Earlier in the year Autodesk announced official support for the Mac via Apple’s Boot Camp software. Back in July Apple was pleased to hear Autodesk announce official support for supporting Windows-only Autodesk software via Apple’s Boot Camp technology which enables Macs to run Windows operating systems in a dual-boot configuration. 

Support via Virtualization: Officially!

Now Autodesk officially extends Mac support beyond Boot Camp embracing the Mac with Parallels Desktop for Mac. The design software giant will officially support AutoCAD software, AutoCAD LT, Autodesk Inventor Professional, Autodesk 3ds Max and Autodesk Revit. 

According to information that Architosh has obtained, Autodesk Revit is the most popular Autodesk application running on Apple hardware. 

“Autodesk customers are increasingly working with both Mac and Windows, and have asked us to support Mac virtualization,” said Chris Bradshaw, Autodesk chief marketing officer. “Today we are pleased to welcome Parallels as a partner and Parallels Desktop as our preferred Mac virtualization software.” ”This is the latest step in Autodesk’s ongoing efforts to support our customers on the Mac, who will now be able to use some of our most popular 2D and 3D design, engineering and entertainment software alongside Mac OS X, in addition to the five native Mac applications we currently offer.”

Actually, the number of native Mac applications exceeds five. This new or updated web page on Autodesk’s site lists a total of nine native Mac applications spanning 3D and design, engineering, and film and media. They also include items like Autodesk Combustion and Autodesk Alias software, in addition to the five mentioned by Chris Bradshaw. 

Parallels Continues to Open Up the Mac World

As expected for quite some time, Parallels and its virtualization technology are key enablers for Windows developers to segue over to Mac support and eventually Mac development. That is a process that is underway not just at Autodesk but in many software companies. 

“Parallels Desktop for Mac enables over two million users to run Windows-based applications seamlessly and simply on their Mac,” said Serguei Beloussov, chief executive officer of Parallels. “Autodesk has a long history of creating innovative and industry-leading software for design, engineering and entertainment, and we’ve heard many requests from customers interested in using their Autodesk applications with Parallels. We are delighted to partner with Autodesk to help make this software more broadly available to the Mac community.”

Alias 2010 Adds to Autodesk’s Growing Mac Design Tools

Since shipping in April of this year, Autodesk Alias Design 2010 and Autodesk SketchBook Pro 2010–part of the solution for Digital Prototyping–have drawn accolades from designers and creative professionals within the Mac community. The 2010 release marks the first time that Alias Design has offered native support for the Mac OS X operating system. 

“Designers from all over the world have given us enthusiastic feedback on the Mac version of Alias Design and SketchBook Pro,” said Samir Hanna, vice president, Digital Factory and Industrial Design, at Autodesk. “We look forward to providing our growing community of Mac users with increased ability to use Autodesk Digital Prototyping software to improve time to market and increase competitive advantage.”

 “With Alias Design now available for Mac OS X, the best designer software now runs on the best designed hardware,” said Joshua Maruska of Teague Design, a pioneer in industrial design.

01 - View of Alias Design on Mac OS X, showing clean interface and wide workspace for this helmut design. Autodesk has dramatically changed its view on Apple and is increasing its development resources for the production of native Mac software.

“SketchBook Pro completely replicates the feel of paper for me and also fits in perfectly with my Mac environment,” said Andrew Meehan of Viacelli, creator of iconic technical illustrations. “I used to scan sketches, clean them up in Photoshop, then save them as jpegs and send them off. Now I just use SketchBook Pro as my integrated ideation center.”

Alias Design software provides consumer product designers with control over the entire design process–from ideation to the final surfaces that are passed to engineering. Designers can rapidly develop and communicate product design concepts using sketches, illustrations, photo-realistic renderings and animations.

Autodesk Leads Key Rivals to Mac Platform

Announced earlier this year at Macworld in San Francisco, Autodesk intends to grow its portfolio of Mac native software for creative and technical professionals. It currently leads several key rivals like SolidWorks and Bentley in making the first moves to address Apple’s resurgent Mac platform. 

To learn more visit: www.autodesk.com

Other Autodesk tools for Mac include, Autodesk Maya, Autodesk Mudbox, Autodesk Toxik, Autodesk ImageModeler and Autodesk Stitcher.

Indeed it is. 

While the news is shy on details — and we are in the process of obtaining more facts directly from our Autodesk contacts — Autodesk has apparently been working on this. They even have done work on the packaging. The post says there is a new bundle and new naming, in addition to new STL output, new rendering technologies and materials and tool, and a lot more control over surfaces. 

When Autodesk signed a definitive agreement to purchase Canadian-based Alias back in October of 2005, Carl Bass, COO of Autodesk said: “Alias’ technology spans several of our most important markets and augments the synergy between our design and media businesses.” In essence back in 2005 Autodesk saw what was coming down the pike: the collision of the worlds of design and engineering with that of media and entertainment. “Our media and entertainment customers are increasingly using the data created by our design [and engineering] applications for broadcast, film and games projects,” stated Bass. 

Windows Marries the Mac: Pipelines Expand

Creative pipelines are becoming so cross-platform in this “CAD to Ad” world that no longer is it acceptable to customers that Autodesk not provide OS diversity in its portfolio of software packages. You literally have customer segments with rapidly evolving and mixed pipeline scenarios. “The Mac is just like any other platform within entertainment sharing the same roles as Windows and Linux,” said Rob Hoffmann, Sr. Product Marketing Manager 3D for Autodesk, back in January of this year. 

This evolution has shaped the importance of the FBX file format, the default file format of Autodesk MotionBuilder, itself an acquired cross-platform product in the company’s Media & Entertainment division. 

Recently we met with Autodesk in San Francisco to discuss Autodesk’s latest Mac software announcements. In that discussion Carl Bass’ comments from 2005 were both reflected and amplified by the urgency of the evolving industries. Rob Hoffmann made it clear that Autodesk fully intends to meet the needs and demands of its global customer base.

Hence news of the old Alias toolset finding its way to the Mac should shock nobody now.

Continued product development will be based out of offices now in both Troy, Michigan and Vicenza, Italy. 

Altair Engineering, Inc., is a global leader in engineering software solutions with a particularly strong position in CAE (computer-aided engineering). Its Altair HyperWorks product is an industry leading CAE solution and the company offers products and consulting services in product innovation and development. The company is particularly well suited to serve engineering and product development companies and their design studios with a product like solidThinking in its portfolio. We start this talk with some background behind the acquisition. 

The Interview

Anthony Frausto-Robledo (AFR): What was Altair’s decision to purchase solidThinking? What was the motivation behind doing that and where does the company plan on taking this unique product?

Bob Little (BL): We studied the market and saw that design studios were a special type of place in the product development world, where a lot of C-level type executives spent a lot of time. You know, you always see a place in the parking lot for the C-level executive outside the design studio but you don’t see a similar spot for them outside engineering.

AFR: So why solidThinking?

Bob: We developed a special design group to help us serve our customers. We became very familiar with the conceptual design process. And in solidThinking we discovered some impressive software technology, impressive innovation in the product, and also a similar fanatical culture about serving the customer. 

AFR: What did your industrial designers think? What products did they use in the studio?

Bob: Our industrial designers used the tools they had been using, like AliasStudio and Rhino. But Alex and his brother came in and did full presentations and showed them what solidThinking can do and can’t do and they became very convinced that this was a tool that enabled them to excel at industrial design. 

AFR: What would you say are the key strengths of solidThinking compared to Alias Studio and Rhino? 

Alessandro Mazzardo (Alex): solidThinking is unique in its class. We have a matchless feature in our “construction tree” that allows the designer to be more fluid in the design process than anything out there. Designers also love our built-in rendering capabilities which are quite strong. And lastly — and this is becoming more important — designers who want to work on the Mac love that solidThinking not just runs on the Mac but shines on it.

01 - solidThinking is not just an advanced NURBS modeler but a complete environment for industrial design. It is a global leader in CAID (computer-aided industrial design) and one of just a few such programs that serves both Windows and Apple's Mac OS X operating systems.

The thing is, solidThinking is not just a modeling tool. It is 3D environment made specifically for industrial designers. It allows them to be free and creative in a way they can’t be with other software solutions. This fluidity is key where we have tested it within the Italian design market. Italian [design] firms are renowned for their attention to style and detail. Many Italian products have made or make their designs as key market differentiators from their competition. Serving this market with solidThinking challenged us to develop a software product whose goal was not just about building 3D models but about exploiting the user’s creativity. solidThinking is a constant source of inspiration for designers. 

02 - solidThinking's construction tree palette.

AFR: Do you find that industrial designers are looking at the Mac now, more than before?