Autodesk announced on February 5th the new features and enhancements to AutoCAD 2010. Just when you thought AutoCAD couldn't get any better, they go ahead and prove you wrong. Some of the new enhancements are truly exciting additions and others are more about refinement of the system. After all, 2009 was the first year of the ribbon, tweaks were in order. The biggest thing for me is the inclusion of Parametric Drawing. Imagine how nice it would be to have the sketching and constraint system of Inventor in vanilla AutoCAD. Well, imagine no longer. Here are my top two enhancements and a list of the others:
Parametric Drawing
The use of the parametric design should be no stranger to existing Inventor users, who are the majority of my readers, but if you never used Inventor or if you have to use AutoCAD for some part of your work, this is big news. It reminds me of the third party IDX addin that 2009 had available but is definitely more reminiscent of Inventor, right down to the constraints showing up on the object.
You also have parameter control and dimensional relationships here as well.
Free Form and Conceptual Design
The 3D design capabilities in AutoCAD have been significantly improved with the introduction of free-form design. New tools in AutoCAD 2010 enable you to create and modify meshes that are free-form and flowing.
Apply your existing 2D AutoCAD knowledge to create basic shapes in the early stages of your conceptual design. As your design progresses, you can easily modify and mold your model using intuitive tools such as 3D gizmos. And these gizmos do not come with gremlins if you feed them after midnight.
If you would like to know more about the new features you can download the full preview guide. AutoCAD 2010 Preview Guide: 47 pages: Make sure you right click on the link and use Save Target As.
Other Enhancements made to AutoCAD 2010
User Interface
Initial Setup - choose an environment during launch based on your needs
Workspaces - creates a new workspace based on Initial Setup
Application Menu - Streamlined for easy access
Ribbon - updated for greater flexibility and consistency across other applications
Quick Access Toolbar - enhanced with more functionality
Document
Parametric Drawing - see above
Dynamic Blocks - enhanced to use Parametric Drawing tools
Annotation Tools - Misc updates to Find and Replace, Mulitleaders, Mtext, Spell Checker, Dimensions, and Hatch
Color Selection - enhanced for selection in layers
Measure Tools - New MEASUREGEOM command, very powerful
Reverse Tools - Be able to reverse lines, polylines, splines, and helixes
Spline Editing Tools - new SPLINEDIT command
Purge Tools - Purge zero length objects and empty text objects
Viewport Rotation Tools - New VPROTATASSOC variable to rotate orientation within the viewport and not just the viewport object (AUGI wish list item)
External References - Consolodate interface using DWG, DGN, DWF, PDF, and images
Sheet Sets - various updates
Quick Views - now show model space as well as layout previews
Communicate
PDF Support - better publishing visual quality, and PDF underlays
Drawing File Format - the new format increases save times and larger object support
3D Printing - STL output
eTransmit - include unloaded file references
Autodesk Seek - online utility that allows quick product and design information
Explore
Conceptual Design - See above
Free Form Design - See above
Customize
CUIx File - enhanced from the old CUI file, custom imagery allowed
Action Macros - simplified for increased usability and effiency
Online License Transfer - (OLT) move stand alone licenses between computers, replaces the Portable License Utility.
To go along with this we have a new 2010 file format to go in synch with the more recent tradition of a file format change every three releases.
Until next time, may your mouse zoom in the right direction
Comments