Your assuming DWF is always going to be better. I guess we just differ on
that point because I am not just listening to the Bentley's either. I spoke
to the technical guy at Adobe and he along with the AEC alliance group are
committed to improving the format. Do you only see what AutoDesk feeds you
are do you actually get out once in awhile? When I was at AutoDesk
University I talked to people about DWF and if I took a poll most users will
say they use DWF to view and print the files and that is about it. So where
is the benefit there? Sure it does much more but most users are not taking
advantage of it yet, which really makes its use no different than a PDF that
requires you to load a new viewer.
You seem to ignore the fact that Bentley currently has a better solution
called DPR that even shows a user elements that have changed from one DPR
File to the next and they are color coded based on what was deleted, added
and changed. This too works on both DGN and DWG and they even have a free
viewer that allows you to mark up and post. Yet they still CHOOSE to listen
to their users that asked for this capability and then worked for the
industry leader to bring it to reality.
It seems you also missed the point in the analogy because you would be
agreeing with me that improving a word processor to do more that type text
was more efficient than creating a separate application for doing graphics
another for doing bar charts and so on and so on...
It sounds like the sugar coated water is being handed out at AutoDesk.
"Shaan Hurley, Autodesk, Inc." wrote in message
news:40fc4049$1_1@newsprd01...
> Michael,
>
> So in a nutshell if I understand your reply, you are saying you will
choose
> a single solution over the better solution. I would not say what Bentley
> has done especially in Orlando is swallow any pride perhaps sugar coated
> some sales presentations, but no pride swallowing.
>
> As for your comment about DWF Composer, not everyone needs to purchase
> Autodesk DWF Composer at $99 just like not everyone has to shellout almost
> $500 to markup up a PDF file using the Adobe Acrobat Pro. The DWF creation
> and viewing is free and open to anyone to develop using the toolkit, even
> Bentley.
>
> It sounds like you may have drank up all of Keith & Greg's special brand
of
> kool aid, hopefully for you it work . For others out there, they may
> actually want the better suited format for design data which exceeds PDF
> abilities and accuracy. I am not sure when or where the next update of
PDF
> will be, or if it will actually make things better for electronic PDF
> distribution of design data or not.
>
> In any case there is choice, even if Bentley does not want you to
consider
> choice. You can stay with the innovative Windows Notepad and Paint, while
> others prefer rich specific application, to twist your Windows analogy a
> tad.
>
> Cheers,
> -Shaan
>
> "MichaelK" wrote in message
> news:40fc0937$1_1@newsprd01...
> > Shaan,
> >
> > I come from a duel (Bentley and AutoDesk) shop and my bent is coming
from
> > an
> > IT position. I don't believe the rhetoric that every task needs its own
> > specific tools, yes sometimes they do but it is not always bad. Taken
> > with
> > that approach, Windows wouldn't do have the things it does today.
Product
> > Innovation should not be hampered by limitations the industry decides
for
> > us. Personally, I'm tired of having to install specific apps just to
add
> > a
> > few feature that we may or may not ever use.
> >
> > See comments below...
> >
> >
> > "Shaan Hurley, Autodesk, Inc." wrote in
> > message
> > news:40f9a777_2@newsprd01...
> >> Michael,
> >>
> >> PDF is good for Word documents, and it should focus on what it is good
> >> for
> >> being an old postscript based format. When it comes to design documents
> > the
> >> DWF format beats PDF hands down in more ways than just file size and
> > Michael
> >> it is not just a "slight file size difference". Bentley only chose to
use
> >> PDF with Adobe as they could not have swallowed their pride for the
> >> betterment of their own customers. Bentley also had to partner with
> > someone
> >> because they had no electronic format solution. Even so, you can still
> >> produce a DWF from Bentley products and many others using the free and
> >> available DWFWriter printer driver.
> >
> > I went to Bentley's User Conference in May and they did swallow their
> > pride,
> > they choose to better their solutions on a format that nearly everyone
in
> > the world has adopted and accepted. They actually have a proprietary
> > format
> > solution called DPR (which has been around even before DWF was even a
> > concept) that could have been enhanced to take on more functionality but
> > they actually choose PDF because it is what their USERS wanted and Adobe
> > was
> > willing to help make it a reality.
> >
> >>
> >> You can create PDF files from AutoCAD already so why reinvent the wheel
> >> inside AutoCAD when there are hundreds of PDF printer drivers and
> >> applications to do so.
> >
> > You can but you don't have much options or control, besides these all
use
> > distillers and are not nearly as functional as Bentley's writer. I
sound
> > like I am pro Bentley but I actually am quite neutral but this is a
> > subject
> > that I have a problem with when it comes to AutoDesk. You guys like to
> > make
> > everything proprietary and much like Microsoft, you want us to upgrade
> > every
> > other year by taking out functionality like saving to an older version
for
> > instance. It is not a limitation of the software to save back to vesion
> > 11
> > but rater a deliberate choice that forces us to upgrade. By making the
> > reader free it sounds like you have a great solution but IF it because a
> > standard in the industry your company will then have a larger base to
sell
> > the composer to. It all comes back to money not pride...
> >
> >>
> >> So when discussing design documents it is not PDF that is in the lead,
it
> > is
> >> DWF that wins. If the discussion were on what is best for text
documents
> >> then PDF wins. PDF is only more accepted because of its word based
> >> documentation background. Do you really need to teach the old PDF dog a
> > new
> >> trick or ability for design document data?
> >
> > If they, Adobe, succeeds at creating a rich AEC content PDF (which their
> > representative at the Bentley conference says they are) then what is the
> > difference? Just because you don't want to spend the time to teach a
dog
> > new tricks doesn't mean it can't be as good or better, it just depends
on
> > the profesional that is doing the training. Heck, looking at the team
of
> > Adobe has on this they may even put out a better solution they DWF...
> >
> >>
> >> It is about choice whether it be PDF or DWF and I just show the
strengths
> > of
> >> the DWF for the design documentation output. Now if Bentley customers
> > were
> >> to ask the same questions and DWF related posts, in most cases they
> >> either
> >> get deleted by PhilTer or a snide and rude reply containing "DWF is
> >> proprietary", which is unfortunate in that they take the one size fits
> >> all
> >> camp.
> >
> > As an IT person I tend to agree with Bentley on this one...
> >
> >>
> >> There is no need to buy anything with DWF, and there are full API and
> >> toolkits for free with no strings.
> >
> > Time is money and if PDF can provide the tools for free and most of my
> > clients have the reader already installed then I would choose PDF...
> >
> >>
> >> There is no one size or format that fits all data types.
> >> What you need to do is use the best suited format for the task at hand.
> >>
> >> http://autodesk.blogs.com/between_the_lines/dwf_it/index.html
> >>
http://autodesk.blogs.com/between_the_lines/2004/06/more_dwf_vs_pdf.html
> >>
> >> Cheers,
> >> -Shaan
> >> http://autodesk.blogs.com/between_the_lines/
> >>
> >>
> >> "MichaelK" wrote in message
> >> news:40f87513$1_1@newsprd01...
> >> > PDF seems to be getting a bad rap. Autodesk choose to create their
own
> >> > standard (probably to give us one more thing to upgrade every year)
> > rather
> >> > than working with Adobe. Bentley has proven that it can and does
allow
> >> you
> >> > to put as you said "a 4x8 sheet of plywood in it" and maybe the file
is
> >> > slightly larger but it is also their first stab at it.
> >> >
> >> > The PDF format is only going to get better and I only hope Autodesk
> >> > will
> >> not
> >> > ignore it when it catches up. It already handles layers, xrefs,
> >> searchable
> >> > text, plotting, intelligent links and security and from what I heard
it
> >> will
> >> > soon handle measuring and much more. BTW, MicroStation also writes a
> > PDFs
> >> > directly from their product without the use of a distiller, heck you
> >> > can
> >> > even create a PDF of DWG files as well.
> >> >
> >> > Just my two cents...
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
>
>