Autodesk’s AutoCAD 2019 just added seven new specialized toolsets to its subscriber program. These toolsets include specialized features and libraries for mechanical design, architecture, 3D mapping, and more; plus, greater mobility with the new web and mobile apps; and take advantage of new features and performance enhancements, included with new subscriptions to AutoCAD 2019 available March 22, 2018.
AECCafe Voice
Archive for the ‘engineering’ Category
AutoCAD 2019 Comes with Seven New Toolsets
Friday, April 13th, 2018
Choice is Key as GRAPHISOFT Extends Licensing Options for ARCHICAD
Thursday, March 22nd, 2018Campbell Yule, director, Global Business Development spoke to AECCafe Voice about the new subscription model offered by GRAPHISOFT.
Indoor Reality Captures and Processes Large Indoor Spaces
Thursday, March 15th, 2018Just when you think that the advancements in indoor mapping have come a long way, along comes another fascinating product.
In the Near Future: Tekla Software 2018 for Steel
Thursday, March 8th, 2018In a recent Webinar, presenters Tiina Lehtinen, marketing manager, Trimble; Oxana Kyllonen, application manager, Trimble; and Eric Beyer, product manager, Trimble outlined the sneak preview of Tekla Software 2018 for Steel.
The new Tekla Structures 2018 is designed to be more productive with your drawings and modeling.
Autodesk Subscription “Switch-Back” Promotion Shows Some Heart, Sort Of
Friday, February 16th, 2018There have been some changes to Autodesk recently. Perhaps most importantly for the users and owners, changes to the subscription program, that has been promoted by Autodesk as an “my way or the highway” approach to selling software, or cloud services as it were. As some people were not happy with being expected to purchase a subscription and give up their perpetual licenses, a new promotion has been initiated. This new promotion offers a “switch-back” option, meaning that if you own a perpetual license and you switch to a subscription, “If you’re not satisfied, you can switch back to your perpetual license.” This is the promise.
You can find out more about what this might mean for those who would like to continue with their perpetual licenses or revert to a perpetual license after finding the subscription program doesn’t work for them here.
How do I get this offer? (The first of the FAQs)
Simply trade in your qualifying old perpetual license(s) and purchase a new 1- or 3-year subscription to any eligible collection or individual product of your choice via one of the methods outlined.
Once you submit your perpetual license(s), you agree to discontinue use of the traded-in license(s). This offer ends April 20, 2018.
Which products qualify for the offer?
Most Autodesk perpetual licenses of releases R14 (release year 1998) through 2018 version product not on an active maintenance plan (as of December 31, 2017) qualify to get the offer discount.
When you trade in your qualifying perpetual license(s), you can get the offer discount on most Autodesk product subscriptions, including industry collections, AutoCAD, Revit, Inventor, 3ds Max, Civil 3D, Maya, and much more.
View list of all eligible products and full offer details here.
Can I get a different product than I have now?
You do not need to purchase the same product as the perpetual trade-in license. For example, you can trade in an old, eligible perpetual license of AutoCAD and subscribe to a collection at the promotional price.
(Eds note: This might work if you wanted to buy a subscription to a collection that contains AutoCAD, thereby seeming to get more for your money.)
What does “switch-back” option mean?
We’re confident that you will be satisfied with your subscription, but if for any reason that is not the case, you are eligible to switch back to your perpetual license at the end of either the 3-year term, or the end of the second year of an annual term (1 year plus 1 year renewal). See full details here.
In those full details, note this information:
Note that customers are only able to switch back to the versions set out below.
| Version submitted | Switch back: within “eligible term”* | Customer obligations |
|---|---|---|
| 2017, 2018 | • 2016 version • same product • same deployment (e.g. SLM or NLM) |
Contact Autodesk for details of how to switch-back |
| 1998 – 2016 | • Same version as submitted • same product • same deployment (e.g. SLM or NLM) |
Retain media kits, download and/or activation details, and any other item necessary for operation of legacy license |
Do I have to be connected to the internet to use my software?
No. After initial activation, your software will work offline for 30 days. At that point, you will need to reconnect. Don’t worry, we’ll remind you 7 days prior.
Will all of my work automatically go into the cloud?
Desktop applications and all associated user data are stored on your local machine. When you use cloud service applications, you can choose to either store data in the cloud or on your local machine. You retain all of your local data even if you decide to end your subscription.
Will I have updates whether I want to or not?
As a subscriber, you can access the latest updates anytime, but you decide if and when to install them.
What else can I do with subscription that I don’t have with my old software?
The subscription offerings provide you greater value and enable you to:
- Always access the latest software, updates and previous versions
- Use your software anywhere you need to be – at home, at work or on the road
- Share 2D or 3D views of your work online and see comments directly in your product
- Try out new tools without making a big up-front investment
- Easily scale up or down to fit your organization’s changing needs
- Instantly grant users access to products you have purchased by deploying them directly on devices or allowing users to install them on their own from the Autodesk desktop app
- Get technical support – Choose phone, online chat, email or remote desktop assistance to resolve your issues more quickly
Learn more
Eds. note: Nowhere is there any mention of continued support, upgrades or maintenance if you do choose to “switch-back” to your old version of Autodesk software after dipping your toes into the subscription pool. What this offer offers: 1) the owner or user, gains the opportunity to try out the subscription-based arrangement with an option of turning back if he/she wants to. 2) Additionally, the subscription price is 25% less than it would be without this offer, so it might be a worthwhile incentive to move forward. 3) You may really save money on signing up for the Industry Collections.
You must make your decision within 30 days, if you want to “switch-back.” If you do switch back, you don’t get to pick up your perpetual license maintenance plan. You will also be sent back (kind of like in a game of Monopoly) to your perpetual license version you had before.
Extraordinary as it may seem, if you had purchased a 2017 or 2018 perpetual license, it appears (see above chart) that if you were not happy with your subscription plan, you would be switched back to a 2016 perpetual license. I’m hoping this is a typo, but so far that is what is stated on the website. Stay tuned; I have contacted Autodesk to find out further information.
Trimble Acquires e-Builder to Accelerate Industry Transformation
Thursday, February 8th, 2018This week Trimble announced its acquisition of privately-held e-Builder, an SaaS-based construction program management solution for capital program owners and program management firms. While very often we might wonder what a company’s end goals are regarding an acquisition, e-Builder extends Trimble’s ability to accelerate industry transformation by providing an integrated project delivery solution for owners, program managers and contractors across the design, construct and operate lifecycle. e-Builder is a foremost survivor of the construction software management boom of many years ago.
Where the 3D Model Drives Field Equipment: Interview with Bentley Systems
Thursday, January 25th, 2018Harry Vitelli, senior vice president, Construction and Field, Project Delivery and Eric Law, senior director, Product Management at Bentley Systems spoke with AECCafe Voice at the Bentley Year In Infrastructure Thought Leadership Conference in Singapore in October, 2017.
China Construction Sixth Engineering Division, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin Tianhe-Cloud Building Engineering Technology Co., Ltd – Sanya New Airport Reclamation Project – Sanya, Hainan, China
Bentley and TopCon teamed up to help construction industry professionals to learn best practices in constructioneering, a process of managing and integrating survey, engineering, and construction data, to streamline construction workflows and improve project delivery.
Constructioneering enables engineers to begin work with an accurate 3D model of current construction site conditions (as captured by Topcon’s UAS photogrammetry and laser scanners) which then can be processed into engineering-ready 3D reality meshes (by Bentley’s ContextCapture software). Cloud services convey the engineers’ work directly to construction processes in the field.
Eric Law: Construction process automating the workflows, what we’re doing is going after design build teams and helping them to pursue projects better, by using reality modeling, drones, and ContextCapture.
We’re automating workflows with TopCon and Bentley to move data throughout their process. So, this way I can take a drone, fly a site, capture the site, use Bentley’s ConceptStation to develop essential designs, get my client to buy off on a design. I can say here’s a budget concept, pick an option then take it to detailed design. In detailed design, we can actually move it back to TopCon and out to the field where it is driving machines. We can take the design all the way back to the equipment on the field, where we’re doing surveying stakes, redoing drawings, all that redundant stuff. By working with TopCon we’re streamlining that workflow process. It’s a really big step forward for the industry. Everyone talks about inefficiency in construction and one of the things we’re doing is how do we improve that design and construction, how do we get rid of data loss and move data across the process. We’re going to be educating in the Academy on how constructioneering can help the design and build teams better execute their budgets. We’ve put together the Constructioneering Academy and take these workflows out to the audience and educate them on how they can leverage this in their projects. It’s a great way of combining technology, education, working together as a collaborative team in the industry.
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Make a Difference with BIM: Interview with IMAGINiT
Thursday, January 18th, 2018In an interview with Joe Eichenseer, Building Solutions Team Manager of IMAGINiT, he talked about current trends in BIM and what people want from the technology these days.
Apple building in Cupertino
JE: From our perspective, we’re seeing more people moving toward trying to do more with the model, whether through information and analytics or taking it into fabrication. There is a large acceptance of BIM in the design and engineering community, and to some extent in the construction side. The question is, how can we get more, because the cost of software and business isn’t going to go away. People want to know what can we do to become that much more efficient and stand out from the crowd in our use and application of BIM philosophies in the design, engineering and construction world.
AECCafe Voice: Have you seen or implemented any really groundbreaking application of that among your clients?
JE: What we’re really focusing on is the incremental improvements. In some cases, it might be taking someone a couple of steps beyond where they were before. With the application or use of BIM with residential home construction, single family homes, we’re working with various home builders to make that transition so they can get into the whole VR side of things. They can show prospective buyers what that home is really like with whatever materials and finishes they have inside the rooms. We want to bring that industry forward, which is traditionally the last to come through because of the nature of the design and construction market.
We’re taking the analytics we can extract from the Revit project or collection of Revit projects using our CLARITY software. We’re getting people to understand where the true technological bottlenecks are inside the company. And if you are a BIM manager or a BIM coordinator, how can we better guide your vision to those things that actually make a difference in your business?
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Strategic Relationship Between Trimble and VolkerWessels Promises BIM Innovations
Friday, January 12th, 2018AECCafe Voice provides some insightful comments from Jon Fingland, general manager, Collaboration Solutions at Trimble and René de Groot, BIM program manager at VolkerWessels leading construction firm and global player in the field of information and communications technologies, about this week’s announcement of a strategic relationship to standardize VolkerWessels’ projects on a key set of Trimble construction technologies. The collaboration is designed to leverage each company’s core capabilities to drive innovations in Building Information Management (BIM) technology and improve the management and predictability of building construction and real estate projects.
AECCafe Predictions for 2018
Thursday, January 4th, 2018Happy New Year!
Approaching a new year, the technologies that we saw growing during 2017 may unfold into 2018 to become realized with deeper understanding.
