Through services such as Autodesk® Project Point™, and Autodesk Streamline™, Autodesk enables you to easily share files with others, regardless of their geographic location. And through technologies such as i-drop® and Digital Signatures, you can make your drawings seamlessly available via a web-based interface and provide a high level of security that guarantees your drawings remain in their original, unaltered state.

Project Collaboration Through ProjectPoint
At ProjectPoint, Autodesk's online collaboration service, you can store and share your project documents online and then access them from anywhere you have an Internet connection (see Figure 1). This means you can store and share all your AutoCAD® drawing files (DWG, DWF, and so on), as well as other file types commonly used in your design projects such as Microstation DGN, Microsoft Word, and Excel.

Through ProjectPoint's secure environment, you control the level of access others have to your files, from full access, which allows others to upload and download files, to view-only privileges, to no access at all. You can even "hide" files and folders so that only specified users can see them.

Figure 1: With ProjectPoint you can easily track all project activities.
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At ProjectPoint, you can also mark up drawings and files and add written comments. Using Autodesk's free Volo® View Express viewer, your project team can view and mark up DWG, DXF, and DWF files. Using Cimmetry's AutoVue Professional viewer (ProjectPoint integrates with AutoVue, which is available for purchase at Cimmetry.com) your project team can view and mark up over 200 different file formats, including DWG, DXF, DWF, DGN, PDF, TIFF, MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more. Any added markups and comments are stored outside of the file so that the original document remains unchanged.

ProjectPoint also tracks the different versions of a file and automatically detects when a newer version of a file is uploaded to the system, prompting you to either create a new version or update the existing one. Through this feature, you can review a file's design history by retrieving its earlier versions to compare with the newer version. You can also restore past versions if necessary.

With ProjectPoint, you can maintain file-level threaded discussions. This means you can initiate, participate in, and review discussion threads related to a specific version of any type of document, including drawings, office files, and images. ProjectPoint maintains the thread, which can't be deleted. Thus, you always have a record of any discussions associated with a document.

ProjectPoint's online project work environment seamlessly integrates a secure project-hosting service with CAD-related software, tools, and services. Through ProjectPoint, you connect your project team with one another, regardless of organizational or geographical boundaries.

Sharing Drawing Data with i-drop
Using Autodesk's i-drop® technology, you can share your drawing data via the Internet. The i-drop feature lets you drag drawing content posted on a website and drop it directly into your current drawing.

The i-drop feature, built into AutoCAD, interprets web-based drawing content and converts it to data that AutoCAD software can import. From websites using i-drop technology, you can drag content from a web page and drop it into your current drawing, where AutoCAD inserts the content as a block (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: A manufacturer's i-drop-enabled website.

AutoCAD software ships with the Publish to Web Wizard, which helps you easily create a web page containing drawings and then add i-drop functionality to them. This Wizard steps you through the entire process and automatically generates the web page for you when you are finished. Visitors to the web page can drag and drop your i-drop enabled data into their own files.

Securing Drawings with Digital Signatures
Autodesk's new Digital Signatures Extension tool (available on to members of the Autodesk Subscription Program) is a way to guarantee that any drawings you provide to someone else are in their original, unaltered condition. Additionally, recipients of your drawings are guaranteed that you (and no one else) provided them with the drawings. Through the Digital Signatures Extension, both you and those who receive your drawings will have confidence that the drawings are delivered securely and in their original condition.

The Digital Signatures Extension achieves this level of security by enabling you to digitally "sign" your drawings. You simply attach to the drawings your unique digital signature, or digital ID, which is associated with your computer and e-mail address, and which is password-protected. Recipients opening the drawings can easily determine if the files have been changed since you sent them. If a file has not been tampered with, it will contain your digital ID. If the digital ID is absent, the recipient knows the file is not the one you sent.

Figure 3: AutoCAD software can automatically display your digital signature when a recipient opens a drawing.
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Summary
Autodesk provides a variety of services that meet the challenges of managing, tracking, securing, and sharing electronic design data over the Internet, intranets, extranets, and via e-mail. Whether securing your drawings with the Digital Signatures Extension, making your drawings web-accessible with i-drop, or taking advantage of the full-featured, robust capabilities of ProjectPoint, Autodesk provides a variety of solutions that address your day-to-day design-sharing needs.