It is Alive in the Lab

Vault + Firefox = Desirable?

That Mr. Richard Feder of Fort Lee, New Jersey really gets around. He was recently using the Firefox Add-on for Autodesk Design Review and noted that it did not work from Autodesk Vault. So he inquired.

Software Architect, Kumar Mettu, responded to him that: Currently the Firefox add-in is available only as a technology preview to embed DWF and DWFx files in web pages working in multiple browsers. The plug-in does not work with Vault WebClient as Vault WebClient is using Response Flush to open/download the file stream rather than embedding the data in a web page. Allowing Autodesk Design Review to integrate with Vault via Firefox is something that could be considered for a future release.

We don't often hear from vault users. tell us your stories. What can Labs do for you? Let us know at thelabs@autodesk.com.

Listening to users for capabilities to develop in the future is alive in the lab.

My Visit to Kitchell Contractors

In response to my post on Autodesk Design Review and Navisworks Freedom, last Wednesday I visited the office of Kitchell Contractors. I met with ViCon Engineer Calvin Reinhardt, and Senior ViCon Engineer Chad Holbrook. Calvin and Chad work in the Healthcare Division, and one of their current projects involves the Phoenix Children's Hospital. Designs are created in Revit and involve a combination of several other applications - notably Navisworks Freedom and Autodesk Design Review. Their process is state of the art and paperless. It was very impressive. Scott Root, one of their leaders, teaches architecture at Arizona State University. This allows him to bring a blend of theory and practice to their projects. It was great to get out of the house and interact with real customers. Thanks to Calvin and Chad for being great hosts and sharing their insight regarding Autodesk products.

Updated Firefox Add-in for Autodesk Design Review Now Available

Many of you embed your designs in your web pages. Visitors to your sites view your designs, plus pan, zoom, and orbit to see more than what could be accomplished with just a picture. In cases where you rely on your site visitors having Autodesk Design Review and Internet Explorer, you create HTML that is specific to Internet Explorer. The Firefox Add-in for Autodesk Design Review allows you to do the same thing so your site can accommodate visitors who are using version 3 of the Firefox browser.

An update to the Firefox 3 add-on is now available on Autodesk Labs. Firefox 3 users can download the add-on from the Autodesk Labs site:

Firefox Add-on for Autodesk Design Review

Though the functionality is the same as the previous version, the software architecture of the add-on has been updated to make it independent of the runtime distributed with Autodesk Design Review. This will ensure plug-in works with any version of Autodesk Design Review. From the popularity of this download so far, we can tell that you are excited about expanding the embedding capability from Internet Explorer to include Firefox 3.

Continuing to reach out to Firefox users is alive in the lab.

Firefox 3 Add-on for Autodesk Design Review Now Available

Fox in the wild

Many of you like to embed your designs in your web pages. This allow visitors to your sites to view your designs, plus pan, zoom, and orbit to see more than what could be accomplished with just a picture.

Project Freewheel makes this possible using HTML that looks like:

<iframe scrolling="no" width="800" height="600"
src="http://freewheel.labs.autodesk.com/dwf.aspx?
path="http://labs.blogs.com/articles/mouse.dwf">
iframe>

The items in red are what you change specific to your needs. Project Freewheel does not require anything to be installed since it uses just the browser, but the DWF file does have to be publicly available or uploaded to the Project Freewheel server.

Historically, in cases where you rely on your site visitors having Autodesk Design Review and Internet Explorer, HTML could be used that looks like:

<OBJECT CLASSID="clsid:A662DA7E-CCB7-4743-B71A-D817F6D575DF"
 CODEBASE=http://www.autodesk.com/global/dwfviewer/installer/
 DwfViewerSetup.cab#version=7,0,0,928
 WIDTH="800" HEIGHT="600">
<PARAM NAME="Src"
 VALUE=http://labs.blogs.com/articles/mouse.dwf>
</OBJECT>

Autodesk Design Review can be used for the internet as well as intranet-only situations.

I am happy to announce that a Firefox 3 add-on is now available on Autodesk Labs. Firefox 3 users can download the add-on from the Autodesk Labs site:

Firefox Add-on for Autodesk Design Review

Users who download and install this add-on can view HTML pages with designs embedded. If you are authoring a site and wish to allow visitors to your site who have Autodesk Design Review plus this add-on to see your designs embedded as part of your site, you would include HTML that looks like:

<OBJECT ID="ADR"
 TYPE="application/x-Autodesk-DWF"
 WIDTH="800" HEIGHT="600">
<PARAM NAME="dwffilename"
 VALUE="http://labs.blogs.com/articles/mouse.dwf">
</OBJECT>

We are excited to expand the embedding capability from Internet Explorer to Firefox 3. Autodesk Labs data shows that Firefox is growing in popularity:

Once you have done an install, if you would like to try it out, Software Architect, Kumar Mettu, has a test page.

http://www.filmboxnow.com/multibrowser.html

You can use the browser "View Source" capability to see how he used JavaScript to support Internet Explorer and Firefox 3 on the same HTML page. Thanks Kumar!

Reaching out to Firefox users is alive in the lab.