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AutoCAD WS Success Stories

Dec 26

We love our customers and nothing excites us more than seeing them doing amazing things with AutoCAD WS. We have taken the time to get to know them and now we have the pleasure of sharing their success stories with you. We chose to start with four customers, each one of them tells a unique story about how AutoCAD WS improved his daily work:

University of Cincinnati – Pompeii Archeological Research Project for exploring the ancient city.

Fitzroy Yachts – New Zealand’s Premier Super Yacht Builders.

Hall Engineering – Provides the electrical needs of the Specialty, Commercial, and Industrial customers throughout the Midwest since 1937.

Covert Engineering – Specializes in the design of commercial, industrial and institutional facilities.

In the near future we will add more success stories from various industries. If you have a story to share with us, you can write us at feedback@autocadws.com and maybe your story will be featured here as well.

We invite you to read the stories and will be glad to hear your thoughts.

What’s In The Next AutoCAD WS Release?

Nov 29

. With the start of AU 2011 in Las Vegas this week, we are thrilled to be able to announce some of the features we are planning to include in the next release. As usual we have been paying close attention to the requests we receive every day from our users. You are the people that continue to shape AutoCAD WS and determine the directions the app takes. It's still too early to tell you the date of release, but here are some of the features you can expect to be hearing more about in the coming weeks:

3D Support

Now you can view and share the 3-dimensional objects in your DWGs using AutoCAD WS. I have been following the development of the 3D viewing function for some time and the touch control in the mobile version is wonderfully intuitive and responsive. This has been one of our most demanded features and it's going to have a big impact.

GPS Integration

Now you can use the in-built GPS functionality of your mobile device to position yourself physically inside your design when you are out visiting a site. This is another much-requested feature that makes AutoCAD WS an even more vital tool for engineers and architects who need to get out into the field and take their designs with them.

Plot to Print from Mobile

In conjunction with registering for HP ePrint & Share, a free online service, you can send your designs to any compatible HP ePrint printer. Now you can use your smartphone or tablet to plot from wherever you are. Additionally you can plot your design directly as a PDF and send it to your email.

Explaining AutoCAD WS to Your Friends

Nov 11

In the last 12 months users have registered over two and a half million accounts with AutoCAD WS. Even with millions of drawings being uploaded to AutoCAD WS, I believe that we’ve barely begun to scratch the surface of potential users of AutoCAD WS.

So my question is how do you explain AutoCAD WS to people who haven’t experienced it yet?

Perhaps, more importantly, who are these people? Well they’re your colleagues and clients – people who work with AutoCAD on a regular basis, often every day. We strongly believe that anyone working with AutoCAD can only benefit from an introduction to AutoCAD WS. So what’s stopping people?

Here are some of the things we imagine people who are unfamiliar with WS are saying.

What’s AutoCAD WS? I’ve never heard of it. We don’t advertise on TV but, if you work with CAD professionally, you should probably have heard of us by now. If you know a CAD professional who doesn’t know about AutoCAD WS, show them WS on your phone or tablet. Share a DWG with them and see what happens when they get the email allowing them to view and edit the drawing without registering an account.
If it’s free, why do I have to register an account? The registration process is very light but it enables us to ensure that the content you upload to your AutoCAD WS account is protected and secure and uniquely available to you wherever you try to access it from.
How do I know my work is safe when I upload it to AutoCAD WS? Of course this is a legitimate concern and the best response is that Autodesk adheres to industry best practices for secure storage of all you data. For more information about security and AutoCAD WS, read our white paper.
I can’t always be online so AutoCAD WS is no use to me. Actually the AutoCAD WS mobile app for iOS and Android does allow you to view and edit your drawings when you’re offline. It’s true that you need to be connected once to the internet in order to save the contents of you online folder locally on your mobile device, but once you have completed the sync you can take your smartphone or tablet with you and edit on the go. The next time you connect to the internet, your changes will be synced back to your AutoCAD WS online account.

So even if someone has never used AutoCAD WS before, getting them to use it for the first time should be simple.

How are you persuading your colleagues to give AutoCAD WS a chance?

Tip of the Week: Changing the Background Color

Sep 06

Until now, the default color for your Model space background was black while Layout and the Block Editor had white backgrounds. The latest release of AutoCAD WS lets you choose the color you want for each background so now you can match up the look of AutoCAD WS with your copy of AutoCAD.

When we ran a poll back in May about which colors we should add, the leading alternative to black or white was gray. Now you can choose the precise shade of gray that suits you or any other color you prefer.

To change these you must first open any drawing in AutoCAD WS. Then, in the View tab, click the Select Background Color button. From here you can choose any of the backgrounds you want to change and select a color. You can choose from one of the available colors or enter RGB values for a different color.

For now you can only change the background color from within the web version of AutoCAD WS. Once you have changed the background color, your change will be reflected for every one of the drawings you open in AutoCAD WS on any platform. That means you can change the background to your preferred color on your PC and you will see the same background when you open any of the drawings in your online account from your iPhone or Android phone.