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AutoCAD Returning to Mac?
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Sweet. As the designer & house IT guy in an architecture firm, I'm looking foarward to the day we don't have to run Acad through VMWare. Parallels never allowed enough ram for it to run well, and Boot camp fudged some internal system clock which would snap acad licenses with every restart. Inventor absolutely cruises on our 24in imacs, and looks great on the big clear glossy screens.
If Adesk is going to dink around with LT, they might as well not do it at all. You can get mac dwg viewers already. You can't get decent modeling or BIM software. Since the ADT plague is finally dying, they need to focus on [clean] UI's for native revit & inventor.
But whatever they do, they are going to have to do it without a gig of license management junk being strewn all over your OS. That's the PC way, not the Mac way. Get it right, keep it simple & clean, Adesk...
If Adesk is going to dink around with LT, they might as well not do it at all. You can get mac dwg viewers already. You can't get decent modeling or BIM software. Since the ADT plague is finally dying, they need to focus on [clean] UI's for native revit & inventor.
But whatever they do, they are going to have to do it without a gig of license management junk being strewn all over your OS. That's the PC way, not the Mac way. Get it right, keep it simple & clean, Adesk...
Don't know if this has been mentioned, but what about the OS X version of Maya, also from Autodesk? If memory serves me right, has been notoriously buggy compared to the Windows version. I don't use it, but that is what I've read.
They killed it in 92, I think it might be a little late to do it profitably. I mean if Adobe took photoshop off the Mac, people would either find a different program to use, or a different OS. I have a feeling that quite a few of the people using AUTOCAD have already switched away from macs, before OS X
I see the whole pro software/pro GPU situation on the Mac as a vicious circle.
I'd love to see Softimage XSI, ProE etc. on the Mac. But without a decent professional graphics card solution for the Mac Pro we're a little limited. But until there's more people buying Mac Pros and using software that needs a professional graphics solution, ATI and Nvidia aren't going to bother with Mac compatible FirePro or Quadro FX/CX cards.
Apple should really sort the situation out. I don't care what favours they have offer Autodesk, ATI and Nvidia to get more OS X native software and GPUs, I just wish they'd do it.
Currently, a Mac Pro doesn't seem to be very 'Pro' at all when running OS X. It's a beautifully designed beast of a machine that is severely limited in a very important area.
I'd love to see Softimage XSI, ProE etc. on the Mac. But without a decent professional graphics card solution for the Mac Pro we're a little limited. But until there's more people buying Mac Pros and using software that needs a professional graphics solution, ATI and Nvidia aren't going to bother with Mac compatible FirePro or Quadro FX/CX cards.
Apple should really sort the situation out. I don't care what favours they have offer Autodesk, ATI and Nvidia to get more OS X native software and GPUs, I just wish they'd do it.
Currently, a Mac Pro doesn't seem to be very 'Pro' at all when running OS X. It's a beautifully designed beast of a machine that is severely limited in a very important area.
I thought it was tough being an architect with a mac. I can't think of any structural programs for the Mac!
I hope that they do decide to bring AutoCAD back to the Mac. I'm tired of using Fusion just to use AutoCAD.......with all the associated headaches of trying to plot and file share in a virtual environment. I'm actually thinking of moving back to a Windows machine because it has gotten so inconvenient for me to do things this way.
Of course Revit would be great too, but AutoCAD would do just fine right now. I also agree with others who have stated that this would legitimize OS X as a real professional platform. It's a bit frustrating having such a beautiful, powerful, machine that I can only be productive with after booting into Windows.............. kind of silly even...............
The missus (interior design almost-graduate) uses ArchiCAD for all her projects. I'm not entirely sure if that's what you mean by "structural programs", but there you go.
You can get a 30-day demo here.
I'm wondering if there isn't something larger going on with Autodesk. They've recently ported Alias Studio to the Mac OS. Both Alias and AutoCAD had either Unix or Irix versions at some point. With the Mac OS now related to Unix, might Autodesk be looking at future Linux versions for at least some of their applications?
Not being an AutoCAD user, this news isn't a big deal to me, but as a user of Alias products my curiosity is piqued.
Not being an AutoCAD user, this news isn't a big deal to me, but as a user of Alias products my curiosity is piqued.
I'd love to see Softimage XSI, ProE etc. on the Mac. But without a decent professional graphics card solution for the Mac Pro we're a little limited. But until there's more people buying Mac Pros and using software that needs a professional graphics solution, ATI and Nvidia aren't going to bother with Mac compatible FirePro or Quadro FX/CX cards.
The "full" range of Fire GL and Quadro cards would sell heaps more.The one Quadro,and high end at that is just dumb.It really makes me wonder if it was ever taken seriously at all.
I suppose because of buying Alias that Adesk now have a lot of Mac savvy engineers.It could be a great time for them to look at Macs again.I have to wonder how much pull,MS still has with Adesk though,they would not be happy about this at all.
Def one to watch.
Word is that Apple use a tailor made version of UGS NX on os x. And UGS are developing a version of NX6 for osx and plan to have nx7 fully supported on osx.
Of course, they've been saying this for about three years but still.
want a little... proof?
From what I've read, there is an issue with the need for an internal database. I don't remember the details, but as I recall NX6 utilizes Excel as its database engine for some key feature. Unfortunately, this can't be done on the Mac (incompatibility with the Mac version of Excel, or something like that). So, until this issue is resolved, as I understand it, the Mac development ground to a halt.
NEVER EVER EVER going to happen. Sorry but there is just so many things wrong with a fusion of the above apps i can't begin to name them. Pipelines for maya are very well established within the animation/VFX post houses that discontinuing maya would have serious reprocusions on the whole industry, similarly for Max within the games industry. It would literally grind to a halt for 12 months while everyone got their heads round the new systems.
And if you think 3 individual apps are bloated (they're not btw) how do you imagine combining them would streamline? Having to support 3 file types, 3 shader types, supporting multiple renderers.
There seems to be a misconception that Maya, Max and XSI are essentially the same program - they're really quite different. Murging them is jsut not an option.
I could see XSI being slowly shrunk down and people picking up Maya, but Autodesk would have to announce something like a 5 year plan to wind up XSI so people would have time to migrate to Maya but I really can't even see that happening.
Autodesk have a huge portfolio of software now, whilst i agree some consolidation is necessary and indeed happening (Flint, Inferno, Flame are becoming one app slowly) murging of 3 huge apps that are used in different ways is unlikely.
With regard to the OP I don't know much about AutoCAD but if the Mac version of Maya is anything to go by, i'd stay in windows. Doesn't BootCamp make this kind of development unnecessary?
BTW, UGS is no longer the name of the company. Siemens AG Automation owns NX, under Siemens PLM. http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com
The last time I checked the Siemens PLM support forum, there were users still testing NX CAD and CAM (CAE too?) as a X11 application running in OS-X, not virtualized nor under bootcamp. This makes a lot of sense because NX(Unigraphics) has been ported to UNIX for years including SUSE 64bit.
Attachments
Yeah, we just want AutoCAD LT. We don't really want to be on an equal footing with the Windows platform. Microsoft doesn't give us equal versions of their applications, so why should AutoDesk?
The survey also asks several questions about whether such features as command line interface and 3D modeling/editing are considered critical to a "first" version of AutoCAD for OS X, and specifically whether a product along the lines of Autodesk's more limited AutoCAD LT rather than a full version of AutoCAD would be sufficient for Mac users.
</sarcasm>
What a stupid question to ask.
I was responding to a post by a civil engineering student using a Mac apparently. By "structural programs" I mean structural engineering analysis (like Risa). I don't think a single program exists for the Mac.
This brings us back to a fundamental problem. If Apple wants to be taken seriously by professionals in the design/construction industry they need to do whatever it takes to bring us what we need. While architects can use Archicad or Vectorworks it is a huge hassle in the professional world. In the US the vast, vast, vast majority use Autocad. Most of those who aren't are using Revit. I was going to actually use Archicad but the idea of not being able to freely communicate with consultants is a major turn-off, regardless of how great the program is. I hate getting a file from someone using some other programs and then wasting time getting them to actually work/read in Autocad, and I would not want to do that to my consultants. It may be different, but it's not professional
Yeah, well, if for the sake of argument Adobe decided to bail on Apple (because it would be retarded beyond words for them to stop making just one app out of their whole toolkit for the Mac) then the graphics and multimedia industries would have no choice but to leave the Mac platform as well.
Sure, you'd have some who'd buy a Mac and then add Windows and run whatever Adobe apps they needed, but I think most shops would just buy PCs with Windows.
In the medical device industry SolidWorks is the de facto standard part and assembly design application. I think half of the engineers I work with already use Macs at home and run XP via BootCamp only so they can run Solidworks at home. Ashlar Vellum's Cobalt is a great solid modeling application for OSX. I run both on my new 13" MacBook.
TurboCAD for Mac
There is TurboCAD for Mac:
http://www.turbocad.com/TurboCAD/TurboCADforMac/tabid/556/Default.aspx
Has anyone used it?
There is TurboCAD for Mac:
http://www.turbocad.com/TurboCAD/TurboCADforMac/tabid/556/Default.aspx
Has anyone used it?
Ditto! Hope this is indeed true!As an architecture student, this would be awesome.
All I need now is Rhino (in development) 3ds max, and 64-bit photoshop for mac
Solidworks please.
The day when Solidworks arrives on the Mac will be the day when the mythical xMac will make its appearance.
I remember when I was an admin at a school - we used Archicad. It wasn't (no software is) perfect but for the majority of students they were happy with it.
AutoCad on this platform would be excellent and highly anticipated. I trust that this really happens at some point. Our Dells would be in the dumpster in a flash.