Using shared views in AutoCAD

- [Instructor] Welcome to another tip and trick in AutoCAD. What we're going to look at is one of the cloud-based tools available to you in later versions of AutoCAD. In this case, we're using the latest version of AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2019. And we've got a drawing there for you called SharingDesignView.dwg. You can download that from the library to follow along with this tips and tricks video. Now sometimes you want to share a design view with somebody who hasn't got AutoCAD, hasn't got any AutoCAD experience.

They just want to look at the drawing itself. Now, in the old days, you used to print out the drawing, fold it up, put it in an envelope, and send it in the post. Or, you might email the DWG file to them, but they haven't got any version of AutoCAD to view that DWG file. So what we're gonna use is a fantastic collaborative tool available in AutoCAD called sharing your design view. So we go to the Collaborate tab here, on the ribbon in AutoCAD, and there's Shared Views there. So when I click on Shared Views, it'll open up the Shared Views palette.

And as you can see there, the first thing I need to do is sign into my Autodesk account. When you're using anything cloud-based with AutoCAD you need an Autodesk account. If you haven't got one, just put Autodesk account into Google, get signed up, and then you've got one, okay? So we click here to sign in. And it brings up the usual little dialogue box, so I put in my username. Make sure you type it in correctly, obviously. Like so, so there we go, cadfmconsultants. Click on Next, and it'll prompt me for the password. So there's my password, I hit sign in.

Now that will not only log me into my Shared Views, like so. As you can see, it says Sign In Complete, top right there as well, and it's signed me into my Autodesk A360 account in AutoCAD as well up here. So, it's kind of an all encompassing sign in, it signs you in AutoCAD, it signs you in in the Shared Views too. Now you'll notice we've already got a Shared View in there. I corrected that a moment ago, purely just to test that everything was working. So you can see it's there, and it's valid for 30 days.

So basically, anybody can look at that in a browser, by way of in the cloud for 30 days. So let's create a new Shared View. I click on New Shared View here in the palette. And it prompts me now saying I'm about to publish a view of my open file to share online. It puts the filename of the DWG into the name box here. So it's SharingDesignView. As you can see SharingDesignView at the top of the screen. Now you gotta a choice, you can share your current view only. You can share the model view, and all the layout views if you want to.

You can create 2D views only, and share object properties as well, if you wish. There's all those settings in there. I'm gonna share current view only, which is the Model tab down here in the drawing. So when I click on Share, what will happen now is I get a little prompt saying the background processing of the shared view is ready to start. And you'll get a little notification on the screen, I'll show you in a moment. And you can also tick this box saying don't show me this message again, if you don't want this to pop up every time. I like them to pop up every time just to remind me that I'm actually doing something that might be happening in the background.

I could get sort of deep into something else, and forget about it. So I hit Proceed like so. And if you look down in the bottom right hand corner, you can see a little Q with a little sort of ring going around down here, there we go, Publishing shared view. Now it takes a little while to do that, and the reason it takes a little while to do that is obviously it's publishing it to the cloud via the internet to the cloud server, and so on. So while we're waiting for that, what we can do is we can carry on working on our drawing in AutoCAD. I can zoom in, I can zoom out. I can just carry on working away until that is ready to go.

Now obviously I've already got a shared view available, so while we're waiting for that shared view to appear, I can go and click on this one, or as if by magic, there it is there. Share View Upload Complete. So I can now view this in my browser of choice. Mine is Google Chrome and it kicks in in what is called the Autodesk Viewer. So give it a few seconds just to do the final bits and pieces while it loads up in the viewer. And there's my drawing there. And I can pan, and I can zoom, much to my heart's content using the mouse.

And I'm now actually looking at my drawing in a browser, basically without AutoCAD, without any Autodesk software apart from this browsing tool. Now again, if I want to utilize the tools in the Autodesk Viewer, all I've got to do is sign in, using my Autodesk account. So I'll just jump in there, getting things ready, takes a few seconds. There we go, typing away there, putting in my username again. Click on Next, it will now prompt me for the password, and in we go.

And basically, you're now ready to look at that drawing using the Autodesk Viewer. Now what we'll have is another tip and trick about how to use all the viewer and how it all works. But basically, the person that has just received this drawing by way of a link in a browser can now look at the drawing, they can zoom, they can pan, and so on. They don't need AutoCAD. All they need is an Autodesk account to sign in, like I've just shown you.