Project Butterfly addresses a wide range of professionals that make use of CAD in their work.
Today we’ll show you how Butterfly can help 3D artists, designers and renderers accelerate their design process and finish projects ahead of time. If you know any architectural renderers, now would be the time to share this post with them.
Project Butterfly was built to help AutoCAD users collaborate better, and while it does not support 3ds Max and Maya models, its online DWG and image file support provide a very efficient tool for 3D design process. 3D artists work mainly with programs such as Autodesk 3ds Max or Maya. The rendering project’s success lies in how the 3D artist understands his client. It’s how he envisions the client’s 2D drawing in a 3D environment. This is where Butterfly comes in.
Project Butterfly can be used by 3D artists in the initial phase of going over the drawing with the architect, mechanical engineer or consultant – where they can point at areas and issues in the drawing that are not clear to them. With Butterfly it’s easy to remotely examine the drawing, inquire about what materials and textures to use on certain parts of the design.
Once that stage is complete, the 3D artist then starts working on his model. If he doesn’t have a copy of AutoCAD, he can still use Butterfly to navigate through the drawing, take measurements, and if necessary – invite the client to real-time collaboration and discuss newly encountered issues.
Using the same method, the 3D artist can show his client a draft of his render. Because Butterfly supports all the most common raster image formats, the 3D artist can import his draft (or final visualization) to Butterfly and walk through it with the client in real time, without having to travel to the client.
Tip: You can import DWGs as well as raster images to Butterfly. You can open them in the editor, draw geometry on them, share and collaborate on them as well.
Watch this video we made about how 3D artists can put Butterfly to practice in their work: