AutoCAD

Documenting Your Meetings with AutoCAD WS

One of the most annoying things that can happen after a meeting is knowing that there was a small, but important, detail mentioned and you have forgotten what it was. You have to wait for notes from the meeting to be sent and hope that it shows up. You might even have to email someone and ask for help. The more time that passes after a meeting, the greater the chance that some details will be lost to memory – “What did we decide about the column location?”, “What’s the horizontal distance we agreed on for moving that pipe?”

Documenting and sending minutes for review and for auditing purposes is one of those tasks that no one likes doing. This is where AutoCAD WS can help.

The AutoCAD WS web client has a terrific feature called Meeting Summary that automatically documents your meetings. Whenever you share a drawing (click here to see how) and work together with a colleague  adding markups, taking measurements and making changes, AutoCAD WS records all that important information for you. Every change, markup or note made is automatically stored and made available on the drawing’s timeline for later review.

The meeting summary on the drawing's timeline

The Meeting Summary widget guides you through every change or markup with a clear description of what occurred. Comments, questions and notes typed in the chat window during the meeting are also presented to you, to provide you with the full context of the meeting. You can use the Download button to save the drawing with all the changes and markups back to your desktop for further work in AutoCAD.

To make things easier, AutoCAD WS also sends out an email with a link to everyone who participated in the meeting. That way even non-AutoCAD WS users, such as a client or project manager, can access the meeting’s content directly from their inbox. This makes it even easier for everyone to get to the information they need, without having to worry about forgetting something on their way back from a meeting.

What Would A Command Line in AutoCAD WS Look Like? – Poll

One of the most conspicuous differences between the full version of AutoCAD and our web application AutoCAD WS is the command line.

When we designed the interface for AutoCAD WS, we left out the physical representation of the command line. But even without seeing the command line, we held on to all the familiar shortcuts. Every function that exists in the AutoCAD WS web application can be activated by the same shortcut that you use in AutoCAD.

Nevertheless, once we launched we saw that there was still considerable demand for a command line in the web app with plenty of you saying that you just can’t work without one.

(We even had a few people complaining that there is no command line in the AutoCAD WS mobile app for iPhone, but that’s a discussion for another time!)

In thinking about what the command line might look like in the AutoCAD WS web app, we have come up with a few proposals and a poll where you get to let us know what you think.

If we were to add a command line to AutoCAD WS where should it go and what should it look like. Have a look at these four suggestions and vote in the poll below.

Traditional AutoCAD Command Line

Command Line Below The Toolbar

Command Line Widget

Floating Command Line

Command Line Poll

AutoCAD WS 1.1 – Available Now on the App Store

Two months after the original release, Autodesk is proud to announce the release of the latest version of the mobile app – AutoCAD WS 1.1

Download the latest version of AutoCAD WS from the App Store now.

Changes to the app were inspired by feedback  from people who started using the app in their professional lives to make AutoCAD WS a truly mobile experience.

The user interface has been upgraded to make it even more intuitive. Two key features have been added to help you work with your iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, wherever you find yourselves.

  • Upload from Email
  • Offline Support

Upload from Email

You can now open drawings that you receive as email attachments directly into AutoCAD WS. Simply tap on the attachment and the app will open automatically. At the same time, the drawing will be uploaded to your online account and saved to your mobile device so that you can access it offline. You can download it as a DWG file

Offline Support

AutoCAD WS now lets you sync your online files with your mobile device allowing you to view and edit your drawings even when you’re not connected to the internet. Any changes you make when you are offline can be uploaded back to your account when you reconnect. Now you can take your drawings with you whether you’re at the office or a construction site.

Tutorial

You can read a tutorial with a detailed explanation of the new features here.

Start working today with the new version of AutoCAD WS and let us know what you think of the new features by writing to us at feedback@autocadws.com.

AutoCAD WS and the AutoCAD Verticals

Over the past few weeks we have written about the integration of AutoCAD WS into AutoCAD. The AutoCAD WS plugin is already available for AutoCAD 2011 here and it will soon be available for AutoCAD 2010 and the range of vertical products. We know that many of our users are working with AutoCAD verticals and so this post is aimed at you.

Let’s have a look at the following verticals:

  • AutoCAD Architecture
  • AutoCAD Mechanical
  • AutoCAD Civil 3D
  • AutoCAD Map 3D

In each instance, the AutoCAD plugins for 2010 and 2011 can be installed to work with each of these vertical products enabling you to upload DWG and DXF files to AutoCAD WS and share them online and to view them on your mobile device.

What about objects that were created in an Autocad vertical?

Each of the vertical versions of AutoCAD enables users to work with specific objects that have their own rules and properties. Within AutoCAD WS, these objects will appear exactly as if they had been opened within AutoCAD. In most cases AutoCAD WS will not allow you to interact with the objects that have been created in the vertical product. You will still be able to delete such an object, but you may not be able to edit it.

Architecture/Mechanical

Many users are already using the plugin with these verticals. AutoCAD WS for web already fully supports the use of imperial measures (feet and inches).

This is something I’m curious about. Why not let us know in the comments whether you use imperial or metric measures in your work.

Civil 3D

At the moment AutoCAD WS works only with 2D drawings so you need to make some slight adjustments when uploading your work from AutoCAD Civil 3D.

Our colleague Dana Probert, wrote an excellent blog on the subject here: http://bimontherocks.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/10/can-you-use-autocad-ws-with-civil-3d.html.

One of the key takeaways here for uploading your Civil 3D files to AutoCAD WS is to save your drawings first with PROXYGRAPHICS set to 1, but you should really read the whole article.

Map 3D

If you’re working with AutoCAD Map 3D you should save your drawing as a DWG or DXF file before uploading it to AutoCAD WS if you want to work with it online. You can upload MDB files, but AutoCAD WS will not be able to open them either online or using a mobile device.

One of the coolest features in AutoCAD WS for web is the Google Maps overlay that you can now apply to your drawings. Working with Google Maps allows you to place your designs in context and see exactly how each potential construction fits into the real world. It also looks fantastic!

Your Stories

That’s a few tips from us, but now we’d like to hear from you. Let us know which of the AutoCAD verticals you use and how you plan to work with AutoCAD WS. Leave us a note in the comments or write to us at feedback@autocadws.com. We’ll turn the best stories into a blog post all of their own.

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