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in turn really just means a huge network of interconnected computers. Some organizations have put together a large number of computers — a “cloud” of them, if you will — and connected them through and to the Internet. Collectively, they have tremendous computing and storage capabilities.

So far, there are two fundamental uses for the cloud:

Computing: Application software can live and run on the cloud, so your computer simply becomes a keyboard and monitor with very long cords back to the cloud of computers. This can involve relatively simple applications, such as AutoCAD WS (covered a little later in this chapter), but the collective power of the cloud of computers makes it possible to do things that are impossible, or at least highly impractical, on stand-alone units.

Probably the best example of this is the entertainment industry. Before you start producing your own blockbuster computer-generated movie, do the math. AutoCAD can produce high-quality photorealistic images, but it can take anywhere from several minutes to a few hours to produce a single frame. Now you need 24 or 30 frames per second (fps; movies versus TV) for several hours. You soon hit geologic time frames. 3D movies like Avatar and How to Tame Your Dragon were produced on rendering farms containing 20,000 to 30,000 (that’s right; twenty to thirty thousand) computers. I have heard it claimed that if your personal computer costs one dollar per hour to run, several thousand cloud computers still cost you only about one dollar per hour.

File storage: Cloud servers can collectively contain literally tens of thousands of hard drives, each with many terabytes (TB) of storage capacity. A secondary benefit of cloud storage is collaboration. If you set things up properly, you can share your files instantly, live, with anyone anywhere in the world.

The term “infinite computing” has been applied to the cloud, which is obviously a little silly. (After all, if you cut an infinite line in half, how long is each piece?) On the other hand, the computing power and storage available today would have been beyond comprehension just a few years ago.

Working Solidly in the Cloud

Take a look at cloud computing, starting with one of the simplest applications.

Free AutoCAD!

No, this isn’t the rallying cry of demonstrators trying to liberate AutoCAD. You actually can run a baby version of AutoCAD for less than for free. Yes, over the years, a number of lower-cost AutoCAD clone programs have

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appeared on the market with prices as low as free, but how can you run AutoCAD for less than that?

Answer? AutoCAD WS. It’s such a low-cost program that you don’t need a program or even a computer. The software itself and your drawing files live on an Autodesk web server (hence AutoCAD WS). All you need is an Internet-enabled device like a smartphone or tablet, plus a free app for it. Okay, so maybe it isn’t realistic to do full-time drawing creation on an iPhone, but one can be suitable for quickly reviewing drawings or checking on a specific dimension.

On the other hand, if you do want to run AutoCAD WS on your personal computer, you can simply access it through almost any web browser. You don’t need a plug-in for your browser, so you can even run it from Internet café stations­.

AutoCAD WS has been available for a couple of years as an Autodesk Labs experimental project called Project Butterfly, but it was recently released as a mainstream product. What’s new about it is how it connects to AutoCAD 2013, which we cover a little later.

Try it yourself. Simply go to www.autocadws.com, create a free account even if you don’t have an AutoCAD license, and log in. You’ll find three sample drawings to play with. As you play with it, you’ll soon realize that AutoCAD WS isn’t quite full-blown AutoCAD. Realistically, it isn’t even AutoCAD LT. On the other hand, the price is right, and we think that you’ll be amazed at what it can do.

Disclaimer: Autodesk is always working on it, so we might state that certain things don’t work, but you’ll likely find they do by the time you try them.

When you open a drawing, you’re faced with a simplified version of the nowfamiliar Ribbon interface, as shown in Figure 20-3.

Figure 20-3: AutoCAD WS runs on the web, not your computer.

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Autodesk is continually upgrading AutoCAD WS. The following lists of what you can and cannot do in AutoCAD WS are always changing.

What you can do

Here’s a quick list of what you can do with AutoCAD WS:

Draw most 2D objects (including revision clouds).

Use object snaps and Ortho.

Use most of the editing commands, including Undo and Redo.

Create and manage layers.

Pan and zoom.

Switch between model pace and paper space layouts.

Insert and edit blocks.

Use many of the keyboard mnemonics: L for Line, C for Circle, M for Move, and so on.

Upload existing files from your computer.

Download AutoCAD WS files, which are standard AutoCAD DWG files.

Print files.

Create folders and move files between them.

XREFs are supported, including attached raster image files. See Chapter 18 for a discussion on XREF attachments. Plot styles, discussed in Chapter 16, are supported, but the style definition files have to be uploaded separately.

So far there doesn’t seem to be any limitation on the file space available to individual users. Better yet, you can upload and download any file type

(docs, spreadsheets, and so on), but you can only open file types supported by AutoCAD, which includes DWG, DXF, and several raster formats such as BMP and JPG. My brain hurts.

What AutoCAD WS can do that AutoCAD can’t

What you’ll probably find to be really surprising is that AutoCAD WS can do a few things that full AutoCAD can’t.

Does this scenario sound familiar? You’re trying to sell a component to someone, or are trying to buy a component from someone, or your company has another operation somewhere else, or you are a consultant, and you need to discuss the drawing with them. In the (so)-called good old days, you’d have snail mailed or couriered prints back and forth, with a turnaround time of several days for each iteration. These days you probably e-mail the files and

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then phone the other party. You know the typical conversation: “No, the other hole on the other side!” So far, so good, but what if the recipient doesn’t own AutoCAD, or may not even be CAD-literate? AutoCAD WS to the rescue!

Just upload the file to AutoCAD WS, click the Share button, and enter one or more e-mail addresses. An e-mail invitation goes out to each person, inviting them to review the drawing. When the recipients click the link in their e-mail, they get signed into your account on AutoCAD WS, even if they don’t have an account. AutoCAD WS then opens the one drawing that you invited them to share. Two or more people can log in to the same drawing at the same time, and everyone can see everyone else’s cursor. Anyone can make changes, and a text chat box is available. But wait! There’s more! AutoCAD WS keeps a history of all changes. Just click to jump back and forth anywhere along the timeline. Try doing that in standard AutoCAD.

You can specify a variety of file rights when you issue the invitation. Perhaps you want some people to look but don’t touch or look but don’t download, or maybe you just want them to see a smaller cropped region of the drawing. You can also un-share a file.

What AutoCAD WS can’t do

As hinted earlier, there is a surprisingly short list of things that AutoCAD WS can’t do (yet).

You can’t create new files. However, as a work-around, simply upload a blank file, or erase everything from an existing one, and away you go.

3D objects (Chapters 21 and 22) don’t display on your web browser, but the 2D viewports created from them (Chapter 23) do display. 3D objects do display on your mobile device if you download the free app.

Hatching can be created, but can’t be edited. It loses its associativity (Chapter 15) if the boundary is edited.

Layer management (Chapter 6) is limited to changing the color of layers and to moving objects to different layers.

Parametrics (Chapter 19) can’t be applied or edited, and don’t update. On the other hand, they do survive a round trip, and upon returning, will update any changes made to the related objects.

Annotative objects (Chapters 13, 14, and 15) display only the configuration of the first scale factor applied to them, but they survive a round trip.

You may have noticed an almost complete absence of New in 2013 indicators in the book. The vast majority of what’s new in AutoCAD 2013 lands in this chapter and Chapter 23. About the only thing not totally new is AutoCAD WS, which we just covered, but even then its relationship to AutoCAD has changed. For all practical purposes, the rest of this chapter is New in 2013.

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