CAD: Autodesk has Two New Silver Linings in the Cloud ...

We take a look at two new offerings from Autodesk Labs.

Here at Kung Fu Drafter we often sit around wondering about the meaning and origin of some words and phrases. We think there is just something about the etymology of the English language that strikes us as supremely geeky. Today, “the cloud” is something that is on the minds and lips of just about everyone who is even remotely aware of technology. It seems that from video games to CAD, everything and everyone is in a race to the cloud.

Being the cutting-edge developer of the world’s most popular CAD applications, Autodesk is not one to be left below the cloud. It seems that every month the good people at Autodesk are unveiling more and more cloud-based services such as AutoCAD Freestyle. Of course, our CAD professional readers all already knew that. But did you know that Autodesk is doing more than CAD in the cloud?

Enter some interesting new products released this past week by Autodesk Labs: Project Photofly and Project Neon.

If you have ever wished that you had the ability easily create complex point clouds then Project Photofly is for you! Autodesk Labs has actually made it possible for anyone with a standard digital camera to create a 3D point cloud from a set of photos. Simply take the photos, use the application, and the power of cloud-based servers will return an AutoCAD compatible file. How groovy is that? When we first saw the demonstration for Project Photofly, we immediately saw the potential in this powerful tool.

Another of great tool from Autodesk Labs geared for the end of a project rather than the beginning. Before Project Neon CAD professionals who wanted to create photorealistic scenes had to wait and wait for renders. The only alternative was to invest in costly render farms. However, now Project Neon makes it possible for anyone to create these scenes with the power of the cloud. By accessing these scalable servers CAD professionals now have access to a limitless amount of rendering power! Renders are completed off-site and returned to the user in a fraction of the time a single workstation could deliver. Awesome? We think so.

To access both of these great applications all you need to do is head over to the Autodesk Labs website and use your Autodesk account to login. While you are there, be sure to check out some of the other great projects being worked on. Also, be sure to send feedback to Autodesk on your experience with these applications. By making these products available for public use and collecting feedback Autodesk is able to fine tune and release the great software we use every day.

Whether there is a silver lining in every cloud or not, we don’t know. What we do know is that there are some awesome applications in the cloud. We encourage our readers to visit Autodesk Labs and take Projects Photofly and Neon for a spin. As always, be sure to leave us a comment below and let us know what you think. Of course, a picture is worth a thousand words …

- KFD - 

Comments

[Scott Sheppard]

Certainly the term cloud is a reference to Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. I don't know if they coined it or not. I think it's just a way to refer to some server at an unknown location as if the computing power just came out of the clouds. For Project Photofly, we are interested in feedback at labs.photofly@autodesk.com as to whether or not the technology works. For Project Neon, we are looking for feedback at labs.neon@autodesk.com on the quality of the renderings as well as the time it takes to receive them. Thanks for helping to spread the word. May the spirit of David Carradine bless your blog. I beleiev he now lives among the clouds.