From the survey, we can get an idea of what the first (second, actually) version of AutoCAD for the Mac might not have:
* No paper space.
* No command line.
* No 3D modeling or editing.
* Fewer APIs, or none at all.
* Running in emulation mode (Boot Camp, Parallels Desktop, or VMware Fusion)
One option is to have an LT-like product for the Mac, initially. From the survey, we learn that Autodesk considers MicroStation, Ashlar, ArchiCAD, VectorWorks, PowerCADD, and SketchUp its primary competitors.
Interesting that they're even considering it. I guess they see the writing on the wall. I think it's a bit early to make any assumptions about what the final product would look like, though... Sounds like they're just brainstorming at this point.
Designing AutoCAD for Mac to run in emulation mode would be completely pointless... Why not simply run the current version of AutoCAD via Boot Camp or Parallels?
I remember seeing a rumor (sorry, can't remember where) that the next version of Revit will be available on the Mac OS X platform. I'll believe it when I see it.
I would like to see this come to fruition. Running CAD in Parallels is memory intensive on my iMac at home, and switching between Boot Camp/OS X gets old fast. In short, they have my vote.
any thoughts on Autodesk thru Bootcamp or Parallels on the macbookpro? probably the 17" configurations. making a purchase sometime in the next few months, would like to stay mac, but not dogmatically so.
Running it through Boot Camp is no different than running it on a PC because you are running it on a PC at that point.
With Parallels and VMware Fusion, you're essentially running Windows alongside Mac OS X, so you might take a performance hit if you're doing anything that requires a lot of memory or processing power.
i wouldn't doubt if mac is somehow pressuring them to do it. i don't see what autodesk gets out of it as everyone is going to be using BIM in 10 years anyway. if they came out with a version of revit for mac, that would make a lot more sense to me.
LIG, with Parallels, assuming not much is happening on OS X (internet, maybe Photoshop) while doing heavy stuff on Windows, is that still the case? Slower processing? Now that I think about it, Parallels seems not all that necessary, and Bootcamp seems sufficient.
It's a question of speed vs. convenience. With Parallels and Fusion, you can run both operating systems at the same time, switch back and forth between them, and (I think) even copy and paste data between them. The catch is that you sacrifice a bit of performance.
With Boot Camp, you have 100% of the computer's resources available for Windows, but you have to reboot in order to switch between Windows and Mac OS.
I think the real competitor is Rhino. Rhino has been working on making the Mac version for a while, and right now you can get their BETA test version for free. It's not great, but once they get it up and running, it will be huge.
Most of the time on my PC I would be happier using rhino anyway.
The problem with vmware/parallels is the licensing.
You have to re-authorize your install(s) of autodesk software if you've previously been running bootcamp, once that happens you can't run them in native bootcamp without re-authorizing them again. It's a real pain in the ass--so you have to decide if you want to emulate and suffer a performance hit or not (I decided to keep them native BC)
Rhino on the other hand runs quite well through vmware with no licensing issues...
The history to that is once Rhino added line weights/types, hatch, dimensions as well as paperspace, autodesk canceled the contract to let them resell autocad any more, but they still do trailing.
And before that Rhino used to be a plug-in to autocad to do the geometry autocad still can't do (accumodel) on it's own but the platform was too restrictive and they made their own separate program.
funny they don't acknowledge them or IntelliCAD(s) as competition as IntelliCAD is already on Linux in several ways where as rhino has been on the mac platform for about 2 years in free beta.
Rhinoceros is worker owned and user driven, the reason autodesk will never get it's hands on it and why it is such a remarkable application.
Here is a reality check. In the world of grown people, money talks. So if Autodesk wants to buy Rhino, they could. They have enough finance to do that. Mr. Mcneel will not hesitate to sell Rhino if it will bring up a half a billion dollars. But why should Autodesk do that? lt may seem on Archinect or at a local college that Rhino it looks like everyone is using it, but in the AEC world, rhino has a small market share. That would just be petty cash for Autodesk. And to make matters worse, the industry is changing to BIM (like it or not) and Rhino just doesn’t fit that picture in the long run.
If Autodesk purchased rhino, I would probably take that as a sign I need to change careers. I can't handle every software I use being a piece of crap.
Autodesk, in my experience, offers products which sound like they should be really useful, but the system infrastructure is so poorly made and full of bugs, you find yourself wishing you didn't have all the extras.
Take for example, Architectural Desktop 2009, which you might argue as soft-BIM. It's honestly one of the worst programs I have ever used. Tool Palates can only be left opened while using certain commands in model space only. File take 2-3 minutes each to open. Constant freezing and crashing. I was happier with AutoCAD LT. And i doubt it's a computer issue since I am running dual-dual cores with a pretty significant graphics-card.
And that's the problem with the BIM craze. Much as I dislike using the software and dislike even more fueling Frank Gehry, unless you get the good stuff (Digital Project), it's really not worth it. Again, I reference AD2009 which as I understand it as a slightly less flashy version of Revit. All that it has really done has created more problems. Once you start using things like "smart walls" etc, the files become useless in any other software, making it a real pain in the ass to make 3D models in other apps and putting together presentations. It's not just AD either. It seems like every version of Maya they put out adds more features, and more problems.
It's one thing to buy the flashy sports car, but if it's in the shop every week, I say, get the Ford Focus.
I totally agree with the last post. Computer software has gotten out of hand. There are so many features in AutoCAD that are totally unnecessary to make a great design. Their 3D abilities are terrible. You have to render in another program. They would be better served to cut back the program and make a few tools amazing instead of enlarging it to make lots of tools below average. They also need to think about the interface - its horrible.
I haven't used it but have heard that AutoCAD LT is by far their best product.
some of the little features that LT didn't have (as opposed to autocad) such as x-clip, made it really obnoxious to use a few years ago. of course there are (legal and illegal) little add ons to that program, but now LT is almost indistinguishable to autocad - at least the autocad of 4 years ago - for what i use it for. and whatever it doesn't have, you can get it one way or another. at this point, i would take LT over autocad for a basic drafting package given the price.
i guess you are right, there will probably always be a need for 2d drafting. it would be great if mac users could have something other than vectorworks.
This is the latest tactical move to marginalize Nemetschek which makes Archicad and Vectorworks.
I teach Autocad and I don't use it for my own work. It's cumbersome, ugly and expensive. My Vectorworks drawings look FAR better than what I can make in Autocad in the same amount of time.
On the McNeel front, Rhino is slowly moving towards the creation of new APIs but it may not happen. They haven't committed to it yet.
Rhino is a great program and I don't think he'd sell.
just for clarification: Graphisoft creates ArchiCAD, as far as I can tell they are a separate entity from Nemetschek. . .
neither Adobe nor Autodesk own the other. . .yet
due to the latest acquisition of Softimage, I predict that Autodesk will buy Nvidia or at least the mental ray division. . .are there any mental ray-enabled programs out that are not owned by Autodesk??
Never let anyone hear you say that Visual ARQ is BIM. You would not be taken seriously. Your unconditional love for Rhino, and the daily spamming of Rhino related sites on this forum that only talk about formfinding as if architecture is only about that, reveals that you are a student that never worked in the real world. Don't take it personal by the way.
At the end of the day, it all boils down to what delivery the client wants. Especially now, in this economic downturn, we found ourselves switching to BIM applications from Autodesk whether we liked it or not because the client wanted an Itegrated Project Delivery. They didn’t insist we use Autodesk products, but Autodesk just happened to have the products to get the job done and to work in a shared model base environment with other team members. Arcs, lines, circles, manually coordinating everything and Rhino masses just didn’t cut it.
Just for the record, we still use Rhino, but we know when to use it. Many firms just seem to cling on to a software or a platform for the sake of it.
"They didn’t insist we use Autodesk products, but Autodesk just happened to have the products to get the job done and to work in a shared model base environment with other team members."
Archicad has had this for 15 years and it runs natively on the Mac.
15 years ago, Archicad couldn’t push the envelope on BIM because of limitations within hardware.
I find it kind of strange to say that Navisworks, Ecotech and Maya (to name a few) sucks, because Autodesk owns them and before the acquisition they were cool products.
Archicad, Allplan and Vectorworks are owned by the same company now. I'm looking forward to see how AutoCAD translates on OSX. There will always be room for other CAD software since Autodesk seems to price their software out of the budget of many studios. Hopefully they will keep supporting the mac for the long run and not just give up after one release. The new interface seems quite nice. I guess they have experience translating software between operating systems (maya comes to mind) so things should turn out fine.
maybe on the MAC version, they can add a spell check that actually is familiar with architectural vocabulary. It's always awesome to spell check and find out that AutoCAD changed "soffit" to "soviet."
Apr 9, 09 12:56 pm ·
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Acad comes back to Apple?
take the survey
From the survey, we can get an idea of what the first (second, actually) version of AutoCAD for the Mac might not have:* No paper space.
* No command line.
* No 3D modeling or editing.
* Fewer APIs, or none at all.
* Running in emulation mode (Boot Camp, Parallels Desktop, or VMware Fusion)
One option is to have an LT-like product for the Mac, initially. From the survey, we learn that Autodesk considers MicroStation, Ashlar, ArchiCAD, VectorWorks, PowerCADD, and SketchUp its primary competitors.
Interesting that they're even considering it. I guess they see the writing on the wall. I think it's a bit early to make any assumptions about what the final product would look like, though... Sounds like they're just brainstorming at this point.
Designing AutoCAD for Mac to run in emulation mode would be completely pointless... Why not simply run the current version of AutoCAD via Boot Camp or Parallels?
I remember seeing a rumor (sorry, can't remember where) that the next version of Revit will be available on the Mac OS X platform. I'll believe it when I see it.
I would like to see this come to fruition. Running CAD in Parallels is memory intensive on my iMac at home, and switching between Boot Camp/OS X gets old fast. In short, they have my vote.
any thoughts on Autodesk thru Bootcamp or Parallels on the macbookpro? probably the 17" configurations. making a purchase sometime in the next few months, would like to stay mac, but not dogmatically so.
Running it through Boot Camp is no different than running it on a PC because you are running it on a PC at that point.
With Parallels and VMware Fusion, you're essentially running Windows alongside Mac OS X, so you might take a performance hit if you're doing anything that requires a lot of memory or processing power.
Gonna second LiG's point; if its in emulation, what's the fucking point?
no command line? no thanks.
sketchup a competitor? really?
i wouldn't doubt if mac is somehow pressuring them to do it. i don't see what autodesk gets out of it as everyone is going to be using BIM in 10 years anyway. if they came out with a version of revit for mac, that would make a lot more sense to me.
LIG, with Parallels, assuming not much is happening on OS X (internet, maybe Photoshop) while doing heavy stuff on Windows, is that still the case? Slower processing? Now that I think about it, Parallels seems not all that necessary, and Bootcamp seems sufficient.
It's a question of speed vs. convenience. With Parallels and Fusion, you can run both operating systems at the same time, switch back and forth between them, and (I think) even copy and paste data between them. The catch is that you sacrifice a bit of performance.
With Boot Camp, you have 100% of the computer's resources available for Windows, but you have to reboot in order to switch between Windows and Mac OS.
I think the real competitor is Rhino. Rhino has been working on making the Mac version for a while, and right now you can get their BETA test version for free. It's not great, but once they get it up and running, it will be huge.
Most of the time on my PC I would be happier using rhino anyway.
true dat
should happen, soon!
rhino is owned by autodesk.
There will still be a need for 2D drafting in 10 years. BIM isn't going to completely replace 2D drafting.
Rhino is owned by Robert McNeel & Associates. Maya is now owned by Autodesk.
The problem with vmware/parallels is the licensing.
You have to re-authorize your install(s) of autodesk software if you've previously been running bootcamp, once that happens you can't run them in native bootcamp without re-authorizing them again. It's a real pain in the ass--so you have to decide if you want to emulate and suffer a performance hit or not (I decided to keep them native BC)
Rhino on the other hand runs quite well through vmware with no licensing issues...
wait - I thought autodesk bought mcneel and associates... so they aren't owned by autodesk?
nope
i hope autodesk never buys rhino. last thing i need is autodesk f'ing up another quality software.
The history to that is once Rhino added line weights/types, hatch, dimensions as well as paperspace, autodesk canceled the contract to let them resell autocad any more, but they still do trailing.
And before that Rhino used to be a plug-in to autocad to do the geometry autocad still can't do (accumodel) on it's own but the platform was too restrictive and they made their own separate program.
funny they don't acknowledge them or IntelliCAD(s) as competition as IntelliCAD is already on Linux in several ways where as rhino has been on the mac platform for about 2 years in free beta.
Rhinoceros is worker owned and user driven, the reason autodesk will never get it's hands on it and why it is such a remarkable application.
Here is a reality check. In the world of grown people, money talks. So if Autodesk wants to buy Rhino, they could. They have enough finance to do that. Mr. Mcneel will not hesitate to sell Rhino if it will bring up a half a billion dollars. But why should Autodesk do that? lt may seem on Archinect or at a local college that Rhino it looks like everyone is using it, but in the AEC world, rhino has a small market share. That would just be petty cash for Autodesk. And to make matters worse, the industry is changing to BIM (like it or not) and Rhino just doesn’t fit that picture in the long run.
the worlds been moving to BIM since 1998.
If Autodesk purchased rhino, I would probably take that as a sign I need to change careers. I can't handle every software I use being a piece of crap.
Autodesk, in my experience, offers products which sound like they should be really useful, but the system infrastructure is so poorly made and full of bugs, you find yourself wishing you didn't have all the extras.
Take for example, Architectural Desktop 2009, which you might argue as soft-BIM. It's honestly one of the worst programs I have ever used. Tool Palates can only be left opened while using certain commands in model space only. File take 2-3 minutes each to open. Constant freezing and crashing. I was happier with AutoCAD LT. And i doubt it's a computer issue since I am running dual-dual cores with a pretty significant graphics-card.
And that's the problem with the BIM craze. Much as I dislike using the software and dislike even more fueling Frank Gehry, unless you get the good stuff (Digital Project), it's really not worth it. Again, I reference AD2009 which as I understand it as a slightly less flashy version of Revit. All that it has really done has created more problems. Once you start using things like "smart walls" etc, the files become useless in any other software, making it a real pain in the ass to make 3D models in other apps and putting together presentations. It's not just AD either. It seems like every version of Maya they put out adds more features, and more problems.
It's one thing to buy the flashy sports car, but if it's in the shop every week, I say, get the Ford Focus.
I totally agree with the last post. Computer software has gotten out of hand. There are so many features in AutoCAD that are totally unnecessary to make a great design. Their 3D abilities are terrible. You have to render in another program. They would be better served to cut back the program and make a few tools amazing instead of enlarging it to make lots of tools below average. They also need to think about the interface - its horrible.
I haven't used it but have heard that AutoCAD LT is by far their best product.
Lucas Gray
www.talkitect.com
Does Adobe own Autodesk or vice versa? I can never remember...
some of the little features that LT didn't have (as opposed to autocad) such as x-clip, made it really obnoxious to use a few years ago. of course there are (legal and illegal) little add ons to that program, but now LT is almost indistinguishable to autocad - at least the autocad of 4 years ago - for what i use it for. and whatever it doesn't have, you can get it one way or another. at this point, i would take LT over autocad for a basic drafting package given the price.
i guess you are right, there will probably always be a need for 2d drafting. it would be great if mac users could have something other than vectorworks.
This is the latest tactical move to marginalize Nemetschek which makes Archicad and Vectorworks.
I teach Autocad and I don't use it for my own work. It's cumbersome, ugly and expensive. My Vectorworks drawings look FAR better than what I can make in Autocad in the same amount of time.
On the McNeel front, Rhino is slowly moving towards the creation of new APIs but it may not happen. They haven't committed to it yet.
Rhino is a great program and I don't think he'd sell.
You're probably right about Nemetschek. Autodesk certainly wouldn't be doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.
evilplati - I think you mean 1988 - Archicad, Minicad (now Vectorworks) and Architrion were telling us that parametric design was the way to go!
Spruce,
I still use BOA, which came from Architrion. You can do things with BOA that still cannot do in either Vectorworks, Revit or Archicad.
I use a pencil. There are still tons of things you can do with it that you can't with any computer drafting software!
Lucas Gray
www.talkitect.com
just for clarification: Graphisoft creates ArchiCAD, as far as I can tell they are a separate entity from Nemetschek. . .
neither Adobe nor Autodesk own the other. . .yet
due to the latest acquisition of Softimage, I predict that Autodesk will buy Nvidia or at least the mental ray division. . .are there any mental ray-enabled programs out that are not owned by Autodesk??
BIM on Rhinoceros , Visual ARQ
yes autodesk is a joke and too bad for Nemetschek it seems, if they have to be bought by autodesk
Antisthenses,
Never let anyone hear you say that Visual ARQ is BIM. You would not be taken seriously. Your unconditional love for Rhino, and the daily spamming of Rhino related sites on this forum that only talk about formfinding as if architecture is only about that, reveals that you are a student that never worked in the real world. Don't take it personal by the way.
At the end of the day, it all boils down to what delivery the client wants. Especially now, in this economic downturn, we found ourselves switching to BIM applications from Autodesk whether we liked it or not because the client wanted an Itegrated Project Delivery. They didn’t insist we use Autodesk products, but Autodesk just happened to have the products to get the job done and to work in a shared model base environment with other team members. Arcs, lines, circles, manually coordinating everything and Rhino masses just didn’t cut it.
Just for the record, we still use Rhino, but we know when to use it. Many firms just seem to cling on to a software or a platform for the sake of it.
ya working for the 3rd biggest firm in the world sure isn't real world experience.
you know nothing. blow harder, it's funny
it's beta if you see something you want ask for it that is how user drive development works.
who here has seen the Movie series by Adam Curtis " The Trap" ?
"They didn’t insist we use Autodesk products, but Autodesk just happened to have the products to get the job done and to work in a shared model base environment with other team members."
Archicad has had this for 15 years and it runs natively on the Mac.
The Autocad announcement is for vaporware.
15 years ago, Archicad couldn’t push the envelope on BIM because of limitations within hardware.
I find it kind of strange to say that Navisworks, Ecotech and Maya (to name a few) sucks, because Autodesk owns them and before the acquisition they were cool products.
Archicad, Allplan and Vectorworks are owned by the same company now. I'm looking forward to see how AutoCAD translates on OSX. There will always be room for other CAD software since Autodesk seems to price their software out of the budget of many studios. Hopefully they will keep supporting the mac for the long run and not just give up after one release. The new interface seems quite nice. I guess they have experience translating software between operating systems (maya comes to mind) so things should turn out fine.
unless intellicad gets there first
maybe on the MAC version, they can add a spell check that actually is familiar with architectural vocabulary. It's always awesome to spell check and find out that AutoCAD changed "soffit" to "soviet."
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