3D/2D ShareNow Add-in for AutoCAD, Inventor, and Revit - one click DWF sharing

In my It's Alive in the Lab article on the 3D/2D Share Now Add-in for AutoCAD, Inventor, and Revit, I depicted how a design can be easily published to Project Freewheel from AutoCAD, Inventor, and Revit.

This is as simple as one click. With the traditional method of using Project Freewheel, first you need to publish your design to DWF, select a file name, and save it to your local hard drive. Then you invoke your browser, navigate to the Project Freewheel site, click on Freewheel File->Open, and select your local file. With 3D/2D ShareNow: you don’t need to export to a local file; you don’t need to come up with a file name; you don’t need to figure out how to get a published file on a web site. Instead you share designs without emailing big PDF or DWF files. Since the design is stored once on the Project Freewheel web server, only a URL needs to be emailed and shared. Everything about the process is much more efficient.

Once you have uploaded your design to Project Freewheel, it is time to collaborate.

Typically the design application user starts a real time collaboration sharing session. The others join. All see the same view of the design in their browsers. Then the fun begins.

Many of you have used tools like WebEx. Perhaps you have fussed with "who's driving?" with clicking on buttons to transfer session control from one user to another? Project Freewheel is based on a phone conversation model. Both people can talk at the same time but rarely do. People take turns. Such is the case with real-time collaboration sessions with Project Freewheel. Any participant can pan or zoom. Any participant can make a markup. Any participant can delete a markup. We assume people are going to play nice. Is the result chaos? Or ease of use bliss? Please tell us what you think: Labs.Freewheel@autodesk.com.

One click collaboration makes DWF go way beyond the paper.

--Scott

Comments

[Alois Huber]

Yes, Project Freewheel is good, but we want to use it in our intranet, not in the internet.

[Volker Joseph]

Thank you for the feedback.

We have received this and similar suggestions or comments and are looking into it.