Autocad finally coming to the Mac!
It seems the Fates have not forsaken us!
A couple of months ago I had mentioned that Autodesk had conducted an online survey which suggested the company was evaluating the interest of Mac CAD users, and possibly even alpha testing a Mac version of Autocad! Now it seems the rumours may have actually been true thanks to a sneaky beta tester from Italy....
Continue Reading....
Autodesk's Project Dragonfly graduates to 'Homestyler'
Some
might have been aware of an innovative web
application Autodesk had been working in
its
Labs called
‘Project Dragonfly’; the labs experiment with new
approaches to CAD design on the ground as well as
in the cloud, and Dragonfly was a ‘technology
preview’ for quickly designing a floor-plan using
only your browser.
Well I’m very excited that Autodesk has taken its
training wheels off and renamed it :
‘Autodesk
Homestyler’.
Homestyler
is a very simple 3D home + garden design
application all of which runs on your browser -
meaning that it’s ‘cloud-based’, just like many
of the services we use everyday like
Gmail,
Gdocs,
Flickr,
or
Youtube,
whethere you’re running Mac OS, Windows, or
Linux.
book : Archicad for Autocad users
Archicad may seem like a completely different world if you’re used to using Autocad, but actually many of the concepts are the same - especially the 2D drafting side. Some have different names or are executed in different way, but the outcome is the same or better.
Geoffroy Magnan wrote - a few Archicad versions ago - a very comprehensive piece called the AutoCAD to ArchiCAD 2D conversion guide, still very useful to start with. Similar to this is Digital Vision Automation’s AutoCAD/ArchiCAD Cross-training (PDF), which goes through most of the most common commands in both apps and the differences between them.
Though if you’re looking for the “Holy Grail” for Autocad users switching to Archicad, look no further!
ArchiCAD for AutoCAD Users
(US amazon
affiliate link)
The revised (2009) version of the book by Ralph Grabowski + David Byrnes + Geoff Langdon, “Archicad for Autocad users” covers all the commands, procedures and concepts usually known from the Autocad days, and how to replicate, simplify, and even evolve those processes in Archicad. It goes through all the essentials of drawing up floorplans, sections + elevations effectively by providing practical knowledge.
This doesn’t mean that Autocad is completely replaced, there are plenty of ways to share Archicad 2D + 3D files with Autocad, but as Archicad is a full BIM package you can increase your productivity significantly with the Virtual Building Model.
I think I’ll let the authors sell the concept themselves :
”We’ve
actually found it fun to go from an extensive but
general CAD package
like AutoCAD, to an advanced architecturally
intelligent package like ArchiCAD.
Here’s why: a lot of what you had to worry about
in AutoCAD
(scale, layers, units, setting limits, trimming
walls for door openings, and more)
is handled automatically by ArchiCAD...
... It is also fun for architectural designers to
have the immediate visual feedback
of 3D perspectives, sections, and elevations as
they are designing,
just as they had when designing with cardboard
(only better)...
... Over 80% of ArchiCAD users were AutoCAD users
in the past,
so you have a lot of company. We invite you to
see what all those
experienced CAD users have discovered in
ArchiCAD...”
Will Archicad be the first true CAD app on the iPad?
There are many rumours going around about which will get to be the first official CAD application on the magical iPad. I discussed in a previous article about the possibility of the tablet device having 3D technology, as many recent Apple patents are steering to such a conclusion.
Of course there are a few CAD-ish apps on the iPhone - like Mark on Call (iTunes link) or CADTouch (iTunes link) - but these are mostly vector based drawing applications similar to Adobe Illustrator , only less advanced of course.
“...maybe
VectorWorks or ArchiCAD” says Randall Newton
as
they are both established CAD + BIM
applications on the MacOS X platform. Both
programs are now under the umbrella of
Nemetschek
-
one of the leading companies for the AEC
software sector - having matured to a position
where it wouldn’t take as much work to get
onto the iPad as say the highly
anticipated Autocad for Mac
which
is still in alpha testing. Autodesk is mainly
a Windows based company, though their amazing
sketching application Autodesk SketchBook
Pro was
met with great praise on the Mac and
the iPhone|iPod Touch
(iTunes
Link). They’ve taken a good step towards
possibly edging their way in with
Project Butterfly
which
makes it easy to view + even edit Autocad
drawings via an internet browser, making it
technically cross-platform.
If Graphisoft could bring out a native iPad
application or at least an Archicad project
viewer like Virtual Building
Explorer, it
would become a great tool to show off and
describe designs anywhere with a great touch
interface easy enough for anyone to understand
the design over coffee or on the building
site.
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