Formerly Forge · Autodesk's engines, in the cloud
Autodesk Platform Services
(APS) Development
Your automation only runs where a CAD seat is installed. APS removes that dependency: the same AutoCAD and Inventor engines run in Autodesk's cloud, and a dealer three time zones away drives them from a browser tab: configuring, viewing in 3D, downloading drawings. Nothing to install. No licenses on their side.
BROWSER INPUT → APS CLOUD ENGINE → 3D MODELS · DRAWINGS · BOMs
Why go cloud
Good CAD Automation, Trapped Behind a License
You can already generate models and drawings from parameters, but only on machines with Inventor or AutoCAD installed. So sales still emails engineering, dealers still wait, and every new user means another seat. Autodesk Platform Services moves the engines themselves off the desktop. The browser becomes the front end; the CAD runs on Autodesk's servers.
What changes
What APS Puts Within Reach
Any screen is a CAD station
A phone on the shop floor or a laptop at a dealer's desk: if it opens a browser, it runs your configurator.
Drawings mid-phone-call
The full package generates in minutes, while the customer is still on the line, not after engineering clears its backlog.
Load is Autodesk's problem
One configuration or a thousand at once: the infrastructure stretches to fit, and you never buy hardware for the peak.
Design data reaches your ERP
REST APIs carry BOMs and properties into ERP, PLM, and CRM without a human re-typing them.
Technical stack
The APS APIs We Build With
Five building blocks. Most projects combine two or three of them.
Design Automation API
The centerpiece: real AutoCAD, Inventor, Revit, and Fusion engines running headless on Autodesk's servers. Your iLogic rules and custom plugins run there unchanged; the model that used to cost an engineer an afternoon now builds itself while the browser shows a progress bar.
- AutoCAD, Inventor, Revit, Fusion, 3ds Max
- Headless model & drawing generation
- iLogic rules & custom add-ins
Model Derivative API
Whatever format your files arrive in (DWG, RVT, STEP, 70+ in all), this API converts them to web-viewable geometry and digs out the properties buried inside them.
- DWG, RVT, IPT, STEP, STL, OBJ + more
- Property & hierarchy extraction
- SVF2 output for Viewer SDK
Viewer SDK
The 3D window your users actually see. Pure WebGL in the page (rotate, measure, section, explode) with no plugin to install and nothing to set up on their machine.
- Rotate, measure, section, explode
- Custom extensions & markup tools
- 70+ formats supported
Data Management API
The file plumbing beneath everything else: upload, download, version, and organize project data across BIM 360, ACC, and Fusion Team, all through REST calls.
Webhooks & Authentication
OAuth 2.0 keeps access locked down; webhooks fire the moment a file changes or a job finishes. Your workflows react to events instead of a person checking for updates.
Engines we run in the cloud
Solutions
What We Build on APS
Five patterns cover most of what manufacturers bring to us.
Web-Based Product Configurators
A dealer picks options on a web form. Behind it, Inventor or AutoCAD builds the model in the cloud, drafts the 2D drawings, prices the BOM, and the quote is ready before the call ends. Engineering never sees the order unless something is genuinely custom.
- Real-time 3D preview via Viewer SDK
- iLogic rules enforce engineering constraints
- PDF drawings & STEP files on demand
Cloud Drawing Automation
A thousand DWGs need new title blocks, and nobody's workstation should be hostage for a week. Push the batch to the AutoCAD engine in the cloud, run your standards checks, collect the PDFs.
- AutoCAD engine in the cloud
- Custom .NET plugins or scripts
- No local licenses required
3D Viewer Portals
Stop exporting screenshots for people who only need to look at the model. Send a link instead: customers and stakeholders rotate, measure, and section the design right in the page.
- Measure, section, explode assemblies
- Custom UI extensions
- 70+ file formats supported
CAD-to-ERP/PLM Integration
The BOM already exists inside the model, yet someone still retypes it into the ERP, and sometimes mistypes it. We extract BOMs, material specs, and iProperties through APS and push them straight into your ERP or PLM: one unbroken thread from design to production.
Batch File Processing & Migration
Legacy library migrations, format conversions, standards sweeps across thousands of files: jobs too big for any workstation run in parallel in the cloud, with metadata extracted and compliance checked on the way through.
Why FDES
APS Projects Stall on the CAD Side, Not the Web Side
The web half of an APS build is ordinary software. The hard half lives inside the engine: why Inventor resolved a constraint the wrong way, why a drawing dimensioned itself strangely, how to author iLogic that holds up across a thousand variants. Web shops hit that wall. CAD-only shops hit the opposite one.
We sit on both sides. 19+ years working the Autodesk APIs, paired with modern web and cloud architecture, and production APS systems already shipped to manufacturers worldwide, from configurators generating thousands of variants to CAD-to-SAP integrations.
Engine internals
AutoCAD .NET, Inventor COM, iLogic, ObjectARX: years spent inside these APIs, not just around them.
Cloud done properly
OAuth, webhooks, REST design, backends that scale, built for production traffic, not demos.
Fluent in manufacturing
BOMs, tolerances, shop-floor realities: we speak your engineers' language before writing code.
Shipped, not prototyped
500+ projects delivered against real manufacturing workloads, not proof-of-concept demos.
Who it's for
Is APS Right for Your Project?
One question decides it: does anyone outside engineering need to see, configure, or generate CAD data? If yes, you're in one of these four situations.
Configure-to-order manufacturers
Every order is a variation on a theme, and today each one still crosses an engineer's desk before anyone can quote it.
Dealer & partner networks
You want distributors specifying and quoting your products accurately, without handing them your CAD environment or paying for their seats.
Teams bridging CAD and ERP
Model data and business data disagree because a human carries numbers between them. You want that bridge to be code: BOMs and metadata flowing into SAP or Oracle on their own.
ISVs building on Autodesk
Your SaaS product needs to read, process, or display Autodesk formats, and you'd rather partner with someone who has already found the APIs' sharp edges.
Questions we hear
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Autodesk Platform Services (APS)?
Autodesk Platform Services (called Forge until Autodesk renamed it) is a set of web APIs exposing the engines behind AutoCAD, Inventor, Revit, and Fusion. Instead of automating CAD on a workstation, you send jobs to those same engines running in Autodesk's cloud and put your own interface on top, usually a web application.
Do end users need Autodesk software installed?
No, and that is the whole point. The CAD engines run on Autodesk's servers, so a salesperson, dealer, or customer works entirely in the browser. Nothing to install, no licenses to buy for them, nothing to keep updated on their machines.
How does APS pricing work?
Autodesk bills APS through Flex tokens: you buy tokens, and the metered APIs (Design Automation and Model Derivative) consume them per job. Development and testing run on a free tier. Before you commit, we model token burn against your expected volumes, so the running cost is a number you have seen, not a surprise on an invoice.
Can APS work with SolidWorks files?
Partly. The Model Derivative API and Viewer SDK translate and display SolidWorks files along with 70+ other formats, so viewing them in the browser works fine. Cloud automation does not: the Design Automation API only runs Autodesk engines. When clients need SolidWorks automation, we build it with the SolidWorks desktop API instead.
How long does a typical APS project take?
An embedded 3D viewer is a 2-4 week job. A full configurator (Design Automation, custom UI, ERP integration) usually runs 3-6 months. You get a firm timeline after the initial audit, once we have seen your models and your workflow.
Track record
The Record Behind Our APS Work
"FDES built our product configurator on Autodesk Platform Services. Our dealers now configure and quote products in minutes instead of waiting days for engineering. The 3D viewer alone transformed our sales process." VP Engineering · Industrial Equipment Manufacturer
Next step
Not Sure APS Fits? Ask. We'll Tell You Straight
Bring us the workflow. If APS is the right platform, we'll sketch the architecture and price the running costs. If it isn't, we'll say so and point you at what is; sometimes the honest answer is "stay on the desktop."
- A straight answer on whether APS suits the job
- An architecture sketch shaped around your workflow
- Flex token costs estimated from your real volumes
- A scoped timeline once we've seen your requirements
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