Last month we got an email from Autodesk asking if we would be interested in looking very closely at Project Butterfly and doing an editorial feature on it. Just to be clear to some of our readers, we don’t get too many emails from the world’s largest design software maker. And when we do they tend to come from the Entertainment and Media division (think Autodesk Maya!) because that is the division, until recently, that had the only native Mac software. But things seem to be changing with this company and its relationship to Apple’s growing Mac audience. So we said “sure…we’d love to take a look!”
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So we booked a Web meeting. And we met. And what was presented was very interesting, different…and future-oriented!
Background: An Israeli Story
Project Butterfly is led by Tal Weiss, who is its software development manager and director of Autodesk’s AutoCAD Israel R&D facility. Weiss–who led the Web meeting–explained that he was the former co-founder and CEO of a software company called VisualTao, based out of Tel-Aviv, Israel. Its main product, VisualTao (same name) featured an innovative web-based interface that enabled users of design software to work together over the Net.
From what we have learned Autodesk acquired PlanPlatform (whose previous name was VisualTao) last year, giving the CAD giant its first Web-enabled collaborative platform. And according to an article from Israel, the American CAD giant now looks to utilize Weiss’ unit as the beginnings of an Israeli research and development center.
Part of Autodesk’s discovery in Israel was that the high-tech country is a world-leader in “cloud-computing” and online applications and services. And according to this article on the Web Autodesk probably isn’t stopping at its acquisition of PlanPlatform.
VisualTao Becomes A Butterfly
Cloud-computing and software as a service (SaaS) is where the applications world is moving. Even in the intensely complex and file-heavy CAD world. This was a notable topic in the CAD industry even as far back as 2007 at COFES. With rivals publicly displaying the beginnings of their Web-enabled and cloud-computing technology it only makes sense that Autodesk would move in this direction. It has started by focusing on its flagship program–AutoCAD.
The VisualTao technology is today implemented in its most mature state as Autodesk Butterfly, a Web-application that enables users to view, edit and share their Autodesk AutoCAD drawings. Tal Weiss explained that Autodesk Butterfly works with any modern web browser on all the major computing platforms. This includes Google’s Chrome and the Linux platform in addition to Windows and the Mac. (see image 01)
01 - Autodesk Project Butterfly. Former VisualTao technology from Israeli company powers Autodesk's Web-application and works identically on Mac, Linux and Windows platforms.
As you can see from the image above Project Butterfly–which is an open beta totally free for people to use and try out–is an actual CAD application that will run on your Mac. The part that we need to emphasize at this moment however is that Butterfly doesn’t allow you to create files with it. So no, for the Mac user reading this don’t get too excited that Project Butterfly is a new substitute for a native Mac version of AutoCAD that isn’t yet available. It isn’t!
However, make no bones about it, everything you can do with Project Butterfly on Internet Explorer on Windows you can also do on the Mac (or Linux).
Three Principles About Butterfly
Tal Weiss said that basically Autodesk Project Butterfly is like Google Docs for CAD folks. There are three key principles behind the purpose of the technology and application.
The first principle is the ability to access your content from anywhere. Weiss explained that in today’s market with the advent of social media and cloud-computing people are growing to expect access to their content and applications from just about anywhere…on a multitude of devices. “People no longer want to be tied down to a specific location to get their work done,” he said.
02 - Butterfly has a file manager view that lists all your drawings, enables folder organization and indicates graphically if items are "shared."
The second principle is to use the Web as a collaborative medium. “It means being able to work together,” said Weiss, “because everything we do in design is usually in a collaboration with others.” What Project Butterfly does is provide a way for multiple users to literally collaborate in real-time on the same drawing file. (see image 02 and 04 below)
When collaborating with users in Butterfly one takes over control of an object when one clicks on it. The program negotiates and manages this process.
Lastly, the third principle behind Project Butterfly is the support for storing “timeline-based” discussions and previous saved states of a drawing. Butterfly saves meeting discussion transcripts as well as older version states of your drawings. You have the option for downloading this saved-state material to your desktop at anytime. And you can revert to older states of a drawing.
These three primary principles are driving the focus of the Web application. And so far the thousands of users who have taken part in the open beta are enjoying where the technology is going.
Butterfly Details
As you can see from image 01 above, the interface for Project Butterfly is quite simple. On the left there is a panel for Home, Drawings and Editor. Clicking on a drawing in Files Manager (Drawings — see image 02) opens the drawing in the Editor. There is a menu bar across the top with choices like Draw, Edit, View, Share and so forth. Standard tools allow you to manipulate drawings and create drawn content. You can scale, move, rotate, mirror, trim, alter vertices, et cetera. You can create using lines, rectangles, polylines, circles and more. You can annotate with clouds and text. And you can measure, change colors, line weights and layers. (see image 01)
Weiss said the interface is intuitive to non-AutoCAD users. So even clients and consultants using other CAD or BIM programs can jump right into Butterfly easily. To share drawings you send out an email with a link just like Google Docs. Each shared item with another user allows you to set particular settings and permissions (eg: the ability to edit or not edit, mark-up or not mark-up, etc.).
Invited users may not be able to download the file, for instance, thus preventing them from passing it around once they obtain possession of the file. This solves one of the dilemmas in the CAD world: the liabilities associated with electronic file exchange. When multiple parties can access, collaborate and share the influence of just one CAD file problems associated with sharing, exporting and passing around data largely get solved. “You are providing a single point of truth in terms of that file online,” said Tal Weiss, “there are no worries about file format version for AutoCAD, for instance.”
When it comes to editing AutoCAD files with Butterfly there is pretty much nothing you cannot do that you can do in regular AutoCAD. Manipulate geometry, edit blocks, upload blocks, draw lines, arcs, polys and insert complex annotation, leaders and measurements. You can alter layers, add and delete layers, move items to different layers and draw in various layers, just like in AutoCAD. What you cannot do however is create AutoCAD files for scratch.
03 - You can work over uploaded images, like maps and satellite imagery from Google Maps, for instance.
Some special or advanced features in Project Butterfly include the ability to upload image files and work directly over them. You can also include Google Maps data as in the image above (image 03).
Closing Comments
Autodesk Project Butterfly is currently a free, open beta project. Anyone can use it and the company wants varied use across platforms. You can upload AutoCAD files to Butterfly going all the way back to version 2000 and 2004. While you cannot create a file from scratch in Butterfly you can always upload basically a blank DWG file and work from there.
04 - With Project Butterfly multiple users can collaborate on drawings in real-time.
At some point Project Butterfly will cease to be an open beta. Autodesk told Architosh that they are constantly looking at different business models to see what will make sense with Butterfly’s customers. Weiss said that the company wants it to be something that is very affordable.
To learn more about Project Butterfly you can go here. There is also a Butterfly blog and Butterfly YouTube Channel.