AutoCAD 2004 - A Worthy Upgrade
By Martyn Day, editor, CADserver
And so the AutoCAD juggernaut continues. Since the launch of
AutoCAD 2000 in 1999, all subsequent releases have seemed to
blend together with little to really distinguish them - an
enhanced feature here, a new feature there, but nothing major or
jaw dropping. Perhaps Autodesk was preoccupied with luring users
to their vertical applications - Architectural Desktop,
Mechanical Desktop and Inventor - and as a result core AutoCAD
development and marketing suffered. With AutoCAD 2004,
however, Autodesk's development team has shaken off its malaise
and released a good looking, comprehensive and feature-rich
AutoCAD for the Windows XP era. While it’s true that much of
what is new is the result of user requests (from user group wish
lists), Autodesk has come up with a number of nice changes and
additions to the program's functionality and user interface.
Below, I have highlighted some of the most useful additions
and changes I have encountered so far in AutoCAD 2004.
New Features
User Interface
2004 is the first fully compliant XP release of AutoCAD,
making the most of the interface improvements that Microsoft put
into Windows XP. The machine I am currently writing this article
on is my exceedingly heavy Pentium IV workstation, which runs
Windows Millennium Edition (Me) - probably the most heinous
operating system ever devised by man. My home machine and test
workstation both run XP; in over six months of operating XP I
have yet to witness either machine crash. Sure, some
applications may become unstable and bomb out but the machine’s
core system is always up and running. If you are not on XP yet,
I highly recommend making the move, even if you run a lowly
Pentium III, as I do at home. A further reason to upgrade is
that AutoCAD 2004 does not support Windows 95/98/Me but only XP,
2000 and NT 4.0. AutoCAD 2004's interface changes are
substantial but not so radical that you won't know what's what.
XP is easier on the eye than previous Windows releases and
AutoCAD now makes good use of those changes. The biggest new
feature of the interface is the inclusion of Tool Palettes,
which provides an easy place to store patterns, symbols or
blocks, for drag and drop placement. Easy for users to create
themselves, these palettes enable specific jobs or drawings to
be associated with project standard palettes. While these menus
can take up valuable drawing space, they can be docked or set to
Auto-hide. There's even a facility to make the palettes
transparent, to show the drawing underneath. The command line
can also be 'torn off' and placed anywhere on screen. All very
cool stuff. One of the more annoying of previous AutoCAD
enhancements has thankfully disappeared. The 'AutoCAD Today' Web
start-up menu has been replaced in AutoCAD 2004 with something
Autodesk calls the Communication Center. This feature notifies
users about downloadable updates and product support information
but isn't so 'in your face' as AutoCAD Today. When downloads
become available a small bubble appears in the lower right-hand
corner, similar to the Windows Update feature. While a nice
touch, it makes me wonder how CAD managers will deal with this,
as keeping everyone on the same version of the release is
important on major projects. Still, this can be controlled with
the network install version of AutoCAD 2004.
More Speed, Smaller Files and Faster loading - But no SAVE
AS R14
Since R14, Autodesk has promised that subsequent releases of
AutoCAD would be speedier. With 2004, considerable effort has
been put into reducing file size by compression, coupled with
faster loading and individual feature improvement. But these
changes have come at a cost, and that cost is that DWG has
changed yet again. Changes in DWG format cause all kinds of
headaches for users who operate mixed CAD environments, offices
that run mixed versions of AutoCAD and third-party developers.
2004 can Save As previous versions, back to R2000, but cannot
Save As R14, the last 'big' release of AutoCAD before the fairly
recent AutoCAD 2002. Some features when Saved As a previous
release and edited may not come back quite as intended (like the
formatting in the new Mtext). If the files have not been
altered, 2004 will load all the entities as they were originally
intended. On average, the compression reduces AutoCAD files by
40 to 50%, which is good but then disk space is cheap these days
anyway. The quicker file loads are visible as AutoCAD entities
appear as they are read, not in one big lump at the end. The
speed of loading varies depending on the file contents; some
users have found AutoCAD 2000 to be quicker on a single machine,
while others report 2004 has the edge when loading over a
network. It's also worth noting that as DWG has changed, so has
DXF.
Autodesk's AutoCAD programming language, ARX, has also been
updated, which means that applications that worked with 2002
will not work with AutoCAD 2004. Updated, recompiled
applications will have to be purchased if your company uses ARX
applications. Free DWF Viewer In - Free DWG Viewer Out
The Design Web Format was introduced as a lightweight
semi-dumb format for sending or viewing AutoCAD drawings over
the Web. AutoCAD 2004 sees the introduction of a new version of
DWF - called DWF 6 - which offers expanded functionality.
The new DWF files can be viewed and printed with the Autodesk
Express Viewer, included with all 2004 products and downloadable
on the Internet (only 2Mb), which replaces the previously
available Volo View Express program (a 25Mb download that could
view DWG, DXF, DWF and Inventor formats).
I asked Autodesk if this meant that Volo View Express was
dead. The official reply stated, "Not as such. Volo View Express
will still be about. However, we will no longer be developing
the Express version of the Volo View product. This is due to the
focus we are now putting on DWF, and thus Autodesk Express
Viewer, as the preferred sharing file format. Just as the Adobe
PDF platform enables engineering professionals to securely and
reliably distribute documentation, Autodesk DWF technology
enables you to do the same with complex design information. It
is the ideal format for exchanging drawings, drawing sets, 3D
models, and extended product design data. DWF has been an
Autodesk publishing format for five years and the redesigned DWF
6 is now designed to be the backbone of Autodesk file sharing.”
So there you have it: Autodesk will no longer provide a free,
up-to-date DWG viewing tool; instead they will only offer a free
DWF viewer. Should you want to view a 2004 DWG file, Autodesk
would like you to pay for the next release of Volo View (version
3), which will be the mark-up and viewing program for 2004 DWG
files. I can't help feeling that this is a case of Autodesk
giving you something with one hand and taking away with the
other. It's worth noting that Cimmetry Systems has already
developed a 2004 DWG viewing tool which, by the time you have
read this, will be available as a patch for existing AutoVue
customers (see
Cimmetry's AutoVue Now Supports AutoCAD 2004). It will ship
in Version 17.1 of AutoVue, due out around May. The Cimmetry
View and Markup solution supports the password protection and
also digital signature features of the new 2004 format. Because
Volo View 3 isn't available, it looks like Cimmetry will be the
first to support the new 2004 DWG. True color
AutoCAD 2004 now supports True Color, which means you can now
choose from a palette of 16.1 million colors. You can also now
define color by RGB value (red, green, blue) or even hue,
saturation or luminance (HSL). AutoCAD 2004 also supports the
industry standard Pantone color definition standard,
guaranteeing the color output (when used with a Pantone
calibrated printer). Gradient Fills
This feature is a bit esoteric but I am sure some will be
happy to use it instead of products like Corel Draw or Adobe
Illustrator. Put simply, 2004 can now produce color fills that
transition color intensity (vignette) or between two colors. The
controls for this are well laid out although it's easy to ruin a
lovely drawing with gaudy color fills. In the right hands (not
mine) I'm sure this can produce a decent effect! Mtext
This features should be included in Updated Features section
below, but so much work has been done to Mtext that it's worthy
of 'new feature' status. The excellent interface no longer
operates within a frame, providing almost in-place editing. Also
the power of the new Mtext is vastly improved. AutoCAD now
imports ASCII and Word formatted text for quick insertion.
Instant XREF access
This is a new capability for XREF users that simply (with a
right click) lets you open an XREF as a separate drawing for
editing. This is a powerful and time-saving tool when searching
for XREFs documents to edit. There is a danger of course that
you may not want users editing the XREFs so easily since changes
to XREFs could impact many drawings. Publish
It's now possible to create a single DWF that contains many
drawings. Publish also doubles as a new batch plotting utility
to plot paper drawings with a number of useable features.
License Portability Borrowing
It's possible to check out the license of AutoCAD on your
workstation and move to the installation on your laptop.
Similarly, it's possible to borrow and time-limit additional
seats of AutoCAD. This offers great flexibility.
Bundled Features
When the Web first started to look like a great place for
software companies to sell applications directly to users,
Autodesk's AutoCAD development team created a number of useful
additional tools for AutoCAD. These were called the Express
Tools and were available on the Web for less than $100.
Then, as Autodesk developed its subscription model, streaming
features to users who paid an annual fee, these tools were given
away as part of the subscription program. New features are
constantly
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