• Trials, Tribulations, and Training: Navigating a Career Transition in the AEC industry — Jason Peckovitch a former BIM Manager finds himself facing the competitive and emotionally challenging task of job hunting in the AEC industry, which is complicated by the need to balance professional excellence with personal responsibilities as a single father. To stay relevant and resilient, he emphasizes the crucial role of continuous education and training, treating every course and certification as an active way to keep skills sharp and maintain purpose while facing rejection. This pursuit of growth was unexpectedly hindered by the loss of his Autodesk account due to a former employer’s single sign-on system, an issue that highlights the lack of professional identity ownership. Ultimately, this transitional period has served as a profound lesson in resilience, adaptability, and emotional intelligence, reinforcing that a fulfilling career requires finding a workplace that supports the whole person, not just technical proficiencies.

• Dealing with the Un List — Mark Kiker explains while traditional project planning relies on a detailed task list, he introduces the crucial concept of the “Un List”: the collection of unexpected, ambiguous, overlooked, or underdeveloped issues that can derail any well-laid plan. These pitfalls include the Unknown (general lack of clarity), the Unassigned (tasks that fall through the cracks due to assumptions), the Unavailable (expected resources that are missing when needed), the Unspoken (critical information others fail to share), the Unacceptable (work product that doesn’t meet high-quality standards), the Undelivered (others failing to meet agreed-upon deadlines), and the Untested (deploying technology without proper vetting). To succeed, managers must actively anticipate these “Un’s” by explicitly assigning tasks, reserving resources, probing for hidden information, enforcing quality, proactively tracking deadlines, and managing rigorous testing standards.

• AutoCAD Architecture 2026 : Object Linking and Embedding — Melinda Heavrin discusses how Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) is a crucial feature that allows you to integrate data from a source application, such as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, into a destination document, like an AutoCAD Architecture (ACA) drawing, while maintaining the ability to edit the data using the original program. The two main methods are linking and embedding: embedded objects are independent copies of the source data, meaning they will not update if the original file changes; linked objects, conversely, maintain a connection to the source file, allowing them to automatically update whenever the original data is modified, which is essential for documents that need to share the same live information.

• Incorporation of Waste Glass Powder (WGP) in Concrete — Ali Al-Azzawi discusses integrating Waste Glass Powder (WGP) into concrete is a sustainable and innovative approach that addresses environmental concerns while enhancing structural performance. When ground to a fine powder (under 75–100 µm), WGP acts as a Supplementary Cementitious Material (SCM), exhibiting pozzolanic behavior by reacting with cement hydration byproducts to form additional strengthening calcium silicate hydrate (C-S-H). This process not only utilizes recycled glass waste, lowering the carbon footprint associated with cement production, but also significantly improves the concrete’s mechanical properties (strength and reduced permeability) and durability against chloride ingress and sulfate attack, extending the structure’s service life. However, to realize these benefits and mitigate risks like the Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR), careful quality control over particle fineness and mix design is essential when WGP is used as a partial replacement for cement or fine aggregates.

• The Secret History of AutoCAD’s 7 Named Colors — Rose Barfield explains the core reason for AutoCAD’s 256 ACI (AutoCAD Color Index) colors and its 7 named index colors is the extreme hardware limitations of the early 1980s. The 256 index colors (0–255) perfectly fit into a single 1-byte unit of data, a crucial efficiency measure when AutoCAD 1 was released on 160 KB floppy disks. The initial seven named colors—Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, Magenta, and White/Black—were chosen not for arbitrary reasons but because they matched the limited color palettes of the pen plotters used for printing and provided maximum contrast on the prevalent monochrome or 4-color displays of the time. While modern AutoCAD supports over 16 million colors via a 24-bit RGB True Color system and integrates industry standards like Pantone and RAL, the original 256-color index and its iconic 7 named colors remain a core, backward-compatible feature.

• Dialog Fun Facts − Buttons Galore — Paul Li gives a tutorial on using the four types of buttons available in AutoCAD Dialog Control Language (DCL), set against a brief history of the button concept. The four types are the basic Push Button (for a single action like ‘OK’), the Toggle Button (a check box for two states, Selected or Unselected), the Radio Button (for selecting one option within a cluster), and the complex Image Button (for displaying selectable graphics like AutoCAD Slides or vectors, but not raster images). He provides AutoLISP and DCL code examples for each, emphasizes the importance of proper setup by modifying the Support File Search Path, and recommends using a robust editor like Visual Studio Code for managing the intensive code required for customized dialogs.

• BricsCAD^®: Building CAD Fluency through Structured Self-Paced Training — Craig Swearingen discusses hows Bricsys Learning is the official, self-paced online training portal for BricsCAD^®, designed to help new users, those migrating from other CAD programs like AutoCAD^®, and existing users quickly gain proficiency and maximize efficiency. The platform offers structured, modular content organized into key tracks, including a dedicated section for AutoCAD^® to BricsCAD^® migration that focuses on mapping differences, as well as BricsCAD^® Essentials for core workflows, and The BricsCAD^® Advantage which highlights unique tools like Blockify and the Quad interface. Furthermore, it provides specialized modules for BricsCAD BIM and Mechanical workflows, along with guides for Customizing the User Interface and migrating firm-wide CAD standards. The learning experience is hands-on, practical, and culminates in an optional Certificate of Completion to validate the user’s acquired skills.

Questions about AUGI? Please visit www.AUGI.com to learn more.