Following up on last week's post on Factory Design Suite's implementation, I got flooded with questions about Asset libraries and the new Cloud based Assets so I wanted to take some time to let you in on a few more of the details of how they work and the how to decipher them in the interface.
First off, you can really see how much the Factory Design Suite integrates the products and does a fantastic job with it at that. There is a whole set of Factory Utilities that aid in the whole process. In fact this was evident in Factory Design Suite 2011 as well. When it came time to patch the software with service packs, you didn't have to do each one either, you only had to download one big one (730 MB) and it patched everything, including the Factory Design Utilities. That first service pack for 2011 was also the beginning of the cloud based asset library.
2011 Service Pack 1 link (if you are still on 2011): http://www.autodesk.se/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=15859319&linkID=15639656
Here is what was frustrated me with Autodesk content in the past. I had to wait an entire year to see what they added to the Content Center, what was added to the Electrical library in ACADe, what new materials were in the Autodesk Material library. When I first got Factory Suite installed and got to play with all the new shiny factory content I started to get that same itch about yearly updates. The answer to this itch?
The perfect scratch for my itch. Not only will new content be added to this, but I can download it as soon as Autodesk adds it to their cloud server storing these assets. I don't even have to go to a website to look and see if there is anything new. It will just start appearing in my Library Browser. It's auto-magical!
Here is how it works. In your Asset Browser you will start to see status bubbles on content. If you click on this asset, you will still get the DWF preview in your preview window inside your layout. Basically, as soon as you click on the asset, a new folder and a new DWG get automatically downloaded to your local Cloud Library (well see that later).
If you like this asset, simply right click on it to start downloading it to your library. You will see two different icons here noting the status of the download. The full green icon means it is fully downloaded and the other icon will actually show you a very small (get out your reading glasses) progress bar.
The storage location of these Could Based Factory assets is controlled in the Factory Options of Inventor. They must be enabled for any of this magic to take place. You can also see where they are being saved to whether it is a local or network directory.
If you choose the Clear Folder option it will empty out all Cloud Assets from this folder be very careful not to do this unless you REALLY mean it.
Browsing to this folder will show you what supporting files came with the download. This includes the existing DWF and additional items for the 2D side of the Suite since this library is shared in the other programs.
If you are experiencing difficulties with the Cloud Server there are some things you can do to try and remedy the problems. First look at your icon and see what the status is. This status icon is located in the upper right of your asset library browser.
This icon means your library is all set to go and is updating normally
This icon states the systems is trying to connect to the Autodesk cloud server.
This icon states that cloud assets are turned off or are not reachable and can be due to a number of reasons such as IT restriction or Autodesk maintenance.
Automatic proxy detection is a setting that is controlled by the LAN Settings in Internet Explorer's Internet Options. There may be instances where it is desirable to retain the "Automatically Detect" setting for normal web browsing, but there can occasionally be a degradation in performance when downloading Cloud-based assets. Activate the Disable automatic proxy detection check box to selectively override the default LAN Settings behavior and increase performance.
If you experience any other issues with contacting the Cloud Server it may be due to the IT gestapo locking down too much internet access for your engineering department. Should this happen, find a smart IT person that can unlock this server access for you. Should your company tell you that this is not possible, have your manager post a job opening for a smart IT person.
I hope you liked this look at the cloud based delivery system that is sure to take over content acquisition in the near future. When or if this gets carried through the other Autodesk Suites is yet to be seen, but it has been mentioned by Autodesk here and there as an initiative.
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