Project Dragonfly

I stumbled upon something new from Autodesk in all places, Facebook. The Autodesk group pointed me to the Project Dragonfly site. It's a Web based residential design modeller where you can create a plan and 3D model of a house or apartment. Sort of remins me of a cross between those 99$ 3D Home style products and creating a house in "The Sims".

You work based on a room basis, starting with basic shaped rooms and then modifying them with new room elements, Then add door and windows and then built-in elements furnishings, and materials.

It's really a toy at this point at this point, and there are plenty of features missing, but I like it's simplicity, reasonable intuitiveness and the direction of being able to model a design online. You could very easily share this design with others. Then there is the ability to output to .DWG and .RVT formats, interesting. I'd like to see where Project Dragonfly goes...

The Books keep Rolling Out

Just when one book gets done and is introduced, here comes another. This one was the fruit of working with Autodesk over the last 5 months on a product which I am a bit less familiar with. The book Autodesk Architecture 2008 - AutoCAD for Architects is now available, you will probably be able to find in on the Autodesk e-store in a couple of days (maybe a bit of wishful thinking).... I'll get images up here when I get my own copy.

This is a short book, and is meant to get people started with ACA (AutoCAD Achitecture). Covers the UI, the Project Manager, Walls, Doors & Windows, Spaces, Schedules and Detail creation. Kristen Smith, an ADT specialist was the technical expert who contributed her knowledge and a interesting building design to the courseware.

I hope you can get a copy and enjoy. If you are under subscription with Autodesk for ADT and ACA, the there is an e-learning course which covers everything extept Spaces and Schedules.