“Fare sistema” può avere successo solo grazie alla partecipazione di tutti i componenti della filiera.

“Ringrazio tutti i partecipanti perchè è solo grazie alla vostra presenza che l’Evento Metel 2009 è stato un nuovo chiaro punto di partenza per “fare sistema” ed uscire così tutti insieme piu forti ed uniti.
Tutto il materiale inerente all’Evento Metel 2009 lo potete trovare all’indirizzo www.metel.it

Carlo Carrara – Presidente Metel

Album fotografico dell’Evento Metel 2009

Sono disponibili online le presentazioni di:

Carlo Carrara: Formato PDF – Formato Sfogliabile online

Giorgio Confente: Formato PDF -  Formato Sfogliabile online

Giorgio Casanova: Formato PDF - Formato Sfogliabile online

Espirtito Forte, Alma de Guerreiro. Caio Augusto, 6 anos.

4a. Etapa do Campeonato Catarinense de Karate em Rio dos Cedros.

Próxima etapa – Balneário Camboriu – dia 05 de dezembro.

Cet été j’ai eu la chance d’aller au festival des musiques émergentes d’Abitibi Témiscamingue (FMEAT). Invité à titre de blogueur j’ai eu la chance de voir beaucoup, beaucoup de concerts et de vivre cet évènement à plein, comme dit Marie-Pierre Arthur.

C’est donc avec plaisir et nostalgie que j’ai regardé les quelques images mises en ligne par l’équipe de la blogothèque.

Jetez-y un coup d’oeil, ça vaut le coup.

Mother Mother, Alfa Rococo, Camaromance et Random Recipe.

Thus Owls, Mother Mother, le Roi Poisson, Clues, Berithan Berrio et Malajube

La suite est ici

“Fare sistema” è un obiettivo importante. Per questo motivo è diventato il “Claim” dell’Evento Metel 2009 e si sta rivelando, come ogni anno un caso di successo

Palazzo Mezzanotte

Quasi 200 aziende hanno già aderito all’evento.
Nella splendida cornice di Palazzo Mezzanotte, sede della Borsa Italiana, l’11 novembre alle ore 17:30 si terrà l’Evento della filiera del settore elettrico.
Evento che ogni anno raccoglie sempre più adesioni e consensi.
Quest’anno vedrà protagoniste anche le tre associazioni di categoria: ANIE, ARAME, FME

La sessione di lavori sarà aperta dal dott. De Paolini direttore di Milano e Finanza

Per informazioni e prenotazioni

Oppure potete contattare Metel: Tel. 02.34536118

“Fare sistema” è un obiettivo importante. Per questo motivo è diventato il “Claim” dell’Evento Metel 2009 e si sta rivelando, come ogni anno un caso di successo

Palazzo Mezzanotte

Quasi 200 aziende hanno già aderito all’evento.
Nella splendida cornice di Palazzo Mezzanotte, sede della Borsa Italiana, l’11 novembre si terrà l’Evento della filiera del settore elettrico.
Evento che ogni anno raccoglie sempre più adesioni e consensi.
Quest’anno vedrà protagoniste anche le tre associazioni di categoria: ANIE, ARAME, FME

La sessione di lavori sarà aperta dal dott. De Paolini direttore di Milano e Finanza

Per informazioni e prenotazioni

Just a quick one here about the UK Producer DaVinche wearing Franklin & Marshall at a photo shoot. Franklin & Marshall over the past year have shot up amazingly quick! From being just another up and coming brand, to being seen all over the place. Most noticeably being the hoodies. But in this instance, we have DaVinche browsing through his iPhone wearing a knitted jumper instead.

If your interest in buying some Franklin & Marshall, head over to their website @ http://www.fmeshop.com . Alternatively, check ASOS or Chemical Records for F&M as well.

-  Graeme Day

Em tempos de globalização e políticas neoliberais disseminadas, vimos grandes impérios tremerem diante dos efeitos do capitalismo selvavem. O título: “O dia em que que a terra parou” poderia ser muito bem aplicado quando inicio-se uma das maiores crises econômicas de que se tem notícia, em meados de setembro de 2008. Porém pouco se aprendeu. A ilusão e a ganância capitalista voltará a reinar em pouco tempo e daqui a alguns anos estaremos enfrentando uma nova crise financeira. Será que não existe uma forma de mudar esta trajetória ?
Estou cada vez mais convencido de que só existe uma maneira: Educação Universal, Educação como condição humana, direito humano.
Se iniciássemos hoje uma revolução na educação, não veríamos os resultados que só apareceriam daqui a algumas gerações, mas, esse é sem dúvida o único caminho.
Teremos um fórum importantíssimo em novembro próximo o Fórum Mundial de Educação Tecnológica, em Brasília (Fórum Mundial de Educação Profissionalizante e Tecnológica). Estarão presentes conferencistas, pesquisadores e debatedores do mais alto gabarito como Miguel Nicolelis e Leonardo Boff.
Moacir Gadotti, Diretor do instituto Paulo Freire e membro do conselho internacional do Fórum Mundial da Educação,FME, publicou um artigo que é quase uma utopia. Uma visão perfeita da universalização da Educação, um modelo que deveria ser implantando em todos os níveis educacionais. É, ou pelo menos deveria ser a razão de existir da educação em qualquer parte do planeta.

Gadotti, Moacir. Fórum Mundial de Educação: Origem, Projeto e Consolidação.

Quando li este artigo, cheguei a ficar emocionado, imaginando como seria um sistema educacional baseado nos princípios da universalidade. Gadotti também cita que a utilização de fóruns de debates é fundamental para o conhecimento de qualquer assunto e para o crescimento de forma a considerar todas as visões possíveis, isso só é possível com o debate de idéia de alto nível. A nossa realidade esta um tanto distante disto, mas, sem dúvida, temos nas concepções explanadas por Gadotti um caminho a ser seguido, isso é o que é mais importante, o Brasil precisa disto para ter uma sociedade mais justa, não existe outro caminho.

Bon je me crée ce blog en juillet,  en promettant d’y revenir y déposer mes impressions des concerts que j’allais voir au cours de l’été.

Et ensuite qu’est-ce que je fais?  J’abandonne le projet.  Mais pour mieux y revenir aujourd’hui.  Pourtant, ce n’est pas la matière qui m’a manqué au niveau du contenu cet été. J’ai quand même couvert intensément les Francofolies de Spa, de Montréal, et le FME. Enfin, on ne peut pas réécrire le passé. Quoique certains communistes diraient le contraire…

Mais maintenant la maison est ouverte, j’ai pris le temps d’aménager les meubles. Je suis maintenant prêt à l’occuper.

Pour lire mes impressions du FME vous pouvez vous rendre sur le Blog du FME. J’y ai agi à titre de blogueur invité.

Je tenterai au cours des prochains jours de réunir les Tweet que j’ai faits quotidiennement pendant les Francos de Spa. Ne serait-ce que pour consigner ici mes impressions avant que Twitter ne les supprimes pour toujours.

Allez hop 1-2-3 Blog!

Parterre Palazzo Mezzanotte (Sede Borsa Italiana)
Piazza degli Affari n° 6 – Milano (Guarda la mappa)
11 novembre -  ore 17.00

Agenda dell’evento:

• 17.00: Registrazione e welcome coffee
• 17.30: Carlo Carrara (Presidente Metel)
  Benvenuto e apertura dei lavori
• 17.45: Osvaldo De Paolini (Direttore di Milano Finanza)
  
• 18.00: Maria Antonietta Portaluri (Direttore Generale Federazione ANIE)
  Dalle sinergie nuove opportunità per le aziende della filiera
• 18.15: Antonio Franceschi (Presidente ARAME)
  Sistemi innovativi e condivisi per migliorare l’efficienza dei ruoli lungo la filiera
• 18.30: Giampaolo Ferrari (Presidente FME)
  Fare sistema: la parola d’ordine di tutta la filiera
• 18.45: Anna Pia Sassano (Dirigente Agenzia delle Entrate)
  La Fatturazione Elettronica verso la PA
• 19.05: Alessandro Perego (Professore Politecnico di Milano)
  I benefici di “fare sistema”
• 19.25: Giorgio Casanova (Direttore Commerciale Metel) e Sergio Bevilacqua (EDI Key Account e promotore EDI)
  Presentazione nuova piattaforma e servizi Metel
• 20.00: Aperitivo

Moderatore: Cesare Ferretti

Clicca qui per iscriverti all’evento

Per informazioni:
Contact Center Metel
Via G. Govone 66 – Milano
Tel. 02 34536118
Fax. 02 34934145
metel@metel.it

Guarda la mappa per raggiungere la location

Per informazioni: Contact Center Metel

• Via G. Govone 66 -  Milano
• Tel. 02 34536118
• Fax. 02 34934145
• metel@metel.it

Sede Borsa Italiana

Abbiamo chiesto alle tre associazioni di categoria della filiera del settore elettrico che cosa vuol dire per loro Fare sistema:

Loghi soci Metel che parteciperanno all'Evento Metel 2009

La mission di Federazione ANIE è fare sistema e di creare occasioni di business sempre più rilevanti per le proprie aziende. Nell’ottica di fare sistema non solo fra le proprie associate, ma anche e soprattutto fra gli stakeholder della filiera allargata del mercato elettrico, una delle esigenze dell’immediato futuro è concentrare le potenzialità e le sinergie fra gli stakeholder al fine di utilizzare un linguaggio comune ed universale nelle transazioni di mercato. Ed è proprio in questa ottica che METEL può fare la differenza. (ANIE socio Metel)

“FARE SISTEMA” concentrando la nostra attenzione su soluzioni innovative capaci sì di portare valore ed efficienza al comparto, ma anche di coniugare la necessaria condivisione degli obiettivi con il rispetto dei ruoli dei  vari attori della filiera. (ARAME socio Metel)

“FARE SISTEMA” dovrà diventare la parola d’ordine di tutta la Filiera. Dobbiamo, tutti noi, Distributori, Produttori e Agenti arrivare ad una definizione di obiettivi comuni nel rispetto dei ruoli e delle competenze di ognuno. La Federazione si sta muovendo in questa direzione convinti come siamo che “fare sistema” condividendo il mercato possa davvero rappresentare la via d’uscita da questo difficile momento economico. (FME socio Metel)

J’ai oscillé entre Orange orange [suite]

[ORANGE ORANGE ZIK.CA]

[ITUNES ORANGE ORANGE ]

Sorry about the long wait between posts, I was a touch burned out after that last post becuse I struggled with it for so long. Then I discovered that numerous typos had snuck past me (somehow I turned spellcheck off) and most of my paragraph breaks had disappeared. Needless to say I was mortified, especially after several people I respected had read it and retweeted it. Due to this I was put off blogging for a while. Additionally I’m currently having my laptop repaired and haveing trouble getting my desktop computer’s wireless card working with linux. I’ve reinsallled windows as the linux installs seem to vanish and have inexplicable problems. ANYWAY, here are some random thoughts and musings.

I’ve still not started work on the next big post (probably on roleplaying in the Televised Dungeon Crawling environment). I don’t have a lot of DMing experience so I’m worried everything I’m saying is really obvious and unoriginal, but that could be just me being insecure. Either way I don’t plan on stopping writing as I enjoy it. If you ever see a way for me to improve do let me know.

I got some suggestions on Twitter that I forgot to work into the last article: Example advertisements for the lighthearted Televised Dungeon Crawling setting:
From @Jwyl
“::bulging gladiator holding up a small urn-shaped bottle:: After a tough day in the arena, use pain-b-gone on those sore muscles”
“::close up of a tub-shaped container and a cloth with goo on it:: No need to scrub, just coat armor and rinse for that mirrorshine”

Other suggestions by @cyclopsfan1 were for a male enhancement drink. Would YOU want your half-orc barbarian shilling for a penis enlargement drink? What if you need the money?

I’d love to have some more suggestions of advertisements for such a world, toss me a comment if you have a cool idea.

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On another note I started reading a blog that touches me closely. A women named Karen linked me to her blog after meeting on twitter. It’s a blog about her experiences as a high-functioning person with Asperger’s Syndrome. I’d like to take this moment to disclose that I have aspergers syndrome. I was diagnosed a long time ago, so long I don’t exactly remember when: I was diagnosed with ADHD a bit before that. I may blog about what it’s like to have it, though that is hard to do since I have no idea what it is like to not have it. Anyway, I encourage you to read her blog, though take the other blogs in her blog roll with a grain of salt, I personally disagree with many of them.Also as a note I took Ritalin for years and now take Concerta: Do I sound like a zombie? Follow my twitter feed. I’m (I like to think) a witty and creative young man. These are powerful drugs with nasty side effects. But if you have ADHD or ADD they are a godsend. Riding yourkid to do his/her work is NOT the solution, you will just frustrate them. I will get distracted working in a bare room with only my notes and a calculator. (I will post a link to Karen’s blog this when I have my laptop and bookmarks back)

—————————————–

I’m trying to decided between first person suggestions and third person authoritative writing style. I mainly write “In this type of setting” But keep adding “I think XXX would work well” and swapping between the two is poor form. So readers, does this detract from my ruminations all that much? If I should stick to one which should I stick two? Should I learn enough HTML to put in sidebars for the first person parts?

—————————————–

Also as a note I’m taking down the pictures of myself about now so bosses don’t see this blog (While nothing on here is incrminating or such I’m worried about anti-apsie and anti-ADHD prejiduce. If someone wants to recomend pictures to replace it I’d like the suggestions. In a related note I may start posting about chemistry, hope no one minds. If you want to here about anything specific I’m taking Organic, Inorganic and Quantum chemistry this semester as well as a lab class. I’ll ask my profs if they mind if I post some of my assingments for you to see, would anyone be intrested in this?

—————————————–

As a final note if you are on twitter feel free to join in the Mass Twitter Fiction Event. Its a freeform systemless roleplay where we each take a roll and react to whatever @MassTwitFic throws at us. There is a long term one going on right now where we have been framed for a theft and kidnapping and are using insane methods to try and clear our name (Many of them illiegal since hey, we are wanted criminals anyway.) Other people are supporting us in more legal roles, scanning footadge I upload or going where we (Was wanted man and women [yes Man, singular]) can not. http://twapperkeeper.com/tfe/ has an archive of this event and the last one. Sorry it is so long, we are trying doing a multiday event for the first time, every other one has been only a few hours.

Anyway, I started doing this post on Aug 29th, and its now Sept 8th, so I think I’ll upload it and add in the missing links at a latter point in time. Let me know of what you think of this more rambly and random update style. I mainly just wanted to get some small point out there while I mused about my next post. (A campain idea inspired by: Highlander, Shadowforce Archer, D&Ds XP system, Scion, The Digimon TV show, The genocide section of my world history class, The Zodiac Killer, Greek/Roman Myth. Yeah, I just started writing and then did some reasurch & creeped myself out.)

Anyway, until next time, Stay Geeky!

–Canageek.

Sewjourn is having a birthday giveaway, be quick it ends at 5pm tonight.

I have just downloaded my September copy of WOW, great inspiration there and well worth the miserly subscription. I am about to incorporate Julie Smith’s wonderful article on making a mermaid’s purse (or cuff actually) into my sea angels. I have just about finished all the machine stitching and will spend the next two weeks with the hand stitching.

Here is another taster.

 The first is the twin needle stitching on the neck of one dupion silk gown:This is the other gown painted with a mixture of acrylic, opulence ink and dyn na flow then sprinkled with salt:

I painted some pearl cotton with the leftovers but they are a bit stiff, even after being in the dryer. They might be okay in a twisted cord or couched on. This is in the wet stage, it actually dried much lighter and will be toned down with overlays.

The last photo is another of the wing pieces. On the corners I have stitched using the Maggie’s technique from the Perth workshop. I’m hoping these will look like fragments of fishing net once dissolved.

Sorry about the flash off the glass cooktop.

Cheers

Just a fancy name for sandwiching, which is what a select group did during this month’s meeting.

Following the instructions in Beryl Taylor’s fantastic book we embedded and layered using copious amounts of vliesofix.

Carmel and Gillian did some lovely rich coloured pieces, Jenny and I experimented with various combinations, Jacqui gave her sewing machine a workout and Claudia made little “cm’s” for everyone (we are metric in Oz so we can’t call them inchies).

Claudia’s embedding experiments:

Pauleen was away but has caught up quickly since arriving home. Here is one of her pieces and her technique.

This is my sandwiching experiment. I know it is very like some of my other work.  I ironed my wonder under on before I put the fabric snippets and threads on.I didn’t like the chiffon over the top, so I burnt a lot of it away. I have done some foiling which I haven’t done much of before and then stuck jewels (from the scrapbooking shop)  onto the fabric instead of the shisha mirrors which I didn’t have. I think sequins would be good too. I then stitched over the top.

I’m still awaiting photos of some of the lovely pieces as they are completed, mine still needs some hand stitching and beading.

Many of our group have flitted off to places near and far, generally somewhere warmer than wintering here in the south of Australia! We hope to catch up with them all at the September meeting when we will be using pellon (Note: I think that means pelmet vilene) and etching velvet. Email me if you have lost the materials listing. Don’t forget to check out my blog for my wonderful trip to Perth for a workshop with the ‘in’famous textile artist, Maggie Grey from the UK.

Hope to see you in September.

Loghi soci Metel

Quest’anno l’Evento Metel ha come tema “Fare sistema“

Il Presidente di Confindustria Emma Marcegaglia apre la giornata Nazionale dell’innovazione, 9 giugno 2009, parlando della necessità di fare sistema per agevolare la ricerca e dello sviluppo del tessuto industriale e manifatturiero del nostro paese.

Oggi “Fare sistema” non è una opportunità ma l’unica soluzione per dare nuovo slancio al paese Azienda.

Per questo motivo siamo certi che vorrai segnarti la data dell’Evento Metel che si terrà l’11 novembre 2009 presso il Palazzo Mezzanotte, sede della Borsa di Milano.

All’evento parteciperanno anche le tre Associazioni ANIE, Arame, FME.

Presenza che esprime ancora di più la volontà e l’innovazione culturale che “Fare Sistema” porta inevitabilmente con se.

Avremo inoltre la partecipazione diretta dell’Agenzia delle Entrate, che darà informazioni sul progetto di fattura elettronica attivato per la PA.

I posti sono limitati, clicca qui per iscriverti all’evento

Outlook Calendar
(Clicca per salvare la data dell’Evento Metel 2009 automaticamente sul tuo calendario Outlook).

This post is all about June’s meeting of the group. As I was not there I will have to rely on others for the input, but I’m sure it was a fun session. Pauleen described the action:

We had a very busy 2-3 hours on Saturday afternoon with 9 of us braving the cold. We were very cosy as the group before us had left the room warm. We started with rubbings, shiva paint sticks with pieces of silk over wood blocks and rubber stamps and other textured surfaces.  Some beautiful patterns were achieved. We decided to finish early so not many started the machine grid on the dissolvable fabric, but were going home to continue.

The brief was to experiment with rubbings using the Shiva oilsticks:

These rubbings incorporated a variety of mediums including wooden printing blocks, crochet doilies, plastic doilies, rubbing plates and other stamps.

I also experimented (in another time and space) and added a little foiling. The silver foil actually came from an unfortunate New Year’s Eve when oldest daughter ended up in an ambulance and they gave her the foil wrap around to warm her up.

Here now are some of the experiments using solvy and FME ing a grid to display the techniques.

See the next entry for what we got up to in July!!!

Ever since Tom Patterson started offering Natural Earth, a public domain raster dataset of the entire Earth, I’ve been a big fan of it. In fact, the base layer for the Oolaalaa globes is based on Natural Earth I (with added bathymetry and increased contrast).

After releasing 3 raster datasets this way, Tom has recently teamed up with Nathaniel V. Kelso to create a vector product that also will be released into the public domain: Natural Earth Vector. Nathaniel has invited me to participate in this as well, and to be honest I think it’s a wonderful project. So far I’ve been involved in extracting road data from OpenStreetmap and identifying rivers in Europe.

Processing the OpenStreetmap data, using FME, reinforced my slight aversion of XML/GML based data. When downloading the data, you have the option of getting the .osm data, which is in an XML format, or shapefiles. FME does support the .osm format, but processing the files takes a terrible amount of time. Processing the shapefiles for Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa and South America, just filtering out the major highways, takes about 11 minutes. I don’t dare to do that with the .osm data, but I fear it may take days. It’s nice that XML is so open and free, but for large amounts of data it’s simply unsuitable.

Anyway, to get back to Natural Earth Vector, it will be officially unveiled at the NACIS conference in Sacramento this october and I for one am looking very much forward to that.

So for a long time I’ve been saying I generally don’t use FME for raster work because it’s slow. This was all based on some bad experiences way back with FME 2006 (the first version to support raster data if I recall correctly) and the infamous 37-Gigabyte temporary file that was left on my hard drive after a mosaicking operation crashed. So I’d mostly been using FME for dynamically making a clip out of a larger raster file, which I would invariably produce with Global Mapper.

Recently, Dale Lutz of Safe Software had suggested that I’d give FME another chance, because they had made a lot of progress in the handling of raster data. So I decided to give it another go, pitting the FME 2010 “UC” beta against Global Mapper 10.02.All tests were done in Windows Vista x64 running through Bootcamp on my Mac Pro with 10 Gb of ram. All data was present on the local hard drive.

Test 1 : tiling a raster

I took a TIFF file of Tom Patterson’s Natural Earth. Specifially, I had already produced a combined version. Tom offers it in “west” and “east” files, I put those together to get the entire earth in a single, almost 2 Gb, GeoTIFF. I set up both FME and Global Mapper to tile this file into 90 x 90 degree chunks and output each of them as GeoTIFF. FME blazed through this in a mere 32 seconds. Global Mapper took close to 18 minutes.

Test 2 : mosaicking the tiles back to an ECW

Another common procedure, mosaicking a number of raster tiles and creating a single large image out of them. I did try to set the compression factor in both FME and Global Mapper to the same value but since they specify them in different ways, it’s difficult. I got close, but not quite. In any case, compression generally isn’t going to give very nice results on map images, where you often have areas with solid colors. Also, I did struggle a bit with FME to get it to deal with the raster bands (the alpha channel) in the GeoTIFF’s correctly. Still, I only measured actual processing time, not how much time it took me to set it up (which, to be honest, is roughly the same in both FME and Global Mapper). I fed both applications their own tiles that were output in test 1. FME got through this in about 1:30, Global Mapper took 3:30

Final verdict

Easy one really, FME took a combined total of 2 minutes of processing, against 21 minutes for Global Mapper. Need I say more?

I do think the two products each have their unique strengths though, so I will certainly not stop using Global Mapper. But I will use FME much more often for this kind of work.

Well, wrapping up the FME User Conference, I can say it’s been another interesting one. This morning Don and Dale showed us a bit about the new things coming in FME 2010, some of which I had already seen in beta’s or was revealed earlier in the event.

Certainly an important improvement is security on FME Server. This was not in place before and users would have to rely on other, 3rd party, ways to secure the access to the server. Now that it comes bundled with FME Server itself, it’ll be easier for the average user to set it up.

One thing I’m personally looking forward to to try out is the improved generalisation options that were mentioned by Daniel Pilon of NR-Can in his presentation about generalising a 1:50k topo dataset to 1:250k. This is something I’ve been looking into myself in the past (though a less dramatic scale range) and never really got far with it.

More room for improvement comes with the new 3D stuff that I have already mentioned. I think it will be a good idea to review the workflow for the Virtueel Apeldoorn environment and see if we can cut some corners. In fact, after 3ds and obj writing was announced last december, we have already started to look into those as a possible replacement for DXF in the whole process.

Day one of the FME User Conference brought us, as always, the big Don and Dale introduction. I never thought I’d hear AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” at a conference, but they managed to do so. As usual, their introduction once again proves that Safe is a fun company to work at (or, in my case, do business with).

The keynote, delivered by James Fee, touched upon some interesting concepts on how data is being managed and distributed nowadays. One of his main points was that it’s not just about publishing the data, but also about your potential users being able to find it.

The presentations, 2 tracks, covered a wide range of subjects, though it’s surprising to see a very high proportion of FME Server related presentations being done. For me the highlight was Brendan Cunningham of Kilkenny County Council in Ireland, who talked about a SMS notification system powered by FME. My own presentation, about a current project where I have to combine Dutch and Belgian data into one coherent set was well-received and I’m pretty pleased with how it went.

In the afternoon it was time for FME Idol and FMEopardy (an FME version of jeopardy), which once again were great fun to laugh. The day was ended with the conference social up in the Roundhouse Lodge at Whistler Blackcomb Mountain (not a bad place to be, to be honest).

Well, it’s technically not the first day of the conference, that doesn’t start until tomorrow, but I participated in some of the technical sessions today and already saw some interesting things. This is all based on what we’ve seen in the FME 2010 beta build used at the conference:

• PDF writing is apparently improved quite a bit. This is good news for me because I occasionally get questions along the lines of “can you do 5000 maps with driving directions?” (yes, an actual question…) and FME is a perfect tool for doing the processing. If the output can be made to look fairly decent, this would be a very serious option.
• There is a replacement for the FME Viewer on the way. Still in a very early stage, but it’s looking pretty good. This new tool, the DataInspector, will do 3D as well.
• I’ve noticed a couple of new transformers that seem to indicate that network analisys is an upcoming frontier for FME.
• Many 3D formats can now also be read (OBJ, 3DS, Sketchup) and have support for textures. Getting a textured model from Sketchup into 3D PDF is a breeze now.
• Dynamic reading/writing is another big thing. I haven’t had much change to use this in real-world scenarios yet, apart from using a Generic Writer once, but based on what I’ve seen this could be a very useful thing in environments where a data model may slightly change over time. Also, clever use of a SchemaMapper can save a lot of repetitive use of AttributeCreators, AttributeSetters and AttributeCopiers.

Aside from all that, it’s nice to meet other FME users and see what they’re up to. The atmosphere at the FME events is always very relaxed.

Not immediately conference-related, but worth a mention, is the fact that over the past years I’ve not used FME to mosaick large amounts of raster data, based on some bad experiences way back with FME 2006, preferring Global Mapper instead. Dale Lutz recently told me that I really ought to give FME another chance, so when I get back from this trip I’ll see if I can set up some benchmarking tests to figure this out once and for all.

The 2009 FME User Conference starts on Thursday (with pre-conference workshops and training sessions commencing today) and I’m currently on my way to Whistler to attend. This time, I’m set to do one lightning talk (processing 3D data for an online virtual city) and one presentation (processing topographic data from 2 different national mapping agencies, combining them into a single dataset).

The rest of the programme lookes very interesting and there seems to be a fairly heavy focus on 3D this time. I’m looking forward to it!

Just a quick post of the swaps we recently sent, now they have been received in Canberra and North Devon.

For Ebony from Claudia (Doreen emailed this scan for me, thanks Doreen)

Ebony made this gorgeous ATC for Claudia:

And for Val;

Val sent the most beautiful postcard and ATC for me and an ATC for Claudia shown here.

The theme for the swap was spring, and I had a piece of fabric on which I had originally painted four roses (for a spring swap last year with Susan!)

This is the one I worked on for Val as it fitted the postcard size best. It has some pink fibres and some leaf shapes from the scrap bits of painted fabric covered with chiffon scarf and FME’d. It is finished with hand stitching and beading.

I still have the other two roses and am trying to decide whether to cut into ATC size for the Creative fibre arts group swap, or keep them whole and finish as quilties. These two have fragments of silk paper added, then FME over a chiffon scarf (I have a great collection of these scarves from the Op shop).

Progress on the casalguido:

I think the casalguido stitch is ideal for the tree, great texture. The thread for the stem stitch over the top is cotton a broder, between a pearl 8 and 12 in thickness. Hopefully I’ll finish this off today and add some needlewoven leaves. 

My sampler is a bit haphazard, unlike Sharon’s fantastic examples!!

I’m hoping to try out some of the needlewoven stitches from Effie’s book (which I have borrowed from the library, but like so much I’ve ordered it from Boomerang Books) in the space next to the tree.

Cheers

Off to stitch!

…..wins the race.

I love the idea of slow cloth, takes the pressure off completely and makes the whole process so much more enjoyable (as long as it doesn’t degenerate into procrastination). It’s all in the mindset, I find. If you look at the process of mulling over the possibilities in a positive way it becomes a constructive thing to do. Of course there is still an important place for the frenetic when inspiration comes pouring out, because work that is totally spontaneous can have fantastic results.

Most of my current projects are of the ’slow’ variety.

I am still working on my ’sea angels’ and finding many possibilities opening up as ideas are sparked from viewing lots of creative blogs.

I am also still working on my ‘killed catalogues’, a new idea for which was sparked off by Heather’s fantastic chessmen.

Here are a couple of great ATC’s we have swapped.

On the left is Gillian’s first try at ATC’s, very interesting textures, and on the right the amazingly talented Ebony’s sent to Claudia.

Claudia’s return ATC to Ebony, which should have arrived by now (which I can’t find a photo of, whoops) was part of this random felting she did at our March textile group. Claudia used her ATC window to choose the sections she wanted to cut out. She chose some colours of machine embroidery rayon and had fun FME’ing the circles and outlines. I always make sure Claudia puts on the safety glasses for this stage in case she breaks a needle. She also chose one to finish and send off to Val (forgot to scan that one too!!)

Here are a few more of Claudia’s in production.

I have been also slowly continuing with the Stitch Explorer for April and May. April was Casalguido embroidery and May was needleweaving. These two are complementary styles of stitching so I decided to combine them for this sampler.

The first stage, casalguido or padded raised stem band stitch, shows stranded cotton laid down, couched with sewing thread and then satin stitched with more stranded cotton. The perpendicular stitches are then placed in the second photo and I will try some cotton a broder to cover this with the final layer, stem stitch.

The base is four sided stitch using two strands of DMC. I will be doing some needlewoven autumn leaves in a hand dyed variegated pearl  bought from Sharon to finish off.

I found Effie Mitrofanis’ book a wonderful guide to this stitch, with clear directions and some inspiring contemporary embroidery.

I have also ordered Effie’s needleweaving book from the library as well, so I’m sure that will also contain some more great ideas and instructions.

Time to get off the computer and finish the housework, so I can sit and stitch!!

Cheers