Sunday, January 31, 2010
Autodesk Project Butterfly: Shifting from Desktop to Web
CAD Insider: "Autodesk is being very generous. They will let you use Project Butterfly, their very convenient online drawing review and collaboration tool, and all you have to provide is your name and email address. Project Butterfly lets you call up a DWG file without having AutoCAD on your computer. You can view it, mark it up, even share it with anyone who has an Internet connection, with each of you having the same view and markup ability (Autodesk is calling it 'co-editing'). Did I mention it was free? You don't have to buy anything -- or even download it. It's just..available."
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4 comments:
This could be really a nifty improvement, or it could be a really scary development. On one hand certainly tools that help multiple people work on the same files, and that makes dwg's more portable are needed and welcome improvements. On the other hand, if this really is the 'platform change' that they claim, it could also be another step in the creeping transition from software as a tool you buy and then own, into a subscription that you continually license from a vendor. Let's hope that this fear is ridiculous, and that they really are just providing an extra tool to improve workflow and access.
I certainly hope this isn't a step in a progression from outright ownership to subscriptions, but for now I think this is a really cool idea. It's great that Autodesk is offering Butterfly for free and its really convenient for those who aren't students or can't get AutoCAD for free. Now, people can draft, comment, and edit without ever having to purchase the software. Also, its nice that people can now "co-edit" as the article said. I think that will simplify the editing process and make the transfer of information easier.
While this will make initial access to AutoCAD easier since new users will not have to suffer through the incredibly limited trial version, I really worry about what kind of work can get done on an internet version of AutoCAD. CAD is glitchy and prone to stalling as it is, I wonder how much the online usage will increase these issues. That being said, it's awesome that Autodesk is willing to do this, especially since they are offering free storage and sharing capabilities. I just wonder how long it is until Google either rips this off, or tries to claim that Google Sketch-Up is comparable.
This seems like it would be really useful for people who don't have to use CAD too much. however, since I have not seen how slow it is to react, I cannot quite yet tell for myself it would really be worth it. If it's your only choice out of pocket, then sure. I personally might find it better to go to school to use the program than to do it on the web if it's too slow though. I know that at least a lot of people who don't know how to edit these types of files, will at least have means b y which to learn them.
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