Is Design Review discontinued?

[FT398]

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?

[scott.sheppard]

What if you could buy our cloud services and host them on your own servers? Would you still want your solutions to be desktop-only and limited to the one CPU and memory of one machine?

[Metron4]

Speaking on behalf of our telecommunications division for a US Federal government laboratory, I would say hosting your services solely on our internal servers is the only way we could ever use "the cloud". The amount of CPUs or memory isn't as important as dead solid security. Security is everything for us. We would be more than happy to work with you to ensure your services conform to our security policies. There are precedents here at the Lab for doing this. We actually have smartphones in wide distribution, but they are locked down super-tight.

[david_keene]

Hi Scott

I am based in Australia and regionally manage all CAE applications for one of the world’s largest defence contractors which consists of approximately 5000 staff of which 1000 are engineers. I can’t speak for the business outside of Australia but do know that due to the nature of our work we cannot use SaaS services to develop or service our digital products.  As far as a private cloud goes this does make a lot of sense for business’s that require high performance computing which surpasses that of a high end workstation and are unable to use the public cloud due to security concerns. That said Design Review is a great desktop application and to date I see no evidence that it is pushing the boundaries of even the most basic workstation.  Moving it to a cloud only environment may excite the Autodesk fan boy or small design shop but offers no advantage to the enterprise. Im sorry to say but not offering a desktop version will certainly result in the enterprise looking for an alternative solution.

regards

Dave

[toddw.schuler]

The IT nightmare at our company would make it difficult to set up and even more difficult to manage.

Todd S.



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[rkmcswain]

scott.sheppard wrote:
Would you still want your solutions to be desktop-only and limited to the one CPU and memory of one machine?

Scott, I suppose we are still talking about being able to view and markup DWF files? If so, that is not a limitation for us. Not having a desktop application for doing this would be a limitation.

[rallen]

Scott,

I am a die-hard Autodesk (AutoCAD, ACA, Revit, Navis, Max...)user and there must be better balance for markup access. (I really wish you guys had bought BlueBeam and incorporated it like DWF.)

It all comes down to ownership, risk(real and percieved) and cost.

Considering architecture specifically (See AIA Press) for the mega-firms over 100 A/E users cloud computing is not an issue. Only 3% of architectural firms are over 50 people. Perhaps 3% to 10% might scrap/ slowly migrate all their investments in the desktops and Move to a VM/Cloud system(Need to researchthis fruther). I have tried educating and pushing this exact issue but the upper management would not adopt any of the many models I researched and presented.

A 100% private cloud system is very powerful and viable provided the money and infrastructure is there to support it... VMs with flexible on-the-fly configurations would sweeten that attraction. However, public cloud PAAS have other issues- specifically security, ownership and connectivity (access). 3rd party SAAS takes all the personal ownership out of 90% of the companies out there- for those firms being slowed down (net neutrality) or cutoff (Changes in EULAs, outages, rate hikes in software cost, etc.) is a very frightening prospect and IMO the returns don't justify the risk.

I loved DWFs outshined Adobe when Adobe was gouging/reluctant to allow direct integration with Autodesk. DWF was a great innovation on Autodesk's part to come up with a more viable solution at the time. However my personal experience with the laggard adopters (2+ years off version) in the architecture world is staggering- mostly everyone outside that 3-10%. Cost is a big factor, adoption by clients(in the production world) is the other. Asking a client to install DWF results in the "we already have Adobe PDF" futile discussion in the vast majority of cases, especially with the 'free' PDF generators (bluebeam, CutePDF, etc) becoming ubiquitous. Though DWF-PDF conversaion horrifically bloats the PDFs- the direct to PDF is marginally (30%-50%) larger in most cases and a few megs over hundreds or thousands of of well managed files on a TB server is not a big deal. 

Full PDF integration is the way to go... bi-directional for markups would rock... and having posession of the creation, markup, editing and management of the PDF would be perfect. We need to bridge the communications gap to the majority of non-professionals and professionals alike- having the data there for the professionals which is not necessarily visible to the non-professionals. 

Output is mission-critical-priority-one for communicating with the rest of the world - would be great if one truly universal format could cover it all.

ps-Kudos on the software leasing and push to current subscription models- especially for all those firms that follow their clients rather than lead- nice to see Autodesk with its knowledge base pushing as a leader : )  

[scott.sheppard]

When I interjected the topic of hosting our solutions on your servers to leverage infinite computing, I was thinking more about analysis and simulation. I was responding to the comment that Autodesk is only moving to the cloud for our own monetray gain. We see the ability to apply more than one computer to a problem as an advantage to our customers, so we want to offer it.

Security concerns aide for a moment, in terms of collaboartion, the internet was made for this. Yes you can generate DWF files, open them in Design Review, mark them up, save them, send the DWF file back to the author, update the original source file by lining up the DWF file comments with the original geometry, save the updated original, publish a new DWF, and start the process all over. But wouldn't it be simpler just to skip the DWF part and just work on the native data? What about iPhones, Androids, tablets, and Macs? Design Review only runs on a PC. The number of PCs in the world is shrinking. The number of these other devcies is growing. Hooking our electronic design review wagon to just the PC is a short-lived proposition. A360 works on the PC as well as these other devices.

I understand the security concerns. Some people work on thngs like nuclear reactors. Others work on movies for which they don't even own the rights to the IP they are creating. That's why I suggested the private cloud. Hopefully customers who currently use DWF files are not emailing them or FTPing them. Those solutions are less secure than many part of the public cloud.

[toddw.schuler]

Work on the native data?          

Not on your life do I want unqualified users working on the native data. We have enough trouble keeping data integrity with qualified users entering data. Those who use the DWF’s are those who are not CAD users. They are mechanics on the floor, or machinist, maybe a few lab technicians. Most of these users don’t want to learn how to use CAD, they want something they can print.

Another issue with native data vs. the DWF is speed across the network. It is much faster to open a DWF file half a world away than it is a full on AutoCAD file.  We publish the DWF and use the Vault Web Application for non-CAD users to access drawings, native downloads would be prohibitive for some of the networks with our remote locations.

[rallen]

Scott-

For large scale secure projects 3rd party cloud is risky and (percieved as ) not secure enough. For the remainder of projects using Email and FTP the cost and perception of access and ownership of data in the cloud is a no-go... so that is the negative perception cutting both ways.

Keeping in mind what we do within the profession - communicating with our colleagues and consultants is less of a challenge than communicating with clients. Having the same to to communicate with both would be ideal. 

It may take time to move to the cloud - the drag and drop viewer you guys came up with is awesome. Getting people to use it - again downloading and overcoming the PDF familiariaty is the difficulty... (the old VBS vs Beta discussion.)

[rkmcswain]

scott.sheppard wrote:
.... in terms of collaboartion, the internet was made for this.

That's just it. We (and I'm sure we are in the vast minority) don't have a need for any 'collaboration', short of intra-WAN sharing of files. Quite frankly we never really got on the DWF bandwagon anyway because of its position as "Betamax" to VHS - in the DWF vs PDF wars of the previous decade. Technically superior? Probably so. Adoption rate among the general CAD community? "What is a DWF?, Just send me a PDF" was the response 99.5% of the time.

scott.sheppard wrote:
Yes you can generate DWF files, open them in Design Review, mark them up, save them, send the DWF file back to the author, update the original source file by lining up the DWF file comments with the original geometry, save the updated original, publish a new DWF, and start the process all over. But wouldn't it be simpler just to skip the DWF part and just work on the native data?

Simpler? Maybe. But only a select group of people here are allowed to access the 'native data' for WRITE. The vast majority of our 'marking up' is done on paper, with colored pens/pencils. The long and the short of if is this... if Design Review goes away, then so will DWF for us and I'm sure many others who are not going to upload docs to the web, just to turn around and have a neighbor 10 offices away download it to view. I think @rallen touched on why the private cloud system isn't the answer for everyone either.

[mbaker]

Great response David,

I agree entirely with your note. I think AD is missing the point, Design Review from my point of view is a desktop application used during the creation and development phase of a design. Design review doesn't need computing power for markup, which most of my clients use it for. Again having it on the cloud opens the door for security issues, or a company policy issue, etc. A design review application should not require a Manufacturing department user to log into the cloud just to verify a mark up or internal manufacturing change. I tend to  think based on 40 years of industry knowledge that markups and as built markings need to be managed in house.

Mb

[mbaker]

I'm in total Agreement with "rkmcswain" he Hit the Nail on the head... take the rose colored glasses off and look at what the customers actually do.. Perfect!

mb

[tim.west]

WOW....

Its been a few years since the announcement that ADSK would no longer be updating Design Review. 360 still doesn't support publishing markups to dwf back into revit/autoCAD.

ADSK reps (no offence Scott) as still spouting 'surely you want to share the real information' rhetoric when revit has seroius issues sharing large files through Revit Server, and the 360 version 'converts' it to a 'non-native' format...

I would have a little more faith in ADSK if they developed a robust & functional alternative prior to removing Design Review (yes, yes I know it hasn't been 'removed' entirely), though I guess the losses were too great. Why offer the Design Review toolkit for free when you have competing paid options...

If ADSK were to add the option of saving a view with markups in Navisworks Freedom, allowing the same import dwf functionality with Revit, I would be happier.

[rallen]

On the sharing front... If Autodesk supported a toned-down version of clarity via the 'FREE' Revit server that could solve the ownership issues and collaboration (similar to bluestreak) and allow for cross communication and collaboration - that would help me in the Revit front... but not the CAD front. Vault may be a solution but is overcomplicated and too costly for 90% of the folks out there.

[scott.sheppard]

I used DWF as an example. PDF is perfectly fine. The 3D PDF engine is maintained by Tech Soft 3D, the guys who maintain HOOPS, so we know those guys. Autodesk has tried to put PDF on par with DWF in terms of publishing the files and using them as underlays.

[neilyj666]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I used DWF as an example. PDF is perfectly fine. The 3D PDF engine is maintained by Tech Soft 3D, the guys who maintain HOOPS, so we know those guys. Autodesk has tried to put PDF on par with DWF in terms of publishing the files and using them as underlays.

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I'm sure most users would agree that a pdf used as an underlay is a last resort as the performance of AutoCAD degrades to the point of being unusable. I'm aware that improvements are supposed to have been made to 2016 but not tried that yet.

[rkmcswain]

Agree with @neilyj666 in general since I have not used 2016 in production -- but I will say that Autodesk has done a 180 from mid-last decade when DWF was being heavily promoted and PDF was all but declared a dirty word.

Once the built in "dwg to pdf" plot driver was fixed, PDF creation became simple with a nice end product.

[toddw.schuler]

If the PDF is fixed in 2016 then would it be the recommendation from Autodesk for Vault users to publish PDF files and abandon the DWF? 

DWF is D-E-A-D!

[pendean]

I'm loving the direction Autodesk is moving to as far as PDF is concerned: I'm seeing the nails in the coffin of DWF being collected as we all rant about dean DWF. I look forward to the PDF format maturing in the next few versions of AutoCAD. It's about time Autodesk woke up and smelled file-exchange realities.

[rkmcswain]

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@pendean wrote:
....I'm seeing the nails in the coffin of DWF being collected as we all rant about dean DWF. 

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Does that include 3D as well as flat 2D drawings?  Before I hit SEND, I may have answered my own question.