only $10 more. If you do any kind of PDF mark-ups, editing or form creation, you shoud pick this up while it’s on sale for the next day or so. There are two versions - PDFpen and PDFpenPro. The pro version allows you to create form fields that can be filled out directly in the PDF. I use this on my Mac and I also have it on my iPad. 

One of my favorite things about this tool is how easy it is to insert my signature, and sync everything over iCloud to my iPad for documents on the go. It also has a great ink engine in it for sketch markups, which makes it a great tool for architectural designers.

If you get it now, both versions are 50% off for a couple of days only. After that the price goes up, so take advantage.

Get it at the Mac App Store. I prefer that verison to the regular one because there’s no serial number to store, updates happen in a more automatic way, and it has the iCloud sync option. If you go with the regular serialized version from their site, which is the same special discounted price, you don’t get iCloud but you can use Dropbox for sync.

Highly recommended.

Architosh:

The LWCAD 4.5 bundled addition to LightWave 3D 11.5 adds a complete set of standard CAD tools for LightWave created specifically for visualization needs. One can think of this as a CAD add-on package directly into LightWave. Key features include:

• LightWave Modeler Extension Functions — 2D drawing capabilities, 3D CAD tools like trim, knife, extend, blend, offset, fillet and many others
• OSNAP Engine — Construct precise models using Snap types such as point, center, intersection, tangent, perpendicular, ruler, projection, angle, grid and more…
• Real-Time Booleans — Cut, slice and edit models with real-time Boolean options
• ViewPort Interactivity — Speed productivity and access LWCAD’s onscreen controls directly in the viewport

LWCAD 4.5 also includes a Universal Coordinate System (UCS), Shape Tools to manage instances and conversions to polygons, interactive wall grids, furniture tools and shapes for fast interior modeling, architectural presets for interior and exterior elements, and much more.

I anyone using LightWave for architectural work? I’m curious to know - I owned a license at one time (I guess I still do) but never did much with it.

Here’s the complete rundown on the release, which includes several videos showing it in action.

Here we go! Welcome to the first Methodcast Quickie.

These videos will draw from lots of different content and applications, so stay tuned every fortnight for a new video that will probably be a competely different workflow from the previous one. Remember, they will range between 5 and 15 minutes long each, so you should be able to digest these right along with your lunch. The videos are mobile friendly as well, so please give them a try on your laptop, phone or tablet as well.

This first one has to do with modeling 3d curtain wall glass and mullions, also known as window systems. In this tutorial I show you how to quickly model window mullions to add that extra level of realism to your model’s glass areas. Simple enough right? Yes, it is, but I’ll show you how to do it very efficiently.

This is one of those times where it pays to use the right tool for the job. Yes, you can make mullions in any program, but in this case FormZ/Bonzai3d makes it much easier than most.

• You can get a 30 day trial of FormZ here.​
• You can get a 30 day trial of Bonzai3d here.

Learn something? Please Donate! Thanks.

There’s something big just around the corner, and I would really appreciate your help by liking Method on Facebook, and even sharing it with your friends.​ This obviously gets my free tutorials in front of more people - hopefully you have friends you think would benefit from them.

Would you please go do that for me?​

Thanks!​

Hi Methodites! I wanted to let you know about an upcoming change to the website that I think you’re going to like.

I’ve been swamped with being a dad, work, studying for my licensing exams, and podcasting over the last few months. Unfortunately this hasn’t allowed me to do as much as I’ve wanted to with Method. That’s going to change next week. I’m launching a new segment on the site called Methodcast Quickies in which I’ll be doing short, 5 to 15 minute long videos that run the gamut of our digital workflows.

A new one will come out about every two weeks. This works best with my schedule and makes tutorials posted to Method much more frequent than they have been. My podcast comes out on the alternating weekends, so if you follow both, you’ll definitely get your fill of me.

These shorter videos are much easier for me to produce and for you to digest. The truth is, the long-form videos I was making before were very cumbersome to create, edit, post and serve and it was stressing me out. It’s my hope you’ll be able to watch these new ones over a lunch break and still have time to eat. I’ll be less stressed out, and we’ll all be happier.

The time and effort I’ve out into this site as a resource for you all is a labor of love for me, and you’ll notice the other thing I’ve done is put a Paypal donate button on each of these posts. I’d really appreciate your support by donating a small amount to help me continue making these videos and posting them to the site. The Quickie videos are free to members, but I couldn’t continue to do it without your help. Think of it as buying me a cup of coffee. You can click on the Tip Jar button at the top of the page to learn more. Thanks!

That’s all for now, but I do have more plans that I’ll be talking about soon. Keep your eye out for more in the coming months.