Feature
Autodesk 2015 AEC Products Autodesk moves closer to becoming a services business and takes a leap from a 30-year-old upgrade cycle to a subscription only and rental model. by Martyn Day
New sketchy lines feature for Autodesk Revit 2015 enables designers to apply a hand-sketched graphic style to views of a model
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utodesk has spent years perfecting its yearly release and upgrade cycle, managing to produce feature-rich upgrades up until the 2012 introduction of Suites. An Autodesk subscription is modelled like a club membership and moves customers from the perception of ‘owning’ software to paying to have access to services. It is a subtle but important change. The old upgrade cycle has now ceased to exist. Instead, customers now have the following options:
(analysis, rendering, data storage) and Autodesk is experimenting with cloudbased, web-accessed versions of its popular applications (AutoCAD, Revit, Inventor etc). In the near future, customers will be able to store data on the cloud and have access to professional editing or querying tools wherever they are in the world (that has Internet access), on multiple types of devices, including desktop, tablet or smart phone. According to Autodesk, the future is collaboration and server-based power.
• Maintenance Subscription, which subscribes existing licenses. Customers who wish to buy new licences will also be put on Maintenance Subscription
The AEC team has been very busy this year, both with products and web services and has introduced a number of new products and brand terms at the same time. However, in doing so, the company has sacrificed some product clarity and something tells me this is going to get worse before it gets better. As a general rule, if a product has ‘360’ after it, it is a cloud-based application, platform or service. If it has a year in the title, it is a desktop application. Some products are the web-based equivalents of the desktop version, for example AutoCAD 360 for AutoCAD 2015, however the cloud-based version may not be as feature-rich as the desktop, as of yet. Suites continue to be the main focus. Autodesk continues to sell Standard Premium and Ultimate versions and has not altered the bundles configurations too much.
Subscription • Desktop (rental). Customers stay on their current releases and then move to this term-based model for future products / updates • Cloud Service Subscription, which provides a selection of cloud-based services that offer access to visualisation and simulation as well as expanded mobile and collaborative access Autodesk firmly believes that customers will benefit from these services it provides through cloud computing. Desktop products have been updated to make use of its cloud-based functionality 14
May / June 2014
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2015 releases
Autodesk AutoCAD Design Suite 2015 has a new refined visual interface, enhanced point cloud support, and better ways to work with online maps. Autodesk Building Design Suite 2015 has enhanced integration with Autodesk’s BIM 360 cloud services, also benefits from better point cloud capabilities, and a raft of updates to Revit. Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suite 2015 includes major enhancements to the AutoCAD-based Civil 3D software, including: user interface, corridor modelling, more efficient profile layouts, more consistency between the AutoCAD Civil 3D and AutoCAD ribbon/command set, production drafting, and simpler ways to create custom sub-assemblies.
Building Products Civil3D is quickly being usurped by Infraworks as the development platform of choice for Autodesk. However, for now Civil3D remains a very popular product based on the world-dominating AutoCAD platform. Civil 3D 2015 sees the following improvements: • •
Greater flexibility for designing and displaying corridor models More efficient creation of profile layouts www.AECmag.com
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