iPod touch

José from Puerto Rico Asked for Layers Support – We Delivered


José Sánchez working hard with AutoCAD WS

We get feedback every day from you, our users. People write us emails (feedback@autocadws.com) or they leave us messages on our Facebook page or our Twitter feed.

It’s important to us to read all the feedback we get and we use it to help decide what we’re going to include with each future release.

José Sánchez is one of several people that wrote to us requesting that we add support for layers to AutoCAD WS. Once we knew that this feature was going to be included in our last release, we wrote back to José to ask him about working with AutoCAD WS and why layers were so important to him.

Name: José Sánchez

Title: CAD Manager/Designer

Company: GC&A Architecs, Engineers and Environmental, San Juan, Puerto Rico

José’s Story

Thank you for a good product. I’d like to tell you that AutoCAD WS is amazing!! I have been talking to friends and co-workers about it.

I have been working with Autodesk products (specially Autocad) for 11 years and I know the importance and advantage of working with layers in Autocad and how they can improve Autocad WS.

I work for a engineering/architecture company where we receive multidisciplinary CAD files and it’s important to note this because this is where layers make my work easier. If I need to show utilties only for a client, I just isolate that layer, without the need of bringing more than one CAD file to the meeting. When you use one xref to insert in both architecture and civil engineering drawings it’s important that civil elements dont show in architecture drawings.

Layers gives control of your work, without it, AutoCAD is not AutoCAD :- )

Even if you dont have a standard for layers in your company, you will use them for individual control of your work. Sometimes you need to lighten areas on your plans (existing structures in a project) to differentiate them from proposed structures. Just make a layer, change it to the color with less screening and magic happens in the middle of a meeting in less than a minute.

I know that AutocCAD WS is a work in progress but I will be more than pleased to use layers in this amazing tool.

If you or your company would like to be featured in a future post, get in touch through any of the usual channels and let us know.

José using AutoCAD WS on his laptop and iPod touch

AutoCAD WS Mobile Update – August 2011 – Available Now

We’re very happy to tell you that we have just released the latest version of AutoCAD WS mobile. You can download it now for iOS from the App Store or for Android from the Android Market.

This latest update introduces some features that have been much in demand from you over the past few months.  As always, we’ve  worked hard to include as much of your feedback as possible as we continue to use your comments and suggestions to drive the product’s development.

Layers

We have added support for Layers to the AutoCAD WS 1.3 mobile app. Now you can turn each layer on and off as required to give you a better view of the way your design is put together.

Accurate Input

Now with AutoCAD WS you can input the exact length or radius you want on the pop-up keypad. Each drawing command, such as setting the radius of a circle or determining the vertical offset of a move operation can now be typed in using a special pop-up keyboard to ensure complete accuracy.

Area Measurement

We have added this much requested feature to allow you to select an area and instantly calculate its area and perimeter. This new tool will allow you to accurately measure a set of points to determine their enclosed area and perimeter. Very useful for capturing vital information wherever you find yourself.

File Management

You no longer have to rely on access to a PC or Mac to manage files in your AutoCAD WS account. You can now duplicate, delete and rename files by simply tapping the arrow next to each file or folder within the app’s drawings view and choose the desired operation.

We’ll be talking about about these new features and others in the coming weeks. Download the new version for iOS or Android and tell us what you think, and don’t forget to check out all the brand new features in the release video:

Celebrating 1,000,000 Downloads from the App Store

It’s official. As of yesterday, the AutoCAD WS mobile app has been downloaded over 1,000,000 (one million) times by iPad, iPhone and iPod touch users. In addition, our users have uploaded more than 1.2 million drawings.

This is especially exciting for me as I was the first and, for a long time, the only user of AutoCAD WS. I was thrilled when we reached our 10th user. Passing one million downloads within six months of launching on the App Store exceeded all our expectations. It tells a story of a million ideas being sketched on the go  and a million projects designed in a new way.

Above all, one million downloads is evidence that our vision for mobile CAD is alive and kicking. We’re just at the beginning of a new era of design where it happens anywhere, in or out of the office.

The vision to create AutoCAD WS began in 2007 about two months before the first iPhone was released, well before mobile phones were expected to be “smart”. I was working as an architect. Every day, my work was happening in a different site – different projects involving different colleagues.

I had in mind a “light” version of my drawings which would follow me and be available, and always up to date, from anywhere. The evolution of the web together with the new capabilities of mobile phones created the perfect platform for my vision to become reality.

I believed so strongly in this vision that I left my job and dedicated myself to creating a product which would turn my vision into reality. Creating the technology behind AutoCAD WS was a huge challenge. We wondered, on occasion, whether it was even possible. It took us over a year just to display and edit a drawing for the first time on the web.

Even though a million downloads is a great accomplishment, I know that it’s just one milestone in our journey. We’re still planning to make the product’s design lighter and more flexible, and we’re facing more platforms, more devices and more user demands. We will continue to do our best to maintain the high quality of our existing products as well as the new products we are currently working on.

I want to congratulate the AutoCAD WS team for making it happen and to say “thank you” to a million architects, engineers, designers and managers who have joined our journey.

Iris Shoor, AutoCAD WS Product Manager.

FAQ: Changing Languages in AutoCAD WS

With the latest release, we added eight new languages to AutoCAD WS. Here is the first set of frequently asked questions about the localization project.

How do I change the language of AutoCAD WS on my iPad / iPhone / iPod touch?

You don’t have to do anything! With your iOS device the language you see in AutoCAD WS is governed by the language settings of the device itself. AutoCAD WS detects the language and displays the correct language as soon as you open the app. If your device’s language is set to anything other than Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese or Spanish, AutoCAD WS will appear in English.

How do I change the language of AutoCAD WS in my PC or Mac’s web browser?

Once you have logged in and opened the app at www.autocadws.com, you will see a flag and a language in the top right of your screen. Click on the flag to see a drop down menu where you can select one of the alternative languages. The language you select will be saved for the next time you open the app.

I changed the language on the web app. Why do I still see some things in English?

The localization effort for the web app is being carried out in two stages. For now we have translated all the button texts and the drop downs from all the ribbons. Some of the contextual pop-ups, such as when you share a file have not been translated yet.

I work in one language, but I’m sharing a drawing with someone who uses a different language. What will they see?

The language settings in AutoCAD WS are defined at the account level, not at the file level. That means you can share a drawing with one or more people and each person will view that drawing, in their app, in the language they have selected. Of course nothing in the drawing itself will be translated, but each of you will see the button texts in the language you defined.

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I’m sure you have more questions, so let us have them and we’ll add the best ones to this FAQ and move it to our Tutorials section.
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