Top AutoCAD new features
Submitted by rkmcswain on Wed, 07/28/2010 - 18:31
You may have read here and other places where I have been critical of some of the new features in AutoCAD over the years. Things like the Ribbon, the Action Recorder, Infocenter, Quick View Drawings instead of simple tabs, etc.
But the purpose of this post is to discuss some things that really make AutoCAD better, some real time savers. Here is my Mt. Rushmore of new features.
- Sheet Set Manager (2005) - For me and my co-workers, this is the number one tool added to AutoCAD over the past few years. Does it have issues? Yes. Is it full of holes that if filled, could make it even more useful? Yes. But it still has streamlined our drawing production process tremendously, and reduced the number of errors with regard to sheet numbers, drawing titles, etc. Here is a shout out to Heidi Hewett who was a champion for SSM when it came out - thanks for getting us to adopt it early on.
- Locking viewports (2000) – Ok, this one is so old, it shouldn't even count, but it is number 2 for me. Lately, I have found myself almost primarily working in layouts but in model space of a viewport. Being able to set the location and scale of a viewport once and forgetting it is great. I still see so many people ignore this tool.
- Additional Polyline/Hatch Grips (2011) – Whether you are working on a polyline or hatch object, having the ability to edit the polyline or hatch boundary on the fly was worth the wait. This one also has a lot of potential for future additions.
- Selection Cycling (2011) – Before you jump out of your seat going “WHAT??”, this one comes with a disclaimer. You can’t leave this enabled while you are working, unless you are working with really simple drawings. But when you need this tool, switch it on and selecting the correct entity is painless.
Let me know what makes your job easier.
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Top AutoCAD features
The single best addition to AutoCAD over the past 10 years would have to be Properties. I can't imagine using AutoCAD without it but I can easily imagine losing many of the features added over the years; many of them half baked and of dubious usefulness.
Not just viewport lock/unlock...
... but the fact that they put it on a little status-bar icon. The command method was a little tedious.
The hatch-boundary editing grips, and 2011's polyline grip-edits, are also among my favorite recent goodies.
Not to mention 2011's transparency, begged-for in wishlists for a decade.
And as a civil guy, who often uses texty complex linetypes, the UPRIGHT property is mondo-cool. In fact, once I showed everybody that, transparency, and the new polyline editing, I got no complaints about upgrading my users to 2011.
Good ones Earl! Thanks for
Good ones Earl! Thanks for the comment.
You forgot my favorite, the
You forgot my favorite, the options to never prompt me again about shape files.
Script helps a lot if you
Script helps a lot if you have plenty of drawings and Lisp programs can help with a lot of things.
Top Autocad Features
Off the top of my head I would want to suggest Fields and Block tables (not together!).
The Autocad Mtext editor and spell checker may not seem important, but I really miss them when I'm using Inventor.
Autocad's developing the
Autocad's developing the zoom/pan commands into something you don't even think about when working on a drawing is still leaps and bounds over any other CAD/Paint program on the market. The more recent versions are a few steps backwards, I fear; perhaps after working with the program for 20+ years I'm getting a little tired of change for the sake of such.