Category: <span>Autodesk</span>

Category: Autodesk

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2010, AutoCAD 2011, AutoCAD 2012, Autodesk, Customer Service, Interoperability, Other Autodesk Products, Rant

AutoCAD 2012 – Autodesk adds an uninstallation analgesic

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One of the more painful aspects of dealing with installations of recent releases of AutoCAD and related products is that although you might run a single setup routine to install what you think is a single application, the end result is a mass of different components being installed. Each of these components is considered a separate program by Windows, and needs uninstalling separately. Frankly, this is manifestly antisocial behaviour. I have complained to Autodesk about this ever since it started happening, but the number of sub-installations has been getting greater rather than smaller. Now Autodesk has provided an uninstallation tool, which …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2012, Autodesk, Customer Service, Fail, Performance, Rant, Subscription

AutoCAD 2012 – Massive download bloat

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Note: this post is not an April fool’s joke. It may be ridiculous and hard to believe, but unfortunately it’s all true. After I managed to overcome Autodesk’s obstructive download manger and download AutoCAD 2012, it became available on the Subscription site (when that site wasn’t running unusably slowly). Or it became kind-of available. Here’s what is actually available: AutoCAD 2012 Multilingual 32 bit Download File Size: 2,080,558,319 bytes (1,984.2 MB) AutoCAD 2012 English Korean Traditional-Chinese Simplified-Chinese Win 64bit Download File Size: 2,240,915,999 bytes (2,137.1 MB) These file sizes are roughly double those of the AutoCAD 2012 English files I’ve already …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2012, Autodesk, Fail, Rant, Subscription, Web Stuff

AutoCAD 2012 – Downloading the trial is a trial

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Edit (October 2016): see this post to download Autodesk software easily. Let’s say you’re trying to download some software and it insists on first installing some intermediary download manager. Do you think, “Great, this will make my life easier, things are bound to go quickly and smoothly now”? No, didn’t think so. How about when it’s by Akamai? Does that make you feel more confident? No, nor me. If I download stuff without a manager, it just works. Sometimes it’s slow, but it works. If I use a general-purpose download manager that’s part of my browser, or one I chose to …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2012, Autodesk, Bug, ClassicArray

AutoCAD 2012 – Array has good and bad points

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For many users, the most useful new feature in AutoCAD 2012 is going to be the updated Array command. It adds a great deal of very welcome new functionality that will provide a potential productivity boost for 2D and 3D users. But it’s from an Autodesk wedded to its infernal 12-month product cycle, so of course it’s half-baked. The Good So what’s good about the Array command in AutoCAD 2012? Associativity. By default, arrays are now associative objects. This means that if you want to, say, modify the distance between columns a couple of days after you drew them, you …

AutoCAD, Autodesk

Autodesk survey for 3D users

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Autodesk is conducting a survey about 3D work in AutoCAD. Here is the announcement: Do you use 3D in your AutoCAD work? We want to learn from you! If you are familiar with 3D modeling, lighting, rendering, or visual styles, either in AutoCAD or in other software, we’re interested in finding out more about how you work. We are conducting a survey to learn about your 3D work process. The survey should take less than 10 minutes to complete, and your feedback will help us improve future versions of AutoCAD. Here is the link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/72HDGVG We are also conducting a …

Autodesk, Legal, Polls

Owning software – what you think

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In February 2009, I ran some polls here that are relevant to the discussion regarding the US court system’s most recent backflip in the Vernor v. Autodesk legal saga. Here is a reminder of the results. In April 2009, I ran another set of polls that are also relevant, as they provide an indication of your attitude to license agreements. Here are those results. If you voted in these polls last year, have your opinions changed in the meantime?

AutoCAD, Autodesk, Fail, Legal, Other Blogs, Other Sites, Rant

Vernor v. Autodesk – right decision, wrong reason

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As I have stated before, I believe Autodesk to be in the right (morally, not legally) in its battle to prevent Vernor’s resale of old, upgraded copies of Release 14. In the latest installment, Autodesk has won its appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. There will be be further legal moves yet, but Vernor’s chances of winning this case are now more slender. So the right side has won (at this stage). I should be happy, right? Wrong. Although I think the latest court to look at this has picked the right side, it has done so for …

Apple, AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2011, Autodesk, Development, Interview, Linux, Other Blogs, Spin

Executive summary of Deelip’s AutoCAD for Mac interview

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Deelip has just published an extensive interview with several Autodesk people about AutoCAD for the Mac. Deelip had a good set of questions and I suggest you read the whole thing, but if it’s all too tl;dr for you, then here is the lazy reader’s version of what Autodesk had to say: The AutoCAD code was split up into 3 sections: the core CAD engine (platform-independent), the Windows-specific (MFC) parts and the Mac-specific (Cocoa) ones. AutoCAD for Mac is incomplete. Choosing which features to leave out was done with the aid of CIP (oh, dear) and Beta feedback. (Hang on …

Apple, AutoCAD, Autodesk, Nostalgia, Other Blogs

Apple – Autodesk history revisited

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In a post on WorldCAD Access, Jay Vleeschhouwer makes some reasonable observations. However, the timing of the 1990s Autodesk / Mac history looks all wrong to me. Jay quotes himself from a 2008 note: …until about the mid-1990s Autodesk did have a reasonable presence on the Mac … commitment waned when Apple’s fortunes faded a dozen or so years ago The last of the original Mac AutoCADs was Release 12, a 1992 product. Apple market share continued to increase after that; indeed, 1994 was a bumper year. However, Autodesk’s commitment had already vanished by then, and its 1994 product, Release …

Apple, AutoCAD, Autodesk, Cloud, Fail, Interoperability, Other Autodesk Products, Spin, Web Stuff

iPad, iPhone app – good and bad news

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Good news! Autodesk has announced an app that will link iPads and iPhones to Project Butterfly. This provides viewing, markup and limited editing facilities. Bad news! Autodesk has decide to call it AutoCAD WS, which is bordering on the fraudulent. It’s not AutoCAD, is nothing like it, and is unlikely to ever be anything like it. I can call my dog Prince, but that doesn’t make him royalty. Unfortunately, much of the mainstream media appears to be blissfully unaware of this. This is gaining Autodesk some short-term column inches, but at the longer-term expense of furthering the myth that “AutoCAD” is going …

Apple, AutoCAD 2011, Autodesk, Customisation, Spin, Thoughts

AutoCAD for Mac – what’s missing?

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According to Autodesk, the forthcoming OS X version of AutoCAD has “many of the powerful AutoCAD features and functionality.” So what doesn’t it have? What are the holes? Autodesk hasn’t bothered to let me know a single thing about this software, so I guess I’ll just indulge in some irresponsible and uninformed speculation, based on what I can glean from marketing materials and various better-informed sources. I could have just asked, but who knows if I would have ever got any real answers? Besides, this way is more fun. First, here’s a quick list of some things that don’t appear to be …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD LT, Autodesk, Civil 3D, Cloud, Other Autodesk Products, Raster Design, TrueView

When is AutoCAD not AutoCAD?

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When is AutoCAD nor AutoCAD? When it’s AutoCAD WS. But it’s not quite that simple. I’ve been correcting people for months when they say things like “Project Butterfly is AutoCAD on the Cloud.” No, it’s not. It’s a DWG editor of sorts, but anybody who has used both will know that it’s not AutoCAD or anything like it. Although it’s useful for viewing and markup and is improving all the time, Project Butterfly is still very restricted and is likely to remain so for a long time. You wouldn’t want to spend a significant portion of your day drawing with it. …

Announcement, AutoCAD 2011, Autodesk

AutoCAD 2011 Update 1 recalled

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If you click on the link I posted about earlier, you will get this: On August 23, 2010, Autodesk released Update 1 for AutoCAD 2011. Unfortunately, Update 1 introduced an issue when conducting certain operations that may cause AutoCAD to shut down. This issue affects a small number of users. We have removed Update 1 and will reintroduce it in the near future when the issue has been resolved. For customers who have already installed Update 1, the hotfix that resolves this issue has been posted at the following location: AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT Layer Manager Hotfix Please be assured …

Autodesk, Nostalgia, Other Blogs, Other Sites, Thoughts, Writing

Why we keep upgrading

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In a comment in response to a Deelip post yesterday, Brad Holtz pointed to an article he wrote in 1999. It’s interesting to note that while much of the computing world today bears little resemblance to the scene at the end of the last century, this article remains almost completely accurate and relevant. Indeed, it’s so right that you might even be tempted to think, “Duh, isn’t that obvious?” One section that stood out to me had this to say: Many software systems never even get beyond the acceptable stage …. vendors of these systems are continually coming out with …

AutoCAD LT, Autodesk, Fail, Rant, Spin

More Autodesk deception over LT productivity study

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Following on from the AutoCAD 2011 productivity study I critiqued earlier, there is now an LT version. Do the same credibility problems apply to this study too? Yes, and then some. In addition to the drawings and operations being deliberately hand-picked to demonstrate new features, no direct comparison is performed at all between the two releases on the same platforms. Every single quoted “productivity improvement” figure includes, free of charge, three years of hardware and operating system progress and a more upmarket graphics card. If you read business “news” sources that just reprint press releases, such as this Yahoo! Finance one …

Announcement, Autodesk, Other Blogs, Web Stuff

Autodesk user community survey

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Autodesk is running a web survey to try to find out which user communities (including blogs) its customers find valuable. If you are interested in participating, the survey is here. If you want to specify any blogs, you will need to type or paste their names into various “other comments” boxes. As the number of blogs I read far exceeds a reasonable type-in requirement, I couldn’t accurately give an idea of my web habits. So I’m not sure how much can be accurately read into the results. (Source: CAD Panacea). I saw Shaan asking about this kind of thing a …

Autodesk, Fail, Interview, Spin, Subscription

Not answering the question

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Here in Australia, we’re in election mode, so I have even more reasons to avoid watching TV. On those occasions when I do watch it, I am often annoyed by what I see. This is not a novel observation, but one of the things that annoys me about many politicians is their habit of sidestepping questions when interviewed. It also annoys me when interviewers fail to follow up these non-answers and let them slide. Depending on the circumstances (e.g. limited timeframe, more important questions to ask, etc.), there may be valid reasons for journalists failing to chase after legitimate answers …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2008, AutoCAD 2011, Autodesk, Fail, Other Blogs, Rant, Spin, Thoughts

Studying Autodesk’s productivity study

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Heidi Hewett just reported the following on her blog, about a productivity study: According to a recent independent study, AutoCAD® 2011 can help you work up to 44% faster with the latest productivity enhancements. I have a couple of problems with that sentence. First, it’s not an independent study. It’s a study conducted by long-time respected CAD figure David Cohn, but it was specified and paid for by Autodesk: This productivity study was performed at the request of Autodesk Inc., which funded this work. That’s not exactly independent then, is it? Second, the study does not state that AutoCAD 2011 …

Autodesk, Fail, Fun, Image manipulation, Web Stuff

Magic vanishing images

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In a thread in the Feedback & Questions about the Discussion Groups section of the Autodesk discussion groups, somebody called ACADuser contributed what I thought was a highly amusing bar graph as a test image. Inspired by this, I contributed a couple of test images of my own. A few hours later, the whole thread magically disappeared! It seems a shame that I went to the effort of making those images, and all for nothing. The handful of people who would have seen them on the discussion groups have now missed out on the experience. So I’ve decided to make …