As we move into the 21st century, AutoCAD® software continues to evolve, expanding into a platform serving all aspects of the design community. The actual process of drafting and design-that is, the specific use of a CAD tool to create engineering or construction documentation-is estimated to be no more than 5 percent of a company's business process. Yet the resulting design data embodies 95 percent of your company's value.
To
make use of your existing design data, and the millions of legacy DWG
files, you need tools that can extract this information, not just create
it. You need a product that integrates your design work with the broader
business infrastructure. The mission of AutoCAD expands to meet these
growing needs.
AutoCAD 2002 continues to deliver improved ease-of-use, exceptional new
productivity tools, performance, and compatibility with your existing
CAD data. AutoCAD helps manage your standards and collaborate with your
peers to get the very most out of your design data.
In AutoCAD 2002, we improve upon your everyday design activities with
the inclusion of true associative dimensioning, the capability to manipulate
drawing geometry with a corresponding and immediate change in the dimension
or annotation. Drafters will also make immediate use of the new layer,
text, and attribute tools.
For
those who publish design data, an updated DWF format allows for printing
directly from within our popular viewing technology, Volo™ View and
Volo™ View Express. The Publish to Web feature is expanded in this
release to allow for full customization of output as well as the addition
of new templates and themes.
For the CAD manager who needs to validate design data against a company
or industry standard, we offer the new CAD Standards toolset. This feature
provides CAD managers with a robust set of tools to check and encourage
standards compliance, resulting in better coordinated teams, a more efficient
and effective design process, and a higher return on investment in design
tools.
As a part of the expansion of AutoCAD into data sharing and consumption,
we built i-drop™ technology directly into the product. With i-drop,
you can bring intelligent design content directly from a manufacturer's
website into your drawing file. In addition to an object's geometry, i-drop
allows the content provider to attach important and useful information
like spec sheets or material costs and drop it into your design. This
data can then be extracted using the tools in AutoCAD 2002 to create a
bill of materials, for example.
AutoCAD is the platform behind Autodesk's industry product offerings,
including:
· Autodesk® Architectural Desktop
· Autodesk® Mechanical Desktop®
· AutoCAD® Mechanical
· Autodesk® Land Desktop
· Autodesk® Map
Each of these products contains all that the base AutoCAD product has
to offer plus specific functionality designed to meet the needs of each
particular industry. Because they are AutoCAD platform-based products,
data can be shared seamlessly and all are interconnected with tools to
help you work more effectively with your design partners.
AutoCAD is now released regularly, in conjunction with technology "extensions"
which are offered for the current release. Autodesk extensions are small
modular enhancements to Autodesk software products that deliver incremental
features and functions as they are developed.
They offer three direct benefits:
· Immediate access to the latest design tools
· Ease of learning-they're single tools, not widespread changes
to the whole product
· Full compatibility with your current AutoCAD software
Each extension will be incorporated into the next release of AutoCAD.
These extensions, combined with over 3000 existing third-party applications;
full customizability with Visual LISP™, ObjectARX®, and Microsoft's
VBA programming languages; a handheld and wireless solution; and project
hosting and procurement services, make AutoCAD 2002 the design tool of
choice.
So let's get started with an overview of the latest new and updated product features in AutoCAD 2002!
Critical data needs to be disseminated to an entire engineering team. The engineering manager might use e-mail, but the design files aren't applicable to everyone, or are very large. The manager would rather host them in one place and have them accessible inside AutoCAD. The Bulletin Board feature inside AutoCAD Today lets engineering managers deploy critical information to an entire team, including posting necessary design data to be accessed and used in AutoCAD.
The Today window provides the Bulletin Board for communication at your site; access to industry-specific news, resources, and other services through Autodesk Point A; and methods for finding and opening drawings and loading symbol libraries. You and others at your site can communicate design information through the Bulletin Board.
Using
Autodesk Point A, you can receive product updates over the Internet, upload
projects to a Web-based storage location, and read industry news, tips,
and techniques. You can customize your view of Autodesk Point A.
"My Drawings" provides several methods for locating and opening
drawing files, DXF files, and drawing template files. As you move your
pointing device over the drawing's file name, a preview of the drawing
is displayed. You can also load symbol libraries into AutoCAD® DesignCenter™.
Dimensioning is the process of adding measurement annotation to a drawing. AutoCAD provides many ways to dimension objects and many ways to format dimensions. You can create dimensions for a wide variety of object shapes in many different orientations. You can create dimension styles to format dimensions quickly and ensure that dimensions in your drawing conform to industry or project standards.
Dimensions show the measurements of objects, the distances or angles between objects, or the distance of a feature from an origin you specify. AutoCAD provides three basic types of dimensioning: linear, radial, and angular. Dimensions can be horizontal, vertical, aligned, rotated, ordinate, baseline, or continued.
Associate dimensioning defines the relationship between geometric objects and the dimensions that give their distance and angles. The associative dimensions in AutoCAD 2002 automatically adjust their locations, orientations, and measurement values when the geometric objects associated with them are modified. Design integrity of drawings is improved, since changes in geometry are reflected immediately in the dimension tied to the geometry.
For even more complex geometry, you can associate several dimensions to a single point. Once that point is altered, all attached dimension annotations automatically update.
This feature improves support for paper space dimensions of model space objects (trans-spatial references), eliminating the need for manual updating of this type of dimension when the associated model space geometry is modified. A long-standing wishlist item has been to tie paper space dimensions to model space geometry. That need is now satisfied with associative dimensioning.
For those legacy drawings without associative dimensioning, AutoCAD 2002 has the capability to walk you through each dimension and associate it with it's corresponding geometry.
An
attribute is a label or tag that attaches data to a block. Examples of
data that might be contained in an attribute are part numbers, prices,
comments, and owners' names. The tag is equivalent to a column name in
a database table. Attribute information extracted from a drawing can be
used in a spreadsheet or database to produce a parts list or a bill of
materials.
You can associate more than one attribute with a block, provided that
each attribute has a different tag. We've created a set of attribute tools
that makes managing and extracting this information easier than ever before.
The Block Attribute Manager enables you to easily modify attributes within a block without having to explode or redefine the block. All changes are immediately reflected in the existing block insertions.
The
Enhanced Attribute Editor improves and supplements the existing DDATTE/ATTEDIT
commands, and allows the editing of attributes in a selected block reference.
You can edit an attribute's value, text-related settings, and properties,
and all changes are automatically displayed in the AutoCAD editor as they
are made.
The Enhanced Attribute Editor allows editing of attributes in a selected
block reference. Its functionality and user interface design are like
the Block Attribute Manager but restricted to editing only selected block
references.
Unlike the older attribute editing commands, the Enhanced Attribute Editor
permits editing of all text-related options and properties, and all changes
are automatically displayed in the AutoCAD editor as they are made.
Two
new tools for working with layers were added to AutoCAD in the XML/Data
Extension.
You can use Layer Previous to undo changes you make to layer settings.
For example, if you freeze several layers and change some of the geometry
in a drawing, and then want to thaw the frozen layers, you can do this
with a single command, without affecting the geometry changes. In another
example, if you changed the color and linetype of several layers but later
decide you prefer the old properties, you can use Layer Previous to undo
the changes and restore the original layer settings.
The Layer Translator complements the CAD standards functionality, extending your ability to correct standards violations quickly and accurately. The Layer Translator tool makes it easy to convert drawings from one layer standard to another using existing drawing or standards files as a reference.
Using
the Layer Translator, you can convert layers in one drawing to standards
you define. For example, if you receive a drawing from a company that
does not follow your company's layer conventions, you can convert the
drawing's layer names and properties to your company's standards. You
can map layers in the drawing you are currently working on to different
layers in another drawing or standards file, and then convert the current
layers using those mappings. If the drawings contain layers of the same
name, the Layer Translator can automatically change the properties of
the current layers to match those in the other layers.
As design professionals, you live in a world where project collaboration and data sharing is increasing dramatically. Driven by the globalization of business, the requirements of fast track projects dictate that data is shared between individuals and offices within an organization, and between organizations themselves. Without the implementation of standards, this round tripping of design data can result in errors that are costly and time consuming to fix.
The CAD Standards feature provides a way to associate standards (DWS) files with AutoCAD® drawings, and perform interactive and batch audits to ensure that any discrepancies between a drawing file and its associated standards can be resolved.
The Batch Standards Checker performs batch audits on multiple drawings and generates a browser-viewable report of standards violations.
The Enhanced Attribute Extract tool allows the easy extraction of block attribute data to comma-separated text (.csv), Microsoft Excel® (.xls) and Microsoft Access® (.mdb) formats. You can attach alias names to blocks and attributes, publish data from multiple drawings and xref attachments, and save templates of selected blocks, attributes and alias information for reuse against any drawing or set of drawings. The Enhanced Attribute Extract tool consists of a wizard that guides you through the process of attribute extraction.
Once reviewed, the engineering drawings may have to be sent to a third party for some additional work or sent to the manufacturer for an RFQ. Again, the drawings can be put on a ZIP disk, or e-mailed, but this doesn't easily take into consideration all xrefed drawings, fonts and shape files, plot styles, and so forth. The eTransmit function automatically assembles all necessary information into a single, comprehensive package of information that can be compressed and password-protected for distribution.
eTransmit allows you to pack currently open drawings with all associated files and X-refs into a single transmittal set so that it can be sent to your extended design team. eTransmit makes sharing of design files a breeze. You can share design files both internally and externally, with members of extended design teams and with suppliers and customers.
In AutoCAD 2002, eTransmit is also standards-aware, dramatically increasing the value of this collaboration tool. Now eTransmit automatically includes the DWS standards file associated with the drawing if one has been created. With this capability, everyone on the entire design team can operate using a single standard.
eTransmit ensures that all design files are pack up for sending thus reduces confusion, turnaround time in design review and inefficiencies in communication.
Once the engineering documentation is done, it has to be reviewed by peers and an engineering manager. The designs could be individually e-mailed to these peers, or the original engineer could publish them to an internal URL so that all members of the design team, whether or not they use CAD software, can interactively review and comment on a single set of drawings. If external audiences have to share the information as well, the engineer can publish the data to a website.
Moreover, i-drop capabilities enable companies to publish interactive block, symbol, and drawing libraries to a corporate intranet, or perhaps a secure extranet. Autodesk's i-drop technology enhances the collaborative design process by allowing users to view and then drag relevant content directly into their drawings.
The Publish to Web feature was introduced in the first AutoCAD Extension. It provided a mechanism for users to easily create a Web page that contained images of AutoCAD drawing files. Publish to Web handled all details of generating the HTML code and outputting the images, so users with little or no prior Web development knowledge could readily use the feature.
Publish to Web II builds upon that feature set by offering a number of key enhancements. Additional templates and the introduction of themes offer users greater control over the formatting of their generated web pages.
You can even create your own templates based upon your own intranet/Internet sites. And you can add i-drop capabilities to these sites for content delivery.
I-drop™
is a new Autodesk technology enabling designers and developers to create
web content that gives you the ability to drag design content from a web
page directly into your design products.
For example, imagine that you are a lighting designer and require a specific
fixture to embed within your AutoCAD or 3D Studio VIZ® session. Now
imagine that a lighting company's website contains a library of its fixtures
from which you can browse, then drag the appropriate fixture into your
design session. Forget about the days of downloading, then inserting it.
Now you can drag any DWG or MAX file from an I-drop enabled website and
drop its geometry directly into your Autodesk product.
Let's take it a step further. Besides geometry, what else would you like
to see from a manufacturer? How about photometric data, cost information,
or materials? With I-drop, all of this is now possible.
The XML-based technology of I-drop makes its data-carrying potential limitless.
What data is completely up to you, the designer.
Within the AutoCAD 2002 Publish to Web feature, you can publish I-drop
enabled websites from your block libraries or design files.
Want to learn more about this technology? Visit http://idrop.autodesk.com on the Internet.