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Wednesday, January 29, 2020
Get More Work Done Anywhere With New AutoCAD Web App Features
AutoCAD Blog | Autodesk: It’s another leap in productivity! The AutoCAD web app continues to address the need to do even more based on your continued input. And with improved efficiency and workflows, it’s helping users to view, edit, and create designs from any computer.
Even though this is autoCAD propaganda, it does a pretty good job of explaining stuff. This article is announcing features that have been added to the web version of AutoCAD which they said was in addition to the mobile version. It looks like they’re still adding basic features to the online version like grouping and printing to PDF which are both pretty basic features. They’re also adding integration features which are super helpful for working across platforms including the program, the online version, and the app version. This is good for keeping up with the times because users are coming to expect inter-compatibility with the cloud. The updating to the cloud also adds the possibility of working across different devices of the same file or at the same time which is useful for really large projects. It also looks like the online and app versions are a lot simpler to use, which of course is both a blessing and a curse because everything is simpler, but it’s harder to do more specific things that you want to do.
I can’t tell, based on the article, if the AutoCAD Web App is something new, but it sounds really interesting to me. Instead of having to rely on a computer having AutoCAD already downloaded on it, this seems like a really quick and easy way to access your drawings from anywhere. It also seems like it makes it much easier to collaborate on a drawing across multiple people to make teamwork even easier within the software. While I realize that this is directly coming from the AutoDesk website, it is a very informative article that has a bunch of really cool visuals of the software actually in use. They do a great job at outlining the various updates to the program and how this will positively impact the use. I love to see that they are focusing on developing this specific facet of the software because I really do believe that cloud based software is really changing the game. I am excited to see how far this goes.
The only remotely useful thing I could foresee using the web app for is pulling up a drawing on someone else's computer for them to just see, and maybe pull a dimension. At that point, I would just use my phone with the autocad app, which appears to be functionally the same. I just cannot see using this program when their 'new features' include some of the most basic autocad commands like "Group" or "DIST". I'm at least glad they're using "Plot to PDF", which could be useful in an absolute pinch, but in a world where I have my laptop with me at almost all times, I would much rather use the desktop app. Additionally, when I opened a drawing on the web app, all my font styles got changed, so text was overlapping lines and running out of title blocks. When it comes to collaboration, I feel like all these features the web app offers are available for desktop users with better file management, so in a large organization with programs such as Microsoft Project to handle that, I can't see it being that helpful. Plus, autocad's native XRef and Sheet Set capabilities are already capable of handling this, so its not really a benefit of using the web app. All in all, this service is useful if you don't plan ahead to print good, labeled, dimensioned drawings.
To be completely honest, so far I'm liking hand drafting a lot more than this AutoCAD stuff we've got going on. However, I am really excited to actually learn how to use and, thus, get better at it. I guess what frustrates me so much about AutoCAD is that I don't quite understand just how many features this program really is and exactly what all of those features do. I guess I'm just really impatient when it comes to learning about the different aspects that AutoCAD has to offer. It is interesting to think about how much the program has evolved over the years. If it's confusing to me now, I can't even imagine how it must've been before they added all these features that are supposedly meant to make it simpler for more people to end up using it and loving it. This article did help me understand what some features do and just how helpful they can be. I think that anyone who is currently struggling with AutoCAD should definitely use this article as a jumping-off point before going on and doing more research or seeking more help.
4 comments:
Even though this is autoCAD propaganda, it does a pretty good job of explaining stuff. This article is announcing features that have been added to the web version of AutoCAD which they said was in addition to the mobile version. It looks like they’re still adding basic features to the online version like grouping and printing to PDF which are both pretty basic features. They’re also adding integration features which are super helpful for working across platforms including the program, the online version, and the app version. This is good for keeping up with the times because users are coming to expect inter-compatibility with the cloud. The updating to the cloud also adds the possibility of working across different devices of the same file or at the same time which is useful for really large projects. It also looks like the online and app versions are a lot simpler to use, which of course is both a blessing and a curse because everything is simpler, but it’s harder to do more specific things that you want to do.
I can’t tell, based on the article, if the AutoCAD Web App is something new, but it sounds really interesting to me. Instead of having to rely on a computer having AutoCAD already downloaded on it, this seems like a really quick and easy way to access your drawings from anywhere. It also seems like it makes it much easier to collaborate on a drawing across multiple people to make teamwork even easier within the software. While I realize that this is directly coming from the AutoDesk website, it is a very informative article that has a bunch of really cool visuals of the software actually in use. They do a great job at outlining the various updates to the program and how this will positively impact the use. I love to see that they are focusing on developing this specific facet of the software because I really do believe that cloud based software is really changing the game. I am excited to see how far this goes.
The only remotely useful thing I could foresee using the web app for is pulling up a drawing on someone else's computer for them to just see, and maybe pull a dimension. At that point, I would just use my phone with the autocad app, which appears to be functionally the same. I just cannot see using this program when their 'new features' include some of the most basic autocad commands like "Group" or "DIST". I'm at least glad they're using "Plot to PDF", which could be useful in an absolute pinch, but in a world where I have my laptop with me at almost all times, I would much rather use the desktop app. Additionally, when I opened a drawing on the web app, all my font styles got changed, so text was overlapping lines and running out of title blocks. When it comes to collaboration, I feel like all these features the web app offers are available for desktop users with better file management, so in a large organization with programs such as Microsoft Project to handle that, I can't see it being that helpful. Plus, autocad's native XRef and Sheet Set capabilities are already capable of handling this, so its not really a benefit of using the web app. All in all, this service is useful if you don't plan ahead to print good, labeled, dimensioned drawings.
To be completely honest, so far I'm liking hand drafting a lot more than this AutoCAD stuff we've got going on. However, I am really excited to actually learn how to use and, thus, get better at it. I guess what frustrates me so much about AutoCAD is that I don't quite understand just how many features this program really is and exactly what all of those features do. I guess I'm just really impatient when it comes to learning about the different aspects that AutoCAD has to offer. It is interesting to think about how much the program has evolved over the years. If it's confusing to me now, I can't even imagine how it must've been before they added all these features that are supposedly meant to make it simpler for more people to end up using it and loving it. This article did help me understand what some features do and just how helpful they can be. I think that anyone who is currently struggling with AutoCAD should definitely use this article as a jumping-off point before going on and doing more research or seeking more help.
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