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Is Design Review discontinued?

326 REPLIES 326
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Message 1 of 327
FT398
32081 Views, 326 Replies

Is Design Review discontinued?

So all the 2014 products are out now but Design Review 2014 is conspicuous in its absence. It isn't available for download (still only 2013 available) and it hasn't been included in any of the other product installers where it always has been in the past.

 

Have I missed something or is this the end of the road?

326 REPLIES 326
Message 81 of 327
DJMCGEAX
in reply to: scott.sheppard

Scott,

 

Not sure why Autodesk is not getting the IP V Cloud issue, for the past few years client’s I have worked with do not want their IP stored on a server outside of their control, all you do by pushing this kind of data to the cloud is expose those companies to risk, you create a huge target for unscrupulous types now that all the data is outside of individual corporate control... You pushed WS for mobile use and in theory was a great idea buy my clients rarely allow me to email or store a file on a non approved unencrypted device. Also these clients hold a large sum of licenses to your products.. I've seen the subscriptions accounts that spend lots off $$ and depend on a localized solution for reviewing data… the development of design review can’t be so costly that you are willing to impact those who purchase your products so heavily..

 

Derek

Message 82 of 327
jggerth1
in reply to: FT398


Fascinating thread -- and a sad example of Autodesk not hearing what its customers -- the people who actually pay the salaries of the 'Deskers, really say.

Let's clear up some counterfactuals here.

>>The DWF file format is open source

That statement is so incorrect that it's not even wrong. It's as counterfactual as claiming that Autodesk 'owns' the .dwg format, or the txt format.   No computer file format is open source.  No license is required by ayone, at any time or place, to create a file using any format, whether DWF, DWG, DOC, RTF, TXT, or what have you.  DWF may be publicly documented, but that is a far cry from being open source.

The software used by Adesk to create and read DWF files is NOT open source.  Neither DWF ePlot plotter driver, ADR nor the DWF Toolkit is available under a FOSS license.  While the DWF Toolkit is licensed at no charge, Item four in the license for that software reserves the right of Autodesk to revoke that license.  Basically, Autodesk says its' their bat and ball, and they can take it away whenever they want.

Now, there's nothing stopping Autodesk from releasing the DWF toolkit, the DWF plotter driver, and ADR under a FOSS license.  Certainly would be a good move on their part to build trust in the stability and reliability of their offering, and trust is something Adesk desperately needs to build if they have any desire for their cloud services to gain any traction.  Maybe hand it over to the Mozilla  or Apache Foundations, or the OpenDocument people behind Libre Office.  Good for the community, good for Autodesk customers, and good for ADR.

Certainly there has been little reason to trust Autodesk to date -- from Generic CAD to WorkCenter, Actrix to Impression, there's a long litany of dropped products, abandoning customers and leaving them with no forward path.  One could be forgiven for thinking that the ability create DWF files will be deprecated, just as was done with .3ds, even though that format had become a de facto standard for data transfer.  Releasing all the source code related to dwf under a FOSS license would go a long ways towards repairing that reputation for short term thinking.


>>The last few releases of AutoCAD put PDF on a par in terms of publishing and underlay capabilities.

Well, somewhat accurate. While a PDF from an AtuoCAD line drawing may work reasonably well as an underlay, the vast variety of sources for PDF files means that a usable PDF is an unexpected occurence.   Experience has shown that the usability of a PDF attachment is not equivalent to that of a DWF, and completely lacking in integration with markups.    It's also worth noting that PDF files are well known vectors for malware infections - something that DWF and ADR have been spared so far.  There are some distinct benefits to bing a minority player.  At least for users.

Aditionally, since Adobe has dropped 3D PDF, the future of that is uncertain, and it's probable that a recipient will not be able to deal with that format as a review document.

PDF has a valuable place - but primarily with non-technical users, realtors, managers, etc.  With technically savvy people dealing with CAD design, DWF and Design Review are vastly better.


>> For those who have security aversions, as a large global company, it is possible that Autodesk spends more money on securing our servers than you do on securing yours.

Wow.   just, Wow.   A statement like that simply beggars belief.

There's little correlation between spending large quantities of money, and having effective security.  The list of 'large global companies' that have been hacked and owned by criminals is possibly shorter than the list of _all_ large global companies, but maybe not.  The companies are not exactly forthcoming about their security failures, and successful criminals don't brag. We've even had at least one incident where a 'large global company' directly sold confidential consumer information to a criminal organization.

Using Adobe as only the most recent example, their security was violated months ago, and the intruders spent months at large in their systems,  taking not only all customer information, including password and account data, but copied all the source code for Adobe's products.  And, although Adobe probably spends more money on security than Autodesk does, they were not aware of the intrusion untill an independent security researcher discovered the source code and password cache in the wild, and told Adobe they'd been pwned.  Add Sony, Roku, etc, etc, etc to the list of large global companies who have failed to protect customer information, and skated with minimal or non-existent repuercussions.  That's something on the order of 100 million passwords and user names out there, and available to criminals for exploits.

And let's remember the initial 'password protected' dwg files that in fact were not encrypted.  The DWG file simply had a flag set that told Acad to pretend the file was secured.  Every other DWG viewer and editor on the planet had the technical capability to ignore that flag and open the drawing.  Politely, the ODA toolkit enforced the flag and would not open the non-encrypted files.

My employer's IT group takes the security of our customer's data much more seriously -- and why not? We face real damages if confidentialy is violated, and we are not hiding behind a 'hold harmless' EUALA. We would face lawsuits, pay damages, possible criminal charges, and the people directly responsible would certainly be out of work.  Unlike software vendors or cloud providers, who refuse any liability.

Again, much of this comes down to trust.  And there's little to no reason to trust Autodesk because frankly, they haven't earned it.  On repeated occasions, Autodesk has publicly exposed my personal information without my consent or agreement.  I have no idea how many (un)'trusted partners' Adesk has handed off, traded, or sold my data to.  Evidently, that includes a company named Otoy -- with which I have no business relationship with, yet for some reason Autodesk decided that they should be a gateway to the 'Autodesk Remote' application, and gave them the ability to validate my subscription logins.

There are people working in Autodesk that I know, respect, and trust.  But until something changes, that does not include trusting the corporation.  Trust is not transitive, and security does not come from a checkbook.

Message 83 of 327
pendean
in reply to: jggerth1

Read this about the topic... seems to answer a lot more than this thread is able to:
http://www.cadalyst.com/%5Blevel-1-with-primary-path%5D/fate-autodesk-design-review-revealed-17796
Message 84 of 327
Tim.West
in reply to: pendean


@pendean wrote:
Read this about the topic... seems to answer a lot more than this thread is able to:
http://www.cadalyst.com/%5Blevel-1-with-primary-path%5D/fate-autodesk-design-review-revealed-17796

Cool, a post from 'anonymous' that shed little light that hasn't already been shed by official representatives in this thread.

 


@pendean wrote:
You probably should read this entire thread instead of just repeating a question that many have answered (in this thread).

 

Message 85 of 327
rkmcswain
in reply to: Tim.West


@timproof wrote:

Cool, a post from 'anonymous'

 

 




 

I don't know the mechanics of how it got reposted at Cadalyst, but it was authored by Brian Benton. The original is on his blog, here: http://cadablog.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-fate-of-autodesk-design-review.html

R.K. McSwain     | CADpanacea | on twitter
Message 86 of 327
Tim.West
in reply to: rkmcswain

Cheers for the clarification.

Message 87 of 327
scott.sheppard
in reply to: Tim.West

But at least you have your official answer.



Scott Sheppard
Program Manager
Autodesk Labs
Autodesk, Inc.
Message 88 of 327

I would like to know for a business who want's to keep there DWF in private they want like to go by the web to see the DWF. What is the solution you will suggest in this case?

 

Navisworks Freedom? Which he don't have all the feature include in Design Review.

 

My apology if this question it's already ask.

But I don't have the time to read all of the 87 posts already in the discussion.

 

Thank you for your answer.

Message 89 of 327
pendean
in reply to: yvan.samson

Please read the link posted above yours in message #85, it explains where the program is currently at:
http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Design-Review/Is-Design-Review-discontinued/m-p/4589729#M12468

Ther is no need to keep asking the same exact questions everyone else has in this thread.
Message 90 of 327

Yvan:

For people who wish to keep their DWF file private, you could place the DWF file on your intranet and install Autodesk Design Review on all of your machines.



Scott Sheppard
Program Manager
Autodesk Labs
Autodesk, Inc.
Message 91 of 327
yvan.samson
in reply to: DJMCGEAX

Ok is answer.

 

But when the Autodesk Design Review will be hold and not effective with file in a new version.

 

We have to replace with a web application which for us it's not possible.

Message 92 of 327
matTech
in reply to: FT398

So is there a download for the full version? I looked through the thread and couldn't find a link. Everytime I try to install it, the program fails.

Message 93 of 327
matTech
in reply to: FT398

Adding to the rant, my company is so far behind that we will probably never use Design Review. However, if we did decide to go this route, cloud based would probably not work for us. The corporate masters don't understand that an engineering company needs internet and our connection is around 6 Mbps for an office of 60+ people. Does Autodesk360 have LAN support?

Message 94 of 327
pendean
in reply to: matTech

Ful version of ADR? http://www.autodesk.com/designreview where it's always been, tap the Download green bar, make sure the download manager is properly installed first or it will not work.

 

Or do you mean a direct download of the full application file?

Message 95 of 327
DavidBethel
in reply to: matTech

For information about downloads and install, take a look at this thread.

 

http://http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Design-Review/Autodesk-Design-Review-installation-fails/td-p/43...

 

It has lots of alternatives..  -David

Message 96 of 327
scott.sheppard
in reply to: matTech

matTech:

 

Though the cloud is not for everyone, which is why we continue to package and sell desktop applications in suites, we see more and more of this happening:

 

http://www.constructech.com/news/articles/article.aspx?article_id=9846



Scott Sheppard
Program Manager
Autodesk Labs
Autodesk, Inc.
Message 97 of 327
jggerth1
in reply to: scott.sheppard

point -- counterpoint

 

http://www.xkcd.com/1286/

Message 98 of 327
jggerth1
in reply to: jggerth1
Message 99 of 327
pendean
in reply to: jggerth1

If you want complete security, unplug from the internet, stop using email, fire all staff (presumably you can only trust yourself), never issue drawings to anyone (see trust comment above), and don't use snail mail, or a phone (someone can pretend to be you).

For everyone else, realizing that anything a human creates will always have a fault/flaw built into it, you have to decide which threats are credible and work as your customers (not your IT) wish you to do to deliver the services they are paying you for.

Life is not easy. You have to decide, you can't wait for others to decide for you.
Message 100 of 327
scott.sheppard
in reply to: jggerth1

JGerth:

 

All the more reason to leave the data on the server where the CAD application is and drive everything remotely.

 

http://labs.blogs.com/its_alive_in_the_lab/2013/11/run-autodesk-applications-using-just-a-browser.ht...

 

Of course everything local requires no bandwidth, but with an Autodesk Remote approach, you could avoid transferring big files back and forth.



Scott Sheppard
Program Manager
Autodesk Labs
Autodesk, Inc.

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