Other Autodesk Products Archives - Page 3 of 4

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

iPad, iPhone app – good and bad news

By Steve Johnson 3 September 2010, 5:28 pm 3 September 2010 itemprop="discussionURL"2

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 …

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

When is AutoCAD not AutoCAD?

By Steve Johnson 1 September 2010, 5:04 pm 1 September 2010 itemprop="discussionURL"5

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. …

AutoCAD, Autodesk, Bug, Civil 3D, Other Autodesk Products, Other Blogs, Review, Tip

Missing language pack fixes compared

By Steve Johnson 26 July 2010, 10:59 am 26 July 2010 itemprop="discussionURL"2

Having tried out the cleanup fixes from both Autodesk and Owen Wengerd, they both appear to work fine. Here are some points of comparison: Owen’s utility will work with any AutoCAD variant from 2007 on; Autodesk’s fix is currently restricted to Civil 3D 2009, 2010 and 2011. As this problem is definitely not confined to Civil 3D, and may need to be dealt with by non-Civil 3D users, that could be the dealbreaker right there. Owen’s can be installed by anyone by simply copying a file and loading it when needed or in the Startup Suite; Autodesk’s requires admin rights …

Announcement, AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2007, AutoCAD 2008, AutoCAD 2009, AutoCAD 2010, AutoCAD 2011, Autodesk, Bug, Development, Other Autodesk Products, Other Blogs, Other Sites, Win

Another language pack cleanup solution

By Steve Johnson 22 July 2010, 1:43 pm 22 July 2010 itemprop="discussionURL"0

My CADLock, Inc. colleague, Owen Wengerd has posted about a fix utility he has written to help clean up drawings infested with the language pack problem discussed here. I have not yet tested Owen’s utility*, but as this should run in any AutoCAD-based product from 2007 on, it could well be a better partial solution than Autodesk’s Civil 3D-only (so far) patches. Autodesk still needs to sort out its dodgy templates, of course, and should probably provide its own non-Civil 3D fixes, if only to maintain a little corporate self-respect. As Owen has a long and distinguished history of being …

Announcement, AutoCAD, Autodesk, Bug, Customer Service, Other Autodesk Products, Win

Partial fix for language pack problem

By Steve Johnson 22 July 2010, 9:59 am 22 July 2010 itemprop="discussionURL"1

The Civil 3D group within Autodesk has moved impressively quickly in providing a partial solution to the language pack problem I described earlier. What has been provided so far is a set of patches for Civil 3D 2009, 2010 and 2011 that allow Civil 3D users to remove the spurious language pack flag by opening and re-saving the affected drawings. I have not yet tested this, but I am informed that it works. What’s left to do? Obviously, not all recipients of these drawings are going to have Civil 3D. In fact, prior to isolating Civil 3D as one definite …

Bug, Customer Service, Customisation, Development, Fail, Interoperability, Other Autodesk Products

Civil 3D 2011 ANZ comes complete with “virus”

By Steve Johnson 19 July 2010, 4:06 pm 19 July 2010 itemprop="discussionURL"6

If you install Civil 3D 2011 using the ANZ (Australia/New Zealand) profile, when you start it up for the first time, you will see a large warning indicating that the drawing requires an Asian language pack to be installed. It also warns that this is a symptom of the acad.vlx virus: Now I know that in this case it’s not an actual virus causing the problem, but rather the ANZ template drawing being “infected” with this Language Pack requirement. I have had to deal with quite a few incoming drawings in this state, and that’s painful enough without Autodesk also …

Announcement, Cloud, Other Autodesk Products, Other Blogs, Polls, Spin

Command line poll replaced

By Steve Johnson 18 May 2010, 8:35 am 18 May 2010 itemprop="discussionURL"7

For the past couple of months, I have been running a poll about the command line. I ran it using wording copied directly from a Project Butterfly poll, to get some kind of comparison between the poll respondents on this blog and those on the Project Butterfly blog. It’s fair to say that I don’t like the wording of the available options, which appear designed to influence the result rather than find out what people really think. The “I can’t work with…” option has negative connotations; if I pick this choice, it implies that my abilities fall short in some …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, AutoCAD 2010, AutoCAD 2011, Other Autodesk Products, Other Blogs, Polls

Ribbon poll roundup

By Steve Johnson 17 May 2010, 1:36 pm 17 May 2010 itemprop="discussionURL"0

Further to my last post, Here is a brief summary of this blog’s various poll results that relate in some way to Ribbon and CIP use. The most recent polls are at the top of the list. I have placed in bold those percentages that relate directly to the proportion of AutoCAD Ribbon use among the voters on this blog. AutoCAD 2010 users’ Ribbon use: 44% (AutoCAD 2010 users’ CIP on: 36%) Ribbon love: 28% AutoCAD 2010 menu bar non-users: 23% Inventor Ribbon use: 44% (Inventor 2010 users’ Ribbon use: 59%) Revit Ribbon use: 42% (Revit 2010 users’ Ribbon use: …

Autodesk, Legal, Other Autodesk Products, Other Blogs, Thoughts

Not a topic to be debated publicly

By Steve Johnson 7 May 2010, 3:05 pm 7 May 2010 itemprop="discussionURL"3

Over on the oft-entertaining Deelip.com, there was an interesting comment made by Autodesk’s Scott Sheppard. After going back and forth a few times over Autodesk’s then-failure to allow Indian customers legal access to certain free Autodesk software downloads, Scott said this: I defer to Autodesk Legal on these matters which is where I get my guidance. This is not a topic to be debated publicly. As one of our most active Labs participants, I was just sharing some information with you and your readers. On the face of it, Scott’s “not a topic to be debated publicly” comment seems pretty silly. …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2011, Bug, Cloud, Customer Service, Customisation, Development, Other Autodesk Products, Subscription, Tip, Web Stuff

Filling the holes in Autodesk’s CHM Help stopgap

By Steve Johnson 7 May 2010, 1:18 pm 7 May 2010 itemprop="discussionURL"6

It was good to see Autodesk react to criticism of AutoCAD 2011’s browser-based Help with an acknowledgement of the problems and an attempt to provide a workaround by making a zip file of CHM files available for download. That’s much better than ignoring people’s concerns, denying the validity of those concerns or shooting the messenger, which has been known to happen in the past. However, there are some holes in the workaround, only some of which can be filled. Under 64-bit Windows 7, the Search pane is blank, as it is in the CHM Help for earlier releases on that platform. This …

Autodesk, Fail, Fun, Image manipulation, Other Autodesk Products, Thoughts, Web Stuff

Would the real Autodesk logo please stand up?

By Steve Johnson 15 April 2010, 2:43 pm 15 April 2010 itemprop="discussionURL"7

Autodesk, in common with other multi-billion-dollar corporations, periodically spends large sums on redeveloping and then consistently presenting its corporate image. It then spends even larger sums making itself look silly in court by claiming exclusive rights to such things as empty orange rectangles. Strange, then, that Autodesk should slip up online when it comes to that most fundamental image element, the logo for the Autodesk name itself. Spotted on the web this very day: The topmost of these three logos is the normal, correct one. That’s what you will see if you visit the main Autodesk web site, whatever browser …

Autodesk, Cloud, Comments, Other Autodesk Products, Other Blogs, Polls, Spin

Can you work without a command line?

By Steve Johnson 26 February 2010, 5:34 pm 26 February 2010 itemprop="discussionURL"15

On the Project Butterfly blog, a recent poll gave these choices: I can’t work without the command line I think it’s time for a new way to draw without the command line In a follow-up post, the observation was made that “We thought that only a few people would work without a command line, but the results were refreshing.” Apparently, only 66% of respondents selected the first of the available options. To this I respond, “Beware the trap of the biased sample”. The poll asked people who are largely users of a product that involves drawing without a command line …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2011, Autodesk, Customer Service, Nostalgia, Other Autodesk Products, Spin, Subscription, Tip

AutoCAD does a Cheshire Cat

By Steve Johnson 19 February 2010, 3:06 pm 19 February 2010 itemprop="discussionURL"4

In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Cheshire Cat gradually disappears until nothing is left but its smile. The AutoCAD packaging has done the same thing over the years until now nothing is left but the 0s and 1s. In Release 13, one box was not enough to keep all the materials, but Autodesk gradually slimmed it down until in recent years your slab of upgrade or Subscription cash gets you nothing but a DVD in a case (with or without a pack of cards). However, you can go cap in hand to Autodesk and ask for a real manual of …

AutoCAD, Autodesk, Comments, Customer Service, Other Autodesk Products, Thoughts

How will you react to Autodesk’s new upgrade pricing?

By Steve Johnson 8 February 2010, 10:40 pm 8 February 2010 itemprop="discussionURL"41

As I reported early last year, Autodesk is going to discourage you from paying for upgrades as and when you see fit. It is doing this by charging you 50% of the cost of a full license to upgrade from the previous release. The same 50% cost will apply if you crossgrade [edit: crossgrade from an non-current release, that is] (say if you move from AutoCAD to a vertical). If your product is more than three releases old, you can’t upgrade. This change takes effect from 16 March 2010. There were some discounted upgrade offers to get you signed over …

Autodesk, Cloud, Other Autodesk Products, Other Blogs, Review, Video, Web Stuff

Autodesk’s cloudy drawing offering

By Steve Johnson 21 January 2010, 10:52 am 21 January 2010 itemprop="discussionURL"6

Autodesk’s Project Butterfly is its latest offering in the Cloud (Software as a Service, SaaS, web-based software, whatever) area. This is a Labs technology preview (i.e. it ain’t cooked yet) of browser-based drawing system based on Autodesk’s purchase of Visual Tao. The idea is that no software other than a browser is required to create, edit or just view drawings. To try it out, head to http://butterfly.autodesk.com/ and pick on Try Now. If you’re interested in going further with it, you will need to create an account, which is a quick and painless process. This account is separate from your …

Autodesk, Customer Service, Other Autodesk Products, Other Products

Hope for Autodesk FM Desktop orphans

By Steve Johnson 16 January 2010, 1:54 pm 16 January 2010 itemprop="discussionURL"1

For those of us who have been following Autodesk for decades, it’s a familiar story. Autodesk buys a company or its technology, makes an Autodesk product out of it, and initially promotes it as the best thing since sliced bread. Autodesk subsequently ignores it to death, before finally killing it off and leaving customers in the lurch. Autodesk FM Desktop suffered this fate, and if you go looking for information about the product on the Autodesk site you’ll find only a few dregs left over from the days when this was a viable product. At least in this case Autodesk …

Autodesk, Customisation, Interoperability, Nostalgia, Other Autodesk Products, Thoughts

Trusting Autodesk? Contemplating a new product

By Steve Johnson 30 September 2009, 3:36 pm 30 September 2009 itemprop="discussionURL"5

Last week, in my capacity as a de facto CAD manager for a large public utility company, I was having a chat with an Autodesk Australia person (he’s a nice guy and very honest, by the way). The topic of conversation moved to the new AutoCAD-based vertical, Plant 3D 2010. At that stage, I had not even installed the 30-day trial, but I still raised some of the issues that potentially stood in the way of the company adopting this apparently highly suitable product. In a word, it comes down to trust. Each drawing used or issued by this utility …

AUGI, AutoCAD, Autodesk, Other Autodesk Products, Polls

Ribbon acceptance in AutoCAD and Revit

By Steve Johnson 9 September 2009, 4:14 pm 9 September 2009 itemprop="discussionURL"24

AutoCAD Ribbon use (and non-use) may have been the hottest topic on this blog to date, but it’s a storm in a teacup compared with what has been going on between Revit users and Autodesk. More on that later, but for now I’d just like to pass on a statement made by Autodesk BIM Design Product Line Manager Anthony A. Hauck on the AUGI forums that: Recent data on other Autodesk applications having both the new and “classic” UI show about a 2 : 1 split in favor of the new UI. I would be interested to know the full …

AutoCAD 2010, Bug, Customer Service, Interoperability, Other Autodesk Products, Raster Design

Hotfix available for Raster Design licensing issue

By Steve Johnson 23 June 2009, 12:09 pm 23 June 2009 itemprop="discussionURL"0

Thanks to Brian and Rick for pointing out the availability of a hotfix for Raster Design 2010’s standalone/network license incompatibility. As a bonus, it also fixes some Raster Design / Civil 3D stability issues. The hotfix is available here, and as always with patches, fixes, service packs and updates, read the readme first. Note that although this fixes the most common scenario where a network Raster Design needs to work on a standalone AutoCAD, it does not fix the opposite scenario. So if you have a bunch of network licensed AutoCAD variants available to you and you have a standalone …

AU2009, Autodesk, Autodesk University, Other Autodesk Products, Other Blogs

Revit rebel Read re-admitted

By Steve Johnson 19 June 2009, 6:32 pm 19 June 2009 itemprop="discussionURL"1

Phil Read has, according to him, been re-admitted as an Autodesk University 2009 speaker. Yay! Is this a victory for people power? A victory for the blogosphere? I rather think it’s just a victory for common sense.