More on Project Cooper

[Amanda Collins writing for Scott Sheppard while he is on sabbatical]

One of the divisions at Autodesk is named Platform Solutions & Emerging Business (PSEB). Autodesk Labs is part of the “emerging” area. Another Emerging Business team in PSEB, led by Product Manager Lisa Crounse, has been working on technology to make it easier for the average person to create polished drawings. Not technical drawings like those produced from AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT, but drawings that are to scale, and accurate enough to hand off to an engineer or architect or city planning office.

Get a jump-start with sample
drawings and symbols in Project Cooper. 

Today Lisa’s team released a technology preview of Project Cooper, an easy-to-use drawing application that lets you create quick designs without sacrificing quality. Now contractors and ordinary people like me, who don’t necessarily “speak CAD”, can create accurate, detailed plans and layouts to scale. It’s a godsend to those of us with a great idea (like that dream kitchen) but lack the ability to pencil it out. With the sample drawings and library of content included in Project Cooper, I don’t even have to start from scratch. I can take a sample drawing and use that as a first step toward building the customized layout I have in mind.

Project Cooper is great for architects and engineers too, because they can include original sketches in their technical drawing sets. Architects tell us that omission errors resulting from misunderstood conversations are one of the key challenges to getting projects in on time and on budget. Project Cooper can help in those situations. Better communication; less rework.

Use Project Cooper to get ideas on paper,
then save the drawing as a DWG and
share it with your architect or designer.

You can sketch a host of different things with this software. So far, my best effort has been a porch-to-sidewalk ramp, but this is from a person who has trouble drawing a simple stick figure, so it’s quite an accomplishment! Hats off to the Project Cooper team for taking rough sketches to a higher level. And thanks for developing an application that can help an average person like me get what’s in my “mind’s eye” … down on paper for the rest of the world to see.

Project Cooper is available at no charge. Try it! And watch for exciting news to come.

Building for tomorrow is alive in the Labs today.
Amanda Collins, Senior Marketing Manager, Autodesk Labs