Autodesk + Instructables: For Makers?

ptorrone writes "MAKE magazine has published an in-depth look at what the recent acquisition of Instructables by Autodesk means for makers and the DIY movement. MAKE suggests it wasn't about getting the millions of members or projects at Instructables or upselling Autodesk tools. Instead, the acquisition was more about creating many Instructable-like communities around Autodesk's new free and trial tools including their 3D printing site and service, Autodesk123D."

Comments

It would be worse...

[Alex Belits]

There are three companies that would be worse than Autodesk in this role:

1. DSS.
2. Altium.
3. Microsoft.

I mean, of all things, Autodesk? The guys who make poorly designed, expensive CAD program that only keeps its market dominance because of its semi-documented, closed file format? One that ported its engine to OSX but "forgot" to bring any of the modules that make their software in any way useful?

That never ever touched Linux (and is worse than Solidworks with Wine)? That abandoned all Unix ports of their software many, many versions ago? (well, Pro/Engineer and CATIA bested them by abandoning an existing Linux port, apparently just to spite users).

That never did, nor ever promised to give a fuck about any "community" other than corporate managers who make purchasing decisions?

That never ever open sourced anything?

That thinks, anyone sane would use crippled "free" tools specifically made to frustrate the user, to do design of anything that matters?

Re:It would be worse...

[hedwards]

I remember finding a video for my painting instructor and being shocked that it cost $500 for a DVDR copy with no right to back it up and being told that that's more or less just what films for schools cost.

Same sort of thing with AutoCAD, it is expensive, expensive enough that it's not affordable for anybody that isn't working in the industry. But, if you're drawing up plans for a multimillion dollar project, the cost is a pittance comparatively speaking compared with the other costs involved. And ultimately as long as everybody else is using that software that's what you'll get.

Not that it makes it right mind you, but that is how that works. I'm skeptical that this is a good thing ultimately for the folks that use the site.

Re:It would be worse...

[Migraineman]

Autocad is fundamentally a 2-D drawing program, with some 3-D capabilities spackled on top. It excels at 2-D line drawings, like those found in architectural plans (plat view, elevation, etc.) It struggles with 3-D solids, as they are a serious afterthought - move a drilled hole for me, please. Solidworks is 3-D at it's core, so it's a bit clunky to manage 2-D drawings that aren't derived from 3-D sources. You're burdened with the 3-D support overhead when doing a 2-D only drawing.

Autocad is a claw hammer. Solidworks is a ball-pein hammer. They can both "hammer," but each is better for a particular job. You should choose the appropriate tool depending on the objective. Do you need to pull nails, or shape sheet metal? (sorry, no car analogies today.)

I've been using Autocad since about 1985 ... back when the UI had to be toggled between the text command window and the graphics display window. I also currently use Solidworks.

Resistance is Divine...

[Anonymous Coward]

Autodesk continues their 'Innovation through Acquisition' stormtrooper march.

March 31, 1997 Softdesk Inc.
May 6, 1998 Genius CAD-Software G.m.b.H.
March 16, 1999 Discreet Logic Inc.
April 22, 1999 VISION Solutions
January 24, 2001 Gentry Systems
September 24, 2001Buzzsaw
February 21, 2002 Revit Technology CorporationAugust 6, 2002 CAiCE Software Corporation
December 18, 2002 truEInnovations, IncMarch 4, 2003 Linius Technologies, Inc
February 24, 2004 MechSoft, Inc.
March 2005 COMPASS systems GmbH
May 10, 2004 Unreal Pictures
June 10, 2004 AVEVA
December 17, 2004 CAD ISV
June 16, 2005 Colorfront Ltd.
July 6, 2005 c-plan
August 22, 2005 Solid Dynamics, SA
October 17, 2005 Alias Inc. (Maya Wavefront .OBJ File format)
August 6, 2007 Skymatter Inc (Mudbox)
August 9, 2007 NavisWorks, Inc.
August 20, 2007 Opticore AB
August 28, 2007 PlassoTech (CAE)
November 25, 2007 RobobatMay 1, 2008 Moldflow Corporation
May 7, 2008 Kynogon SA and REALVIZ SAJune 26, 2008 Square One Research (Ecotect)
October 23, 2008 Avid's Softimage, Co.
December 17, 2008 ALGOR, Inc.
December 2009 VisualTAO (PlanPlatform)
February 17, 2011 Blue Ridge Numerics, Inc.

So long Instructables... It was nice knowing you...

Re:Resistance is Divine...

[webmistressrachel]

As long as capitalism encourages this, it will continue. Don't blame the child, blame the parent.

I would also like to add that they retain the teams and platforms - gosh they still have seperate 3DS MAX and Maya teams! I'd like you to use those finely-honed research skills to compare and contrast this with, say, IBM, or M$...

Clear now: A common open CAD data structure needed

[beachdog]

This report of the sale of Instructables to Autodesk makes it clear to me that the free software community needs a common drawing data structure and a set of user drawing interchange utilities.

The world of free drafting and CAD doesn't have the many little component drawings available to the users of AutoCAD proprietary drafting software. From the previous poster's comments, AutoDesk is unlikely to make any user data files or data structure information more available in the future.

I just finished spending 2 months reviewing many of the free CAD programs. I am looking for programs and applications to design a solar water heater installation, a radio antenna, a fractal made out of wire, an electrical circuit and a wagon. Is there anything yet to match sheets of quad paper, a .5 mm mechanical pencil and a HP-48 calculator and some assorted handbooks?

What AutoDesk seems to have, that is never released by AutoDesk, is the Autocad user drawing data structure and the little drawings of ready to use components.

What is missing from PythonCAD, Qcad, Blender, and Varkon is libraries of little drawings called "components". (An interesting program is the Beta prototype "Fritzing" for designing Arduino breadboards. Fritzing is all about placing components and drawing wires between the components. It has a delightful simple data structure for doing this.)

The whole world of CAD or mechanical drafting programs is wrapped up in incompatible islands of proprietary user drawing data structures. It seems to spring from business based engineers who want to be paid directly for every single use of their engineering knowledge.

Since it is partly free and it does run on Linux (with Wine), I like Google Sketchup. The drawing app is genius, the user data structure is proprietary and the data can be exported only using the $500 professional version of Sketchup. I wish they would publish their user data structure.

It would be both fun and a first class challenge to write conversion utilities to convert files from Sketchup to Blender, from Sketchup to PythonCAD and Qcad. From the CAD programs back and forth to SAGE and Xnec2c. Here is an interesting problem in doing user data structure conversions: When doing the file conversion, you need a way to not throw away data that one program uses and another doesn't. One way is to provide for internal comments within the user application data structure for each drawing application. And figure out how to keep each comment together with some active point within the data structure.