CAD on the web: Project Butterfly Now Available

Project Butterfly extends AutoCAD to the web.

I am old enough to remember Iron Butterfly's 1968 hit "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida." At the time, it was the longest running rock and roll song - lasting about 19 minutes. Folklore holds that its original title was "In The Garden of Eden" but the lyrics got slurred. I am also old enough to remember a 1972 movie called Butterflies Are Free which is about triumph over challenging circumstances. But enough about the past.

Today we are announcing worldwide availability of Project Butterfly. Project Butterfly allows you to edit, co-edit, and review designs using your browser. Although you can save your design as a local drawing file, as long as you have it via the cloud, you can leave it in the cloud. This opens the door to collaboration with others in distant locations without the need to transmit files around the globe.

Project Butterfly Home Page on Autodesk Labs

Senior Product Manager, Iris Shoor, provided me with a list of what Project Butterfly has to offer.

Feature	Advantage
Edit and store drawings online	No need to back up, no copies, no walking around with data, data integrity (viewed the same from anywhere), works on any machine - regardless of platform and performance
Accessible from anywhere	No need for any software, just a Web browser
Can be used with "non-CAD" users	Helps bridge between designer and client, designer and outside contractors etc.
Participants can also edit	No need to redraw all changes made by participants to original drawing file, easier discussion (because now they don't only annotate)
Timeline	No need to create periodic backups, quickly compare versions, no need to dig up old emails
Email notifications	Keep in touch with activity even if Project Butterfly isn't in your daily routine
Share	No need to send files such as DWG, xref, shx, ctb and more, no need to sync between different DWG files
Review	Easier discussion (on the drawing, no files transferred, not only annotating), saves to timeline, increased security (crop, can't download file)
Co-Edit	Speeds up the completion process of complex parts, can minimize the need to personally meet, no need to redraw changes in original drawing file. Everything is documented.
Track changes	Audit collaborators’ changes, as well as your own. Complete drawing history, automatically generated

We are keen to know how you feel about a software as a service approach to design creation. Whereas Project Twitch is based on running our traditional desktop applications on servers in the cloud, Project Butterfly is a new web application specifically for CAD. Take Project Butterfly for a flight and let us know the experience at [email protected]. At this time you will need to register with Project Butterfly separately as it is not yet hooked into Autodesk Single Sign-on like the Autodesk Labs site and Project Twitch are.

Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam, and the software is "cloudy" all day. Editing designs in the cloud is alive in the lab.