Rendersmart | Rendering | Modelling | Animation

Autodesk is not new to the cloud concept—their Buzzsaw software-as-a-service has been hooked up for over a decade—and on Tuesday they announced Autodesk Cloud, officially bringing together over a dozen web-based capabilities that customers can now use to interact with their documents via web browser or mobile device. Customers can also share their designs with anyone through the cloud, even those who aren't running Autodesk software.

Subscribers stand to gain the most, as Autodesk Cloud will throw in 3GB of storage and a bunch of exclusive services for them:

Designers, engineers and digital artists [will now have access to] sophisticated new capabilities, such as high-performance 3D visual communication, simulation and collaboration that were once limited to organizations with privileged access to expensive, high-end supercomputing centers.

These exclusive services include:

- Autodesk Cloud rendering. Customers with an Autodesk Subscription to the Premium or Ultimate editions of Autodesk Design Suite or Autodesk Building Design Suite will have access to powerful rendering capabilities, helping them better visualize designs, increase the number of renderings they can create and reduce hardware investments.

- Autodesk Inventor optimization. Customers with Subscription to the Premium or Ultimate editions of Autodesk Product Design Suites will gain an intuitive cloud-based simulation tool, enabling them to test multiple design options in the cloud, and to create more sustainable designs and higher-quality products while reducing material, transportation and energy costs.

- Autodesk Revit Conceptual Energy Analysis. Customers with Subscription to Autodesk Revit Architecture or Autodesk Revit MEP software, or select suites containing these products, can extend design beyond the desktop with powerful cloud-based energy analysis capabilities, helping them to quickly gain insight into the energy consumption and building energy costs of early design concepts from within the design application.

- Autodesk Green Building Studio web-based energy analysis software. Customers with Subscription to Autodesk Building Design Suite and other select products have access to this cloud-based service that can help designers, architects, engineers and building energy analysts perform faster, more accurate energy analysis of multiple building design iterations, optimize energy efficiency and work toward carbon neutrality earlier in the design process.

- Autodesk Buzzsaw software as a service (SaaS). Customers with Subscription to Autodesk Vault Collaboration AEC software now have access to cloud-based document, data and design management solutions for architecture, engineering and construction firms and owner-operators, helping them centralize and securely exchange project information and enhance team collaboration.

Source: Coutesy CG Architect.

Our thoughts: Cloud processing is definitely the future, and we currently utilize 300gb of cloud storage to link our offices, homes and mobiles to ensure centralized information accessible anywhere anytime in the world. This has been life changing for Rendersmart however we are not impressed with companies such as Autodesk which we contribute substantial amounts of money to and get little in return for industry professionals. Cloud Rendering is a nice little marketing gimmick for people who don't need it. It does not support our Autodesk products but rather designed for Architects and not 3D professionals. As usual we believe somebody else will address our needs well before Autodesk does. Its a love hate relationship.

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