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Adesk View Strategy - Always give and take

9 REPLIES 9
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Message 1 of 10
Anonymous
388 Views, 9 Replies

Adesk View Strategy - Always give and take

Seems like Autodesk's viewer strategy over the years is always give and take. Give you one thing, but take away something else you previously had. Whip - Free, Fast DWF viewer plugin. -> Then comes Volo View/Volo View Express - Gives you DWG/DXF support but takes away performance. Next, Autodesk Express Viewer (Autodesk DWF Viewer) - Gives back performance but takes away DWG/DXF support. Told we're suppose to use Volo View for that. Then comes along DWF Composer - Said to replace VoloView. Plug in gives us DWG support but not DXF support (why I don't know seeing as it's based on AutoCAD OEM) as well as takes away IPT/IAM support. It would be nice if at some point in the future, Autodesk developed a viewer that when released, didn't take away from the users, something they'd once previously had and implemented throughout their enterprise. I can only assume it's hard for a company such as Autodesk to market themselves to customers a single source/total solution when they're continually drilling holes in the bottom of the ship they're trying to sell you. Any word on if/when DWF composer will have a plugin that allows IAM/IPT/DXF support? Or are we stuck purchasing a soon to be dead product (Volo View) only to again have to purchase upgrades later to the next fly-by-night viewer technology? Perhaps software upgrades wouldn't be so hard to justify if the company wanting us to upgrade didn't force us to purchase old software thereby locking themselves into even more future upgrade revenue at our expense.
9 REPLIES 9
Message 2 of 10
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

Have you checked into any of the third party viewer/markup solutions? wrote in message news:MPG.1b1fe8ca7c7760c0989749@discussion.autodesk.com... > Seems like Autodesk's viewer strategy over the years is always give and > take. Give you one thing, but take away something else you previously > had. > > Whip - Free, Fast DWF viewer plugin. -> Then comes Volo View/Volo View > Express - Gives you DWG/DXF support but takes away > performance. Next, Autodesk Express Viewer (Autodesk DWF Viewer) - Gives > back performance but takes away DWG/DXF support. Told we're suppose to > use Volo View for that. Then comes along DWF Composer - Said to replace > VoloView. Plug in gives us DWG support but not DXF support (why I don't > know seeing as it's based on AutoCAD OEM) as well as takes away IPT/IAM > support. > > It would be nice if at some point in the future, Autodesk developed a > viewer that when released, didn't take away from the users, something > they'd once previously had and implemented throughout their enterprise. > > I can only assume it's hard for a company such as Autodesk to market > themselves to customers a single source/total solution when they're > continually drilling holes in the bottom of the ship they're trying to > sell you. > > Any word on if/when DWF composer will have a plugin that allows > IAM/IPT/DXF support? Or are we stuck purchasing a soon to be dead > product (Volo View) only to again have to purchase upgrades later to the > next fly-by-night viewer technology? Perhaps software upgrades wouldn't > be so hard to justify if the company wanting us to upgrade didn't force > us to purchase old software thereby locking themselves into even more > future upgrade revenue at our expense.
Message 3 of 10
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

> Have you checked into any of the third party viewer/markup solutions? Not yet but it looks like we're going to have to. Although I doubt there's a lot out there that also support Inventor file formats.
Message 4 of 10
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

I really hope they don't pollute DWF Computer with IPT/IAM. I hated the fact that DWF Composer came with a DWG viewer until I saw that the viewer was AutoCAD itself, and all it does is view and generate DWF files. I worried that Composer itself would mark up DWG files. As far as IPT/IAM go, these files can be converted to DWF. Think of where we'd be today if we had kept WHIP! and extended it to become DWF Composer instead of taking the Volo View detour. In my mind, Autodesk finally has it right. Now that AutoCAD 2005 can round trip data with DWF Composer - they are on the right track. The Vault product will automatically generate DWF files for the people in the Mechanical Space. wrote in message news:MPG.1b1fe8ca7c7760c0989749@discussion.autodesk.com... > Whip - Free, Fast DWF viewer plugin. -> Then comes Volo View/Volo View > Express - Gives you DWG/DXF support but takes away > performance. Next, Autodesk Express Viewer (Autodesk DWF Viewer) - Gives > back performance but takes away DWG/DXF support. Told we're suppose to > use Volo View for that. Then comes along DWF Composer - Said to replace > VoloView. Plug in gives us DWG support but not DXF support (why I don't > know seeing as it's based on AutoCAD OEM) as well as takes away IPT/IAM > support. > > Any word on if/when DWF composer will have a plugin that allows > IAM/IPT/DXF support? Or are we stuck purchasing a soon to be dead > product (Volo View) only to again have to purchase upgrades later to the > next fly-by-night viewer technology? Perhaps software upgrades wouldn't > be so hard to justify if the company wanting us to upgrade didn't force > us to purchase old software thereby locking themselves into even more > future upgrade revenue at our expense.
Message 5 of 10
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

> I really hope they don't pollute DWF Computer with IPT/IAM. I hated the fact > that DWF Composer came with a DWG viewer until I saw that the viewer was > AutoCAD itself, and all it does is view and generate DWF files. I worried > that Composer itself would mark up DWG files. As far as IPT/IAM go, these > files can be converted to DWF. Think of where we'd be today if we had kept > WHIP! and extended it to become DWF Composer instead of taking the Volo View > detour. In my mind, Autodesk finally has it right. Now that AutoCAD 2005 can > round trip data with DWF Composer - they are on the right track. The Vault > product will automatically generate DWF files for the people in the > Mechanical Space. I agree that composer shouldn't be polluted, but there should be some sort of plug-in or program for people to view native Inventor files if it's going to be a real "viewer" strategy. As far as Vault goes, not everybody is using Vault and nor should they have to. The DWG viewing is nothing more than an AutoCAD OEM engine. There's no reason that can't do something similar for Inventor's IDWs. -- Darren J. Young CAD/CAM Systems Developer Cold Spring Granite Company 202 South Third Avenue Cold Spring, Minnesota 56320 Email: dyoung@coldspringgranite.com Phone: (320) 685-5045 Fax: (320) 685-5052
Message 6 of 10
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

Believe it or not, we are trying to simplify and consolidate the Autodesk viewing solution. Our markup and viewing strategy is really focused around getting information into the DWF file format. DWF offers a IP security as a read-only format, is smaller and more compressed than DWG, can include multiple sheets within a single file, and is a plot-ready version of the DWG which insures visual fidelity for the viewer of the information.

The DWF Viewer and DWF Composer solutions are built around view, markup, and revise for DWF files. All Autodesk applications moving forward will continue to include publishing to DWF as part of their base functionality.

In the past, it's been a constant game of catch up to try to maintain full fidelity viewing of our native Autodesk file formats. This was difficult enough when this was limited to DWG and Inventor files. However, today we also have to find ways to view information coming Revit and vertical flavors of AutoCAD as well. Our hope is that by getting all of our vertical applications to write out to a common published file format-DWF-that we can concentrate our viewer efforts to provide solutions that benefit our customers.

--Doug
Message 7 of 10
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

That will be great as I need a script to keep the products straight! "Doug Look, Autodesk" wrote in message news:21755905.1086227270942.JavaMail.jive@jiveforum1.autodesk.com... > Believe it or not, we are trying to simplify and consolidate the Autodesk viewing solution. Our markup and viewing strategy is really focused around getting information into the DWF file format. DWF offers a IP security as a read-only format, is smaller and more compressed than DWG, can include multiple sheets within a single file, and is a plot-ready version of the DWG which insures visual fidelity for the viewer of the information. > > The DWF Viewer and DWF Composer solutions are built around view, markup, and revise for DWF files. All Autodesk applications moving forward will continue to include publishing to DWF as part of their base functionality. > > In the past, it's been a constant game of catch up to try to maintain full fidelity viewing of our native Autodesk file formats. This was difficult enough when this was limited to DWG and Inventor files. However, today we also have to find ways to view information coming Revit and vertical flavors of AutoCAD as well. Our hope is that by getting all of our vertical applications to write out to a common published file format-DWF-that we can concentrate our viewer efforts to provide solutions that benefit our customers. > > --Doug
Message 8 of 10
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

> In the past, it's been a constant game of catch up to try to maintain full fidelity viewing of our native Autodesk file formats. This was difficult enough when this was limited to DWG and Inventor files. However, today we also have to find ways to view information coming Revit and vertical flavors of AutoCAD as well. Our hope is that by getting all of our vertical applications to write out to a common published file format-DWF-that we can concentrate our viewer efforts to provide solutions that benefit our customers. Makes sense but there then needs to be a focused effort at more tight integration of DWF support in the various applications in a way that makes creating and maintaining a DWF archive of data as transparent to the end user as possible. For the benefit realized in maintaining a DWF library for our purposes, the possibility that errors occur due to redundant data not being kept up to date and the ramifications of that are just too great considering that at this point, all DWF efforts are manual, duplicated efforts (because hard copies are still generated) and require yet more file management. Generating and maintain 100,000 to 250,000 dwf's on a monthly basis when company wide perhaps people scattered all over may have the need to view this or legacy data 100-200 times just doesn't make a good justification for the effort considering the additional work needed to produce and organize the DWFs. You're ever in this neck of the woods, I'd love for you to stop by. I've had a couple Inventor folks from Adesk stop by and leave scratching their heads I'd love to do the same for you. ;-) DWF would fit in well here in places but other's it's just not where it needs to be. -- Darren J. Young CAD/CAM Systems Developer Cold Spring Granite Company 202 South Third Avenue Cold Spring, Minnesota 56320 Email: dyoung@coldspringgranite.com Phone: (320) 685-5045 Fax: (320) 685-5052
Message 9 of 10
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

Darren,

You have complete agreement from me. We definitely need to support more automated solutions for keeping DWF and DWG data synched up. We'll continue to work with all of the Autodesk applications to make this easier. There already are some third party solutions for batch publishing from DWG to DWF. For example, Cadzation has AcroPlot.

Would love to stop by if I'm in the area.

--Doug
Message 10 of 10
tstuartavat
in reply to: Anonymous

IF I am not mistaken, if you own inventor you have a viewer for those files in the Inventor view that comes on the DVD. DWF is for a different solution.

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