FireUser.com has a user-contribution from Antonio Fontenele benchmarking a Quadro 1800FX against the AMD FirePro v5800 in a variety of tests. In an interesting twist he compares the various vendor “optimized” drivers against their counterparts provided by Autodesk (Both of these cards are Autodesk approved), and finds a startling different in performance.
In Cadalyst Systems Benchmark 2011 test, Quadro a little faster than FirePro while using AutoCAD default drivers due c2011_8.dwg file score, but it was slower than FirePro in the other files (where FirePro was 102.32% faster). However, using AutoCAD optimized drivers, Quadro earned 613 points while FirePro earned a higher score equal to 2060 points. This is means about 336.05% faster in AutoCAD 2011.
IMSI just fired a volley across Autodesk’s bow with a great new 3D DWG File Viewer app for the iPad. It’s Free, it’s available now, and it has a few nice features not seen in the “official” offering:
TurboViewer is the first to have full screen preview when the DWG is loading. You can pan the view around and once it’s loaded, it stays where you’ve moved it. It automatically switches between single-touch panning and orbit (rotate) depending on the view being 2D or 3D. Perhaps the biggest feature, is that the views are always full-resolution with no regeneration when zooming in and out. All of these act together to make it a surprisingly responsive viewing application.
Autodesk has just announced AutoCAD for Mac is now available, after first announcing it back in August. Even more impressive, it’s free for 3 years, if you can live with a little watermark. Otherwise, educational institutions can get it (in a Perpetual license) for only $395.
Students and educators have 2 smart options for getting their hands on AutoCAD for Mac. You can download the software for free* on the Education Community or purchase it with a perpetual license and no watermarks for 90%** off suggested retail price from the Autodesk Store.
Way to go Autodesk! Lots of companies offer educational discounts, but it’s typically through 3rd parties. I’ve never seen anyone offer a “perpetual” license for 90% off.
AMD is looking to recapture a bit of CAD glory via a new collection of AutoCAD and 3dsMax plugins that look strangely familiar to the old NVidia MAXTreme drivers for the same packages. Using the plugins and a compatible ATI FirePro or FireGL card, you can see some pretty significant performance boosts, as shown above.
ATI’s FirePro application support team have devised a way to drastically increase the performance of FirePro or FireGL workstation graphics cards when running AutoCAD or 3ds Max. AMD has just released a set of performance plug-ins designed to provide additional optimizations for AutoCAD 2010, AutoCAD 2011, 3ds Max 2010, and 3ds Max 2011. With these plug-ins, ATI claims their “FirePro graphics cards offer more than double the performance over comparable consumer graphics cards.” AMD claims users can expect significant improvements in visual quality as well.
It looks like they’re trying to fight back to regain some of the market they’ve lost to Quadro in the high-end workstation space. AMD’s (it still seems unnatural to call them AMD instead of ATI, but I digress) FirePro cards are nice cards, but the custom GL support in Quadro has really crushed them in the workstation benchmarks. Hopefully these new plugins will close the gap.
In a move guaranteed to make millions of Apple fanbois jump up and down with joy, Autodesk has announced that the next version of AutoCAD (2011) will return to the MAC, and even be accompanied by a new version called Autocad WS for the iPad and iPhone.
“The release of AutoCAD for Mac marks the return of professional design and engineering software to the Mac platform and an important convergence of power and design,” said Amar Hanspal, senior vice president, Autodesk Platform Solutions and Emerging Business. “Over 5000 customers have helped develop this product through our beta program and they are delighted to have the choice of a native Mac version of AutoCAD.”
It will support everything the windows version has, and even add in some new features for the new gesture-friendly interfaces Apple has released like the Magic Mouse and the Magic Trackpad.
If you’re an AutoCAD user building models of homes and bridges, but find yourself frequently disappointed at the low-quality renderings that come from AutoCAD, perhaps you should check out Project Neon. With Project Neon, you simply upload your AutoCAD File and click a few buttons, then let the power of the cloud create beautiful high-resolution renderings.
Autodesk Project Neon leverages the computing power of the cloud to remotely produce photorealistic images of your 3D AutoCAD models.
You can render all of your model views simultaneously. Simply upload the model and select your render settings. After you hit “Start Rendering” you can get back to work. We’ll notify you by email when the job is done. Then you can visit your online Render Gallery to view and download your final images.
Point clouds are notoriously difficult to work with but increasingly becoming a standard of practice, due to the increasing popularity of laser scanners for modeling. Autodesk has collaborated with FARO to make their FARO Laser Scanner the preferred input method for point-cloud scans, and add the necessary tools to AutoCAD2011 to bring it all together.
“As the use of laser scanners has become more widespread by our customers they ve asked for direct import and support for large point clouds in AutoCAD ” said Gonzalo Martinez director of strategic research Autodesk. “For the past year we have been working closely with FARO who assisted with the design of the feature and provided us with crucial feedback for the direct integration of point cloud data. We are thrilled to bring this functionality to our customers.”
Autodesk is bringing their premiere CAD design and modeling package back to the Mac after over a decade of being a Windows Exclusive. Many people don’t know that it used to run on Apple hardware, but now they will have the chance to try it again. Images and videos are popping up all around the net showing the new beta version, and the results are promising if not a bit premature.
The provider of the images state that the beta runs quite poorly, but it is the first beta available and there is plenty of time for developers of the application to hone it’s performance. The beta seeding is in 64-bit and present support for Multi-Touch™ gestures.
Are you a Mac Fan that’s had to suffer for AutoCAD? Check out this preliminary video of what you may find yourself doing soon.
Today, Autodesk has pulled another project out of the labs and released it to the masses. In this case, they took “Project Cooper” and are releasing it as “AutoCAD Freestyle”, a 2D drawing and sketching package specifically targeted for fans of pen & paper.
“Many people—from do-it-yourselfers to home contractors to landscape designers—still use pen and paper or software that does not enable accuracy and is hard to use,” said Amar Hanspal, senior vice president, Autodesk Platform Solutions and Emerging Business. “AutoCAD Freestyle has been created to meet the needs of these users and anybody else who needs to generate quick, accurate and professional-looking designs without the need for or learning curve of industrial-strength CAD software.”
Specifically meant for people without the familiarity with complex CAD modeling packages, the result is a great took for not only creation of diagrams and images, but for markup of more complex graphics. The system integrates a common grid, to aid in lining up shapes and gauging distances, with a full library of predrawn shapes like doors and windows to help save time.
They offer a free 30-day trial for download from the Freestyle website, after which you can purchase it for only $49.
The NVidia Quadro line has long been a staple of high-end Visual Effects and Designers, but many people still ask “What does a Quadro offer over a GeForce?” Both are based on the same chipsets, but the Quadro is usually 5x-10x more expensive. A new press release from NVidia talks specifically about the benefits to AutoCAD users, and gives some concrete numbers:
Designers running AutoCAD 2011 on Quadro professional GPUs can also realize significant performance increases. AutoCAD benchmarks show Quadro delivering:
Up to 6x higher performance in ‘3D Hidden’ visual style
Up to 3x faster interactive manipulation of models in ‘Conceptual’ visual style
Up to 2x gains in speed with the ‘Realistic’ and new ‘Shades of Gray’ visual styles†
The main feature of the Quadro line is the various specific application optimizations they’ve integrated into the hardware and the drivers that really don’t impact gamers, but offer significant improvements to features used by designers. Things like improved antialiasing, improved transparency support, and slightly more accurate computations in the depth field. Financially, it offers some benefits as well:
“For designers who spend a portion of their day working with AutoCAD, Quadro is a smart, cost-effective investment that increases productivity,” said Jeff Brown, NVIDIA general manager, Professional Solutions Group. “Streamlined workflows can easily save a designer 30 minutes a day, and for a firm with five designers, this translates to a benefit of more than $100,000 over three years.††”
IMSI just fired a volley across Autodesk’s bow with a great new 3D DWG File Viewer app for the iPad. It’s Free, it’s available now, and it has a few nice features not seen in the “official” offering:
Autodesk has just announced AutoCAD for Mac is now available, after first announcing it 
In a move guaranteed to make millions of Apple fanbois jump up and down with joy, Autodesk has announced that the next version of AutoCAD (2011) will return to the MAC, and even be accompanied by a new version called Autocad WS for the iPad and iPhone.
If you’re an AutoCAD user building models of homes and bridges, but find yourself frequently disappointed at the low-quality renderings that come from AutoCAD, perhaps you should check out Project Neon. With Project Neon, you simply upload your AutoCAD File and click a few buttons, then let the power of the cloud create beautiful high-resolution renderings.
Point clouds are notoriously difficult to work with but increasingly becoming a standard of practice, due to the increasing popularity of laser scanners for modeling. Autodesk has collaborated with FARO to make their FARO Laser Scanner the preferred input method for point-cloud scans, and add the necessary tools to AutoCAD2011 to bring it all together.
The NVidia Quadro line has long been a staple of high-end Visual Effects and Designers, but many people still ask “What does a Quadro offer over a GeForce?” Both are based on the same chipsets, but the Quadro is usually 
VizWorld.com 
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