Autodesk floats Cloud-based CAD services

San Rafael, CA – Autodesk furthered its push toward a CAD as a Service with the introduction of Autodesk Cloud, a collection of a dozen or so web-based services.

Some, such as AutoCAD WS, Design Review Mobile App and the new Autodesk Cloud documents service, are open to anyone and include 1GB of free storage. Cloud documents allows users to store, view and share 2D and 3D .dwf files through a web browser. From that documents repository, users get similar capabilities through mobile devices using Design Review Mobile App. In addition, .dwg files stored in Cloud documents can be viewed, edited and shared with AutoCAD WS mobile applications, through a web browser or with the WS plug-in for AutoCAD.

Exclusively for its subscription customers, Autodesk Cloud ups the storage space to 3 GB of online storage for each seat of its software. More importantly, subscription customers are able to use the following online services depending on the software installed:

Autodesk Cloud rendering – Restricted to those with Premium or Ultimate editions of Autodesk Design Suite or Autodesk Building Design Suite, Cloud rendering allows users to offload processor-intensive, photo-realistic rendering chores from their desktops. Dwg files uploaded can be output based on desired view, resolution, file size and image format, among other options. Users can then be notified by e-mail when the render is complete.

Autodesk Inventor optimization – Customers with Premium or Ultimate editions of Autodesk Product Design Suites can access Autodesk’s cloud-based simulation tool. Users can set loads, restraints, etc and then simultaneously test a range or series of “what if” design parameters. Only those design options that meet a set up pre-configured success/fail parameters are returned.

Autodesk Revit Conceptual Energy Analysis – Customers with Subscription to Autodesk Revit Architecture or Autodesk Revit MEP software, or select suites containing these products, can extend design beyond the desktop with powerful cloud-based energy analysis capabilities, helping them to gain insight into the energy consumption and building energy costs of early design concepts from within the design application.

Autodesk Green Building Studio – Similarly, subscripers to Autodesk Building Design Suite and other select products have access to this cloud-based service that can help designers, architects, engineers and building energy analysts perform energy analysis of multiple building design iterations and optimize energy efficiency.

Autodesk Buzzsaw software as a service (SaaS) – Lastly, Autodesk Vault Collaboration AEC subscribers can use Buzzsaw as a service to securely exchange project information and enhance team collaboration.

Autodesk Cloud services are available worldwide starting today in English. The company says it will be available soon in other languages including Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish and Traditional Chinese.
cloud.autodesk.com