AutoCad on OSX
 

I know this wont effect most people here.... BUT!

I just installed AutoCad 2008 LT on my iMac Intel under Parallels.... and it works AMAZINGLY well!... I am so SO so impressed!...

Thanks to Parallels 'coherence' mode and 'pause' function I don't have to see MS Windows at all... and I can launch AutoCad in a matter of seconds.

Of course I would prefer AutoCad for OSX... but until Autodesk get out of bed with Bill... Parallels is a great solution.

Why AutoCad? Why not a parametric tool like SolidWorks? Or if you're sold on AutoDesk products, why not use their parametric tool (Inventor)? I've used SolidWorks extensively and had a brief brush with Inventor (which is very similar to SolidWorks).

Most parametric modelers out their do an excellent job of generating orthographic and isometric projections once you complete your model and are ready to generate drawings. The really nice thing is that changes to parameters in your model get automatically propagated to your drawings. It really is much nicer to work in 3D once you get used to it. And it takes little effort to learn SolidWorks - it took me a 2 days to fully transition from AutoCad to SolidWorks.

Our Architects use AutoCad and I need to use exactly what they do.

But I do take your point.... I don't like AutoDesk or AutoCad for a hell of a lot of reasons... and would prefer not to give them a single penny.....

Infact... I should really have bought Vectorworks... as its Mac native and I know it very well.... but again... it HAD to be AutoCad. :mad:

well, the newest version of Parallels is suppose to boast full on DX 9 support, which probably helps a lot. However, most people are starting to steer away from the classic 2D auto cad application and get more into 3D. Since with 3D it is so much easier to build to spec with pretty much no margin for error, especially when building to scale. Autodesk makes a ton of new applicaitons built off of 3D engines, which is most likely why they bought out 3DsMax. They now offer Viz, Inventor, Civil, etc which all run in 3D.

With the popularity of the Mac and how it is growing I think you may see Autodesk start to write applications with them being intel based and with a lot of translators coming out this day and age.

Good to know though, in case I ever have to run audtodesk via virtual machine

they already do a Universal Binary of their 'FBX converter' that converts .3ds, .dxf and .obj files to .fbx..... and of course Maya!... but they can't really claim credit for that! :)

I seem to remember Apple announcing that they were working closely with Autodesk a year or so ago... It would be great to see them releasing more Mac products... but they really are becoming the 'Microsoft of the CAD world'.. and I mean that in ALL the worst possible ways!

I'm not sure what you mean, but AutoCad is hardly ubiquitous. AutoDesk was really slow to enter the parametric (3D) modeling market, and they lost a lot of ground in the process. It might have once been fair to say that AutoCad was the "Windows" of the CAD world, but that is certainly not the case now. Off the top of my head, I can list Pro/E, SolidWorks, Catia, SolidEdge and Inventor as being parametric CAD solutions with readily observable market penetration. For example, Maserati uses Pro/E, Chrysler uses Catia, a LOT of automotive component manufacturer's use SolidWorks, and Canada's space program uses SolidEdge. I will conceed that AutoDesk is the biggest player in the parametric modeling market, but unlike Microsoft, their competition is close behind. AutoDesk Inventor sold ~45k licenses last year as compared to ~37k licenses for SolidWorks. None of Microsoft's competitors is doing 82% of their sales in the OS market!

Autodesk is HUGE, and when it comes to the CAD market they are pretty much the standard with very little competition. They may have come in late in the 3D game but to get into it they bought out 3DsMax and Maya. So, they are off to a pretty damn good start.

wdympcf, to expand......what I meant was AutoDesk, like Microsoft have sought to buy up the competition, forced users into expensive upgrades and produced below average products ... and because of that have got themselves a bad name.

That aside....AutoCad.... is still dominant in the Architectural and Commercial Interiors markets..... as for designing cars... I have no experience of that... I thought you guys were still shaving chunks of blue foam :)

On an odd note (that I have mentioned here before) my GF was flown to an AutoDesk press week in the States a few years back... and once there...all the journalists were MADE to sing happy birthday to AutoCad...!.... as it was 20 years old....!!!!!!
Now that is Wroooooong Diddly Wrong. :D

tlarkin, I would respectfully like to point out that this is outside your area of expertise. If I remember correctly from your previous posts, you are a school system IT administrator. Perhaps you have gotten the misguided impression that AutoDesk dominates the 3D CAD market because of the fact that AutoCad is quite common in high school drafting and mechanics classes.
Look at the stats that I provided above (taken directly from AutoDesk themselves), and they tell a much different story than what you are claiming.

Neither Maya nor 3dsMax are CAD programs in any engineering sense - try animation and rendering. It is entirely possible that they bought these solutions to improve the back end rendering engine behind their parametric modeling solutions, but certainly not to offer them as CAD solutions in their own right.

While AutoDesk does still pull significant revenue from AutoCAD licenses, and they are currently the market leader in parametric CAD solutions, they are far from a defacto standard and are not even close to the level of market dominance that Microsoft has achieved in the OS market.

Ahh... in that sense I would agree.

Lets leave the immature digs about who's daddy's car is faster out of this thread.

Lets not forget this thread is about AutoCad on OSX (like the title says)... and not about how much you know about software in your niche market.....

Hey, no offense taken. I am expressing my views not only based on my profession, but several of my close friends are architects and engineers and do their 3D work in 3DsMax. They work for BRR (http://www.brrarch.com/) and I play on their corporate kick ball team. My main friend I know there from when I was in high school does their 3D work, and he does it with 3DsMax and with some of the other Autodesk products. My original background actually is in 3D, that is what I went to college for. 3DsMax is kind of built like a CAD like program. I do not practice it anymore at all though and haven't touched the stuff in like 6 years (besides configuring and deploying it over the network). When I say Autodesk is huge, I mean they are huge as in they buy everything. I am unaware of their competition, because you are correct, I do not professionally do this. I do however know about their shift into the 3D market having installed and supported several of their 3D programs for education.

Take a look at Autodesk Viz and AutoCAD 2008 (which is 3D now), it is very much like Maya and 3DsMax. It is completely 3D. It is also geared towards architecture. I have attended some vendor training from Autodesk (as a consultant) and they explained to me how the market was slowly shifting into the 3D world because it was more robust and easier to make things to spec. Like lets say you want a room that is 50' x 100' with 20' ceiling. To do that in 3D all you need to do is input the specs to create that room to that exact spec. Autodesk owns both Maya and 3DsMax and I suspect they bought them to make the 3D autoCAD like applications.

This I have no idea about that. I am just going off what few people I know in the field are using. Most of them actually dislike Autodesk products, but every firm I know of uses them as the standard. I don't really know anything about their competition.

Now, I actually have to go get dressed for my kick ball game now. I will ask him about the competition and about how 3D is really done in his profession to get a more up to date feel for it. Kick ball rules!

It wasn't an immature dig. Unlike some people, when I say "respectfully", I mean respectfully. tlarkin, I meant no disrespect as Photek has perceived it. I have gleaned a lot of useful information from your posts and you appear to be knowledgeable in a lot of areas. I was merely pointing out that this may be one area in which you are not as well informed.

I would hardly call engineering a niche market! And no, I am not trying to engage in a peeing contest. I am merely trying to establish that there are more choices (and better ones, in my opinion) than AutoCAD as far as parametric CAD solutions go; and also point out that AutoDesk does not completely dominate the market, so it is not difficult to adopt another solution.

My experience in parametric CAD has been through engineering. I am not an architect, so I cannot give you a definitive opinion on the ideal tool of choice for architects. However, I do have a couple of architect friends and my impression from them has been that architecture has been kind of slow to adopt 3D CAD technologies.

On the surface, modeling with a 3D animation program and a 3D CAD program is similar, and I would imagine the interfaces are quite similar between the two types. Historically, parametric CAD programs could have learned a few things from the GUIs on 3D animation programs. Perhaps that is part of the reason AutoDesk acquired Maya and 3DsMax. Now their interfaces have started to converge.

However, one of the halmarks of good CAD software is the ability to produce mechanical drawings from a model, and the ability to perform finite element analysis on that model (usually it is a software back-end that interfaces with the modeling software, that way they can charge you extra for it). For the uninitiated, finite element analysis (FEA) is a method commonly used in engineering by which the integrity of a model can be tested against forces, torques, temperature gradients, etc, before a prototype is ever built. It's quite useful in reducing unnecessary prototype revisions.

Please post to let me know what your architect friend has to say about CAD software in architecture. I'm curious to know how far 3D has penetrated into that industry.

well here is the quick and dirty run down he gave me last night about how 3D works in his field. He is one of several on a 3D team, and they design commercial buildings like Home Depots, WalMarts, Nebraska Furniture Marts, etc. The really big commercial buildings. They also do smaller ones and strip malls and the like but their big clients are the big commercial ones.

Basically, someone draws the layout in 2D to spec. Then the 3D team extrudes that into a 3D model. They design everything to spec. They model the walls, the floors, everything. Then compile all of these into the the final model. Then clean it up with textures and what not to make it look pretty for the client. They design it in 3D exactly how you would build it.

That makes sense. Traditionally (before computers took over the world), architects would design things in 2D (drafting) and then model them in 3D using foam and paper. The 2D drawings were the actual specifications while the 3D model was a visualization tool for the client. It sounds like they are still doing the same thing, but now in software. They are designing the buildings in 2D (AutoCAD 2000, etc) and then modeling that design in 3D (3DsMax, etc) for the client to see. From what you have said, however, it appears that the actual design work is still done in 2D.

This is very different from how it is typical done in parametric CAD solutions. In something like SolidWorks, you design in 3D. Thus the design and the model are one and the same. The model contains all of the information (dimensions, materials, finish, mating, assembly, etc) necessary to build the object from start to finish. When you are ready to have your design fabricated you tell the parametric CAD program to generate drawings, and it auto-generates the orthographic drawings for you. You then have a chance to preview the drawings and make any adjustments to improve the "readability" of the document, before you send it of to the fabricator.

Well, I just deployed Design Academy 2008 and the new version of AutoCAD runs in two different modes. It has a 3D mode which looks a lot like the maya/3DsMax UI and the classic mode is the same old 2D mode. I am not sure exactly how they work since I do not use them at all, but I know that it seems the industry is slowly migrating into 3D.

Civil 3D, their civil engineering application is all 3D. I set up a small render farm in a lab for that and got to see a lot of the projects done. It looked very nice minus the real basic textures they used for the final 3D project.

Also, when I was saying how huge Autodesk is, I was also referring to them being like Symantec, and buying up tons and tons of smaller companies.

Autocad has had a 3d mode from at least R13 - that is when I started using it.

I was working for a lock manufacturer and I would model all of the products in 3D. Then you could switch to 2d to do the dimensioned drawings. It worked really well for doing exploded diagrams.

Of course at the time I was using a superfast Pentium2 400 Mhz machine :D

Brett

Am I outdated a bit? I have thought that Parallels supports only DX 8.1. If it supports 9.0 - well, this is extremely good news! I'm a devoted Parallels user

Yeah I am on their mailing list and I got an email boasting that they support DX 9 with version 3.0. However, I just scoured their site for a hard reference and could not find it. However it does say this on the 3.0 spec sheet.

reference: http://www.parallels.com/files/uploa..._Datasheet.pdf

Oh, something new maybe....
Well, here the supported DX-version is not stated... http://www.parallels.com/en/products...p/features/3d/
This will be great if DX9 is really supported!!!!! I'll surf through the net for it. I really wish it worked

If DX 9 works, Parallels will suport most games (I mean all actual games) and apps and this will definitely be very good. I doubt that Fusion already has 3d support this strong!

I have been searching around different Mac forums and found info that claims: Parallels HAS GOT 3D support!!
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthre...ight=parallels
Well, I seem to be absolutely lost in time1 Good news from Parallels...
Go, Parallels:D:D

And, actually this is unofficial info yet - see, Paralles don't approve this information. There's no even supported version of DX stated on their page

AutoCAD for Mac
 

With the 4.0 of parallels you get OpenGL and Direct X. See the pieces needed to run AutoCAD on your Mac, user documentation, and free trial downloads at www.autocadformac.com

Gese, so much rattling about side issues! The original post asks about architecture apps, so let me continue in his vein. What about AchiCAD? I have dabbled with it. Can it be of any use? Can its file package be used by AutoCAD?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArchiCAD

Architosh is resource for info about Macs in Architecture.

http://architosh.com/

I haven't visited the site lately, and haven't supported any Architect clients in a few years. But I think the site may be worth a link.