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Monday, November 21, 2016

Comments

Steve Johnson

As R.K. has rewoken this thread, I should note that Ms Bunszel's observation of DWG being the file format of choice for professional designers is entirely correct. It's good to see that she and Mr De Keyser can agree so fully on this point.

As for building a strong network of 2,500 developers, I remember Autodesk boasting of 3,500 developers in 1995. Rather than building on that strong base over the last 22 years, Autodesk has somehow managed to lose a thousand developers! Seems pretty careless to me. Perhaps Ms Bunszel could ask Mr Quanci where they went and get back to us.

R.K. McSwain

"two major releases"? I have to agree with Steve on this one. Although 2017 was a major release in name, the number of new features in this version was probably the least of any major version, ever. But calling 2017.1 a "major release"? Sure there was some new functionality there, but Autodesk turned around and claimed many of those items as new in 2018. How can a feature be NEW, in two different versions?

I still cannot figure out who is converting so many PDF files back into inaccurate CAD drawings? Where is the original CAD drawing, from which the PDF was created? Like some of the other new functionality, this too has a limited audience.

Steve Johnson

Ms Bunszel's "clarification" contains several inaccuracies and exaggerations. The least deniable of these is that Share Design View was not part of the fall (October) update (2017.1), but part of AutoCAD 2017 in March. I wrote about it in July:

http://www.blog.cadnauseam.com/2016/06/03/autocad-2017-feature-share-design-view/

2017.1 contained several worthwhile improvements (and some nasty new bugs) but was not a major release by any stretch of the imagination. 2017 was a major release in name at least, but still nothing to write home about. It has been some years since we have had a new AutoCAD release of genuine substance.

Perhaps if Ms Bunszel took a closer interest in her product line, she would be aware that recent improvements to AutoCAD have been of marginal value at best, and might even take steps to correct that.

I can't imagine Erik De Keyser displaying such a lack of familiarity with his products. Perhaps that's part of the reason Bricsys is doing so much better at improving BricsCAD than Autodesk is with AutoCAD.

Amy Bunszel

Dear Ralph,
We’d like to correct several inaccurate statements from sources in recent installments of upfront eZine.

In 2016 alone, AutoCAD had two major releases in March and early October underscoring the continuous innovation and investment that we are delivering to AutoCAD subscribers. This year AutoCAD’s significant 3D functionality gains resulted in up to 10x performance improvements. Most recently, the fall update contained customer requested features like “Share Design View” that allows you to create a web URL and share with anyone. We also recently added the ability to import PDF files directly into AutoCAD and convert the lines, arcs and text into editable geometry and text objects, saving users hours of reformatting and redrawing. AutoCAD continues to be available in a variety of ways—as part of an Industry Collection or standalone, in the office and out in the field.

DWG is the file format of choice for professional designers. Somewhere between three to five million DWG files are opened each day. Through 35 years of continuous development and investment in the AutoCAD platform, Autodesk has built a strong network of more than 2,500 developers worldwide who regularly create new applications and customizations for AutoCAD and the DWG format. Additionally, the Design Automation API on Forge demonstrates our commitment to handling DWGs in the cloud and future cloud-based partner opportunities.

Re: Project Quantum: It’s a pre-beta concept that extends BIM to cover the full ecosystem of roles and disciplines on a project. The vision of Quantum is to detach the data from a specific application, which makes things open rather than proprietary. Quantum will provide the connective tissue in an AEC ecosystem where new cloud apps and existing apps like AutoCAD and Revit can play together in a bigger landscape.

We hope this clarifies our position for your readers.

Thanks,
Amy Bunszel
Vice President

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