Tag Archives: AutoCAD WS

What’s in a name? AutoCAD 360 / mobile app confusion

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Has Autodesk’s online DWG viewer/markup tool had yet another rename? It’s hard to tell. I suspect there’s a rename process going on that’s not yet complete.

Here’s the list of names so far. I think.

  • Visual Tau (when acquired by Autodesk)
  • Project Butterfly (Autodesk Labs name)
  • AutoCAD WS
  • AutoCAD 360
  • AutoCAD mobile app

The last two names appear to be interchangeable right now. What led me to this confusion is the very sub-optimal customer experience I had in attempting to try out AutoCAD 360. The best way to describe it is a wild goose chase.

I started from a point familiar to current AutoCAD maintenance and subscription customers, the Autodesk Accounts page. Like the majority of AutoCAD users, I accessed this using a browser on a Windows PC. Among the options in there was this. Hmm, AutoCAD® 360, free, Access now. Let’s try that out.

I picked that option and was taken here:

Huh? Where’s AutoCAD 360? What’s AutoCAD mobile app? What’s this 7 day free trial thing? Autodesk Accounts told me it was free, not just a trial. What’s this, clickbait? Undeterred, I clicked the GET WINDOWS APP button and arrived here:

I’m off the Autodesk site and on the Microsoft one now, and it’s no longer AutoCAD mobile app, it’s back at AutoCAD 360 again. It says it’s available on Windows Holographic, PC and mobile device. But Get the app  is disabled and I’m informed This app does not work on your device. This is on the same page as “…AutoCAD drawings across desktop, web and mobile devices – anytime, anywhere” – except here and now, apparently.

This page says it’s free, not just a 7 day trial, but it looks like it’s free for everybody, not just subscription/maintenance customers. Confused yet? I sure am.

On this page I’m also informed that this is “the most powerful drafting and editing tool available” – wow! More powerful than AutoCAD 2018, the AutoCAD-based verticals and everything from Autodesk’s competitors? Cool! If only I could use it, I might be impressed. At least until I tried to do something that boring old desktop AutoCAD could do over 30 years ago, such as fillet two lines. I’m informed by somebody who can actually use the product that basic functionality like that is still missing; so much for the infinite computing power of the cloud.

Back to my product chase. In an attempt to find out what’s going on, I fired up the video on the previous Autodesk page. This one says it’s AUTODESK® AUTOCAD® | mobile app:

It also says “IN 36 SECONDS” during a 43-second video, but hey, let’s not get too tied up with accuracy. A few seconds into the video, we see an iPad user picking this:

Yes, that’s an AutoCAD 360 icon. It’s not even the current red A, it’s an old one from a couple of years ago. So is it AutoCAD 360 or AutoCAD mobile app? Looking for clues, I wandered over to Twitter: @AutoCAD360 now calls itself AutoCAD mobile app.

As mentioned above, there’s probably a rename process going on that’s not yet complete, but whatever the cause, it’s confusing as heck. Doesn’t anybody at Autodesk proof read anything or consider the customer experience before putting it out there?

Naming is a trivial matter compared with functionality, and I have been provided with none. I still haven’t managed to use the free product I was promised in Autodesk Accounts, whatever Autodesk eventually decides to call it. I still don’t know if it’s free to subscription/maintenance customers, free to everyone, or just a 7 day free trial.

Autodesk spends a billion dollars a year on marketing and sales. This little episode indicates it’s not getting great value for money.

Video lulz with AutoCAD 360

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Thanks to Hans Lammerts on Twitter for pointing out this amusingly cringeworthy AutoCAD 360 YouTube ad:

The guy spilling his coffee and falling over reminds me of the people in those infomercials that can never get the simplest things right:

https://youtu.be/3eMCURWpNAg

OK, so the ad’s bad, but how’s the product? I had a look for myself at the browser version of AutoCAD 360, which is the current name for what has been Visual Tau, Project Butterfly and AutoCAD WS in previous iterations dating back before Autodesk’s acquisition of the Israeli technology in 2009.

It’s a while since I tried it, so I was interested to see the progress that had been made. After all, CAD in the Cloud has been Autodesk’s focus for a long time now, and as this is likely the first product people try out, you’d expect it to be pretty dazzlingly good after all those years of development, right?

Interestingly, it’s still called a Beta, which hardly inspires confidence. Nevertheless, it didn’t misbehave for me, at least to begin with. It didn’t do very much at all for me, though.

On opening a very simple small 2D drawing, the first thing I noticed was the white background. As the drawing contained yellow text, that was no good so I looked for the settings to change the background to black. Couldn’t find any settings. I guess I didn’t really want to read that text anyway.

Nevertheless, I could zoom and pan around OK with tolerable performance. When I tried to select some objects to edit them, nothing happened. I looked around for buttons to press to do things. There was very little to see, and nothing I could find for doing anything much other than redlining over the top of what’s already there.

The second time I tried to open the same drawing, it just hung there, displaying a blue propeller thingy:

I gave up and tried again. This time, things were different! It locked slightly differently:

Now I see why it’s still called Beta.

To be fair, it hasn’t locked like this for me in the past so maybe it’s a one-off. Assuming it’s working, it’s a useful enough viewer. It has some limited markup functionality. That’s it. It’s free, and you get what you pay for.

Calling it AutoCAD 360 is highly dubious. It’s not AutoCAD or anything remotely close to it. It’s not even CAD. It’s a simple online product with capabilities that fall well short of the weakest CAD application back in the bad old days, when people could only dream of something as advanced as the dumb guy’s Nokia in the embarrassing Autodesk 360 ad.

There are also mobile versions of the software for iOS and Android. Haven’t tried them recently, but when I did they were acceptable viewers. Apparently you can pay for versions that actually let you do things. Go for it if you feel confident in Autodesk’s ability to provide a quality product. Me, I’m out.

Let’s have your AutoCAD WS 1.6 reviews

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Autodesk has just released the latest iteration of its free online CAD app, AutoCAD WS. It’s available directly via your browser or as iOS, Mac or Android apps. This is the closest Autodesk has yet come to showing us what real CAD in the Cloud can do. Autodesk has now had three years’ work behind it since buying the company responsible for this technology. I’d like you to put aside any Cloud concerns you may have and give it a fair go. Please try it out and report back what you find in a mini-review. How well does it work? The customer stories are all from organisations using it as a viewer or for simple markup edits. Is that all it can do, or does it come close to deserving to have CAD in its name?

What do I want you to try? It’s up to you, but I don’t want to waste too much of your time. Why not have a go at something that would only take you a couple of minutes in any AutoCAD release from the last quarter of a century?

For example, I’m sure everyone here could start a new drawing using a template containing your company’s layer standards, insert a title block and populate a couple of the attributes, then accurately draw and dimension a single 2D view of a rectangular plate containing a single round hole. Try to do the equivalent in AutoCAD WS. If you have difficulty with that, try uploading a simple drawing and perform a few simple edits instead. How did that go?

I’ll be interested to see what you came across at each stage of the process. Was the setup process straightforward? What was easy to do in the WS editor? What was difficult? What was impossible? What worked well? What didn’t? What happened quickly? What took a long time? What’s good about the interface? What’s not? Do the commands work as you would expect them to? Please try to describe your experiences as objectively as you can.

Note: I’ve asked a similar question before, but that was some time ago and things have moved on since then.

Any AutoCAD WS users out there?

In the post Cloud benefits – collaboration, I asked for people’s real-life experiences using, or attempting to use AutoCAD WS. In particular, I’d like to hear about you using its features to collaborate with others, which is a major selling point of the Cloud. As the other post hasn’t seen any replies yet, I’ve added this one to better attract the attention of AutoCAD WS users. Autodesk has put a lot of effort into this and it’s been out for a while, surely somebody’s using it for real work? If so, I encourage you to comment on the other post.

Autodesk Cloud – don’t panic, business as usual

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Autodesk recently made a big announcement about its Cloud initiatives, and reactions have been all over the place. Some people can barely contain their breathless excitement while others are outraged to the point of passing out the pitchforks. Why? It’s pretty much business as usual.

It’s nothing like Dassault’s disastrous we’re-moving-you-to-the-Cloud FUD campaign against its own product, SolidWorks. There’s no hint here of AutoCAD (real AutoCAD, I mean, not “AutoCAD” WS) being moved to the Cloud, or anything as radical as that. (Yes, I know there’s a limited experiment along those lines but that’s nothing to do with this announcement). It’s just a collection of relatively minor changes to Autodesk’s existing on-line services, collected together to make a newsworthy press release.

(As an aside, I must say this was a much more worthwhile announcement than the ridiculously over-hyped DE8.16N thing. So I was supposed to get excited about a routine upgrade of a product I have already been using for months, on an OS I don’t use, when the upgraded product is still half-baked just like the first underwhelming effort? Fortunately, I didn’t get sucked in by the pre-announcement build-up so I wasn’t disappointed, just amused when the truth was revealed. Autodesk PR, please don’t cry wolf so often; keep the hype in reserve for the hypeworthy stuff.)

Back to the Cloud thing, and putting aside hype and horror, here’s the stuff that has just happened:

  • Autodesk Cloud documents lets anybody store up to 1 GB documents on-line, or 3 GB if you’re a Subscription customer. This isn’t new, but until recently it was an Autodesk Labs project called Nitrous. The infrastructure is provided via Amazon and Citrix.
  • AutoCAD WS has been updated to integrate its storage with Autodesk Cloud documents. Remember, WS isn’t anything like real AutoCAD, but rather a limited on-line DWG editing tool. There’s a WS iPhone app, but that’s not new.
  • There’s an Autodesk Design Review iPhone app for reviewing DWF files you’ve stored in Autodesk Cloud. It won’t do DWG; use WS for that.
  • There are several cloud-based services that are available “free” to Subscription-paying users of a small subset of Autodesk software, mostly Revit and Inventor-based suites. They are: 
    • Inventor Optimization
    • Cloud Rendering
    • Green Building Studio
    • Conceptual Energy Analysis
    • Buzzsaw (now bundled with Vault Subscription)

    AutoCAD users need not apply for any of these services.

So some of Autodesk’s on-line services are now being provided only to Subscription customers, and one is offered in improved form for Subscription customers. There are two obvious reasons for this: tie-in and revenue.

First, Autodesk wants its customers tied to the Subscription gravy train, if you’ll excuse a fairly awful mix of metaphors. Offering Subscription benefits like this is preferable to some of the much less pleasant arm-twisting that has been happening recently (e.g. trebling upgrade prices). Is it too much to hope that Autodesk has learned that offering carrots to its customers is a better strategy than threatening them with sticks?

Second, Autodesk needs to start making money out of this stuff somehow. For some years, it has spent several fortunes on buying and developing on-line services and then given them away for nothing, usually as Labs projects. This obviously can’t go on for ever, but just slapping a charge on these services wasn’t going to fly. Bundling Cloud services up with Subscription is a way of easing people into paying for them, and this is something I expect to be expanded in future, for example with AutoCAD WS. Once that’s been established for a few years, it wouldn’t surprise me to then see Subscription for at least some of the services split off, so you’re paying for Cloud services explicitly. By then, enough customers may consider them to be worth paying for and they may therefore survive beyond the short term.

Will it work? I’m not sure. Time will tell which of these services will thrive and which will die, and such uncertainty is one of the many reasons real-world customers aren’t excited about getting their heads in the Cloud. I don’t intend to make use of these services (I’m not even allowed to), so I’m not too bothered what happens to them. Like the vast majority of Autodesk customers, I will just carry on using conventional software in that old-fashioned 20th century way that just happens to work very well. Autodesk will go on providing its software in that way, because that’s what most customers will want for at least a while yet, and Autodesk can’t survive on wisps of Cloudy revenue.

Move along, people, nothing to see here.

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 a minute, I thought CIP said most people were using the Ribbon…)
  • No comment on when or if AutoCAD for Mac functionality will catch up with its Windows counterpart.
  • No comment on the stability or performance of the Mac version.
  • Buying Visual Tau wasn’t a complete waste of money.
  • If Mac users want Windows-level functionality, they should use Bootcamp.
  • The Mac version is intended to expand the AutoCAD market to those Mac users who are frustrated by Bootcamp or who find it too hard.
  • Some mind-blowing spin was attempted in a valiant but vain attempt to explain away the Ribbon = productivity, Mac <> Ribbon marketing problem. You will really have to read it for yourself, as I can’t do it justice here. But “just because 2+2=4 doesn’t mean 4-2=2” will give you some idea of what to expect.
  • The Mac version is the same price as the Windows version, despite being incomplete, because Mac users won’t know or care about the missing stuff.
  • There are no plans for a Linux port, or any other platforms.
  • Autodesk will wait and see how AutoCAD for Mac does before porting any of the vertical products. (Very sensible).
  • Autodesk closed off the AutoCAD for Mac Beta program on announcement day because it wouldn’t have been able to cope with the mass of feedback from new users.
  • Autodesk will not allow dual use (Windows + Mac) licenses. If you want to have both products available to you, you will need to buy the software twice.
  • You can cross-grade AutoCAD from Windows to Mac for a nominal fee, or for nothing extra if you upgrade at the same time. (Although at 50% of the retail price of a whole new license, such an upgrade hardly represents a bargain).
  • Autodesk really doesn’t have any idea what is going to happen in the Mac CAD marketplace. (Refreshingly honest).
  • Little comment on why AutoCAD WS is called AutoCAD, other than iOs users not expecting their apps to do much anyway, plus it’s “part of the AutoCAD family.”
  • WS doesn’t stand for anything.

AutoCAD WS contest poll added

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Thanks to all entrants in the AutoCAD WS contest. I have now closed the entries and added a poll (see right). Although I did state that there would be no prize for this contest, I have some exciting news! I am happy to announce that thanks to an exclusive* arrangement with Autodesk, the winner of this contest will receive a free** copy of AutoCAD!*** I will keep the poll open until I feel like closing it or the entry I like best is winning, whichever is the most convenient.

* Exclusive to people with Internet access.
** Excluding any Internet access expenses the winner may incur.
*** AutoCAD WS. If the winner is unable to use AutoCAD WS due to iThing insufficiency, browser-based access to Project Butterfly will be provided instead.

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.

OK, so Project Butterfly isn’t AutoCAD. I’m glad we’ve cleared that up. But wait! Now it is AutoCAD! AutoCAD WS, that is. AutoCAD WS is the recently-announced free iPod/iPhone/iPad app to access Project Butterfly. But it’s not really AutoCAD either, despite being named thus. Confused yet?

AutoCAD is Autodesk’s strongest brand name, but it has been diluted a great deal in recent times. Let’s have a look at things that are called AutoCAD or somehow based on AutoCAD, and try to make some sense of it all. Here they are, in alphabetical order:

  • AutoCAD – the real thing
  • AutoCAD Architecture – AutoCAD-based vertical
  • AutoCAD Civil – AutoCAD-based vertical
  • AutoCAD Civil 3D – AutoCAD-based vertical
  • AutoCAD Electrical – AutoCAD-based vertical
  • AutoCAD for Mac – AutoCAD with a few bits missing
  • AutoCAD Freestyle – a cheap and simple DWG editor, not much like real AutoCAD
  • AutoCAD Inventor Suite – this is basically Autodesk Inventor, which is neither AutoCAD nor based on AutoCAD. But a real AutoCAD and AutoCAD Mechanical also comes in the box.
  • AutoCAD LT – AutoCAD with some features disabled to make it fit into a lower price bracket
  • AutoCAD Map 3D – AutoCAD-based vertical
  • AutoCAD Mechanical – AutoCAD-based vertical
  • AutoCAD MEP – AutoCAD-based vertical
  • AutoCAD OEM – development platform for using AutoCAD subsets as a basis for 3rd-party applications
  • AutoCAD P&ID – AutoCAD-based vertical
  • AutoCAD Plant 3D – AutoCAD-based vertical
  • AutoCAD Raster Design – not AutoCAD, but adds features to AutoCAD and various AutoCAD-based verticals
  • AutoCAD Revit Architecture Suite – Autodesk Revit Architecture, which is neither AutoCAD nor based on AutoCAD. But AutoCAD and AutoCAD Architecture come in the box.
  • AutoCAD Revit Structure Suite – Autodesk Revit Structure, which is neither AutoCAD nor based on AutoCAD. But AutoCAD Structural Detailing comes in the box.
  • AutoCAD Revit MEP Suite – Autodesk Revit MEP, which is neither AutoCAD nor based on AutoCAD. But AutoCAD and AutoCAD MEP come in the box.
  • AutoCAD Structural Detailing – AutoCAD-based vertical
  • AutoCAD WS – not AutoCAD, but an iPod/iPhone/iPad app to access Project Butterfly
  • Autodesk Design Review – not AutoCAD, but a DWF viewer & markup tool, works with DWG TrueView to allow DWG markup
  • DWG TrueView – a very heavily cut-down AutoCAD to provide a free DWG viewer and release converter (includes DWG TrueConvert)
  • Project Butterfly – not AutoCAD, but rather a cloud/browser-based DWG viewer/editor

That’s a lot of products, but I haven’t even included all the various new suites that include AutoCAD. I’m not sure this plethora is such a great thing, leading as it does to customer confusion and brand dilution. When “AutoCAD” can mean almost anything, does it still really mean something?