AutoCAD 2004: Miscellaneous Comments
reprinted by permission of Ralph Grabowski, editor
March 11, 2003
Channel Business reports Autodesk first planned to
ship the new release last September; AutoCAD 2004 is to be
available for purchase next Monday, March 17.
The announcement date was scheduled originally for March 10,
but then was moved a week earlier to March 3. One industry
watcher wondered if the date changed to accommodate Microsoft
announcing its Office 2003 beta 2 on the 10th.
At US$3,795, the suggested list price remains the same, with
the upgrade from AutoCAD 2002 priced at $495. The list price is
fictional, however, because Autodesk sells AutoCAD for $400 less
from its Web site.
"Usually 30% to 40% of Autodesk's installed base of AutoCAD
users upgrade to the latest version," says Gene Munster, an
analyst with US Bancorp Piper Jaffray. Munster expects this
year's upgrades to be on the low end of those norms. -
Investor's Business Daily
Reader Matthew Taylor asked me if Autodesk will "obit"
AutoCAD 2000 in six months time (the date after which customers
pay full price to upgrade). When asked directly during a
conference call, CEO Carol Bartz didn't reply directly, but said
that customers would be given plenty of warning. I suspect
Autodesk will handle things different from the R14 obit. While
upgrade revenue roughly doubled in that quarter, many (most?)
R14 owners did not upgrade. As a result, Autodesk created a
large barrier preventing R14 (and earlier) users from upgrading
to 2004.
Mark Middlebrook and Patrick Emin solved my puzzlement over
the purpose of the new QNnew command: it starts a new drawing
based on a template, but only if a .dwt file has been specified
in the Options dialog box.
David Edwards alerted me to an unannounced feature: the Trim
and Extend commands, introduced in 1986, now have a multiple
option.
Odin Cary agreed with my comment that features from
Mechanical should be in base AutoCAD: "Development in one flavor
should be available for all. Some simple tools in ADT could help
all AutoCAD users a lot. And, we could all use some Map database
features. In ADT, for example, the DesignCenter sports a bit of
a reactor feature (basically a script); when objects are dragged
in, a script scales the object or sets it on the correct layer.
This should be standard, but who am I, right?"
Along with me, Jon Fleming is puzzled by Autodesk leaving in
PsOut (Encapsulated PostScript export) but removing PsIn
(import). Maybe the code is too deeply embedded; I suspect
Microsoft frowns on close partners supporting arch-rival Adobe's
PostScript format, so Convert (imports PostScript fonts), PsFill
(fills areas with PostScript patterns) and PsOut continue to be
undocumented, release after release.
AutoCAD 2004 supports Pantone and RAL. RAL is short for "Reichs-Ausschuß
für Lieferbedingungen" (German for "realm committee for supply
conditions") and is administered by the German Institute for
Quality Assurance and Labeling <http://www.blitzschutz.com/ral/index.htm
>.
Ted Schaefer wonders about: (1) the speed increase that
Autodesk claims; and (2) the IT-friendly installation. I know
nothing of IT installations, but Terry Dotson reveals why
Autodesk is trumpeting AutoCAD 2004's faster speed over
networks: on local drives, it opens and saves drawings more
slowly than AutoCAD 2002 [I had noticed that, even without
benchmarking]. Perhaps the bottleneck moves to the CPU
decompressing and compressing the new .dwg format by 40%.
Details at
http://www.dotsoft.com/acad2004.htm.
Jimmy Bergmark adds a detail: "Not the whole .dwg file is
internally zipped. The preview bitmap is excluded" [because, I
think, Windows expects uncompressed BMP images]. More at
http://www.jtbworld.com/?/autocad2004.htm.
CAD Forum reveals that the building shown on AutoCAD 2004
splash screen is the "Stade de France" stadium (Macary, Zublena
et Regembal, Costantini - Architectes, Paris, 2003), designed in
AutoCAD. (The AutoCAD 2002 splash screen is of the Sydney
bridge, not designed in AutoCAD.) Other answers at
http://www.cadforum.cz/cadforum_en/default.asp.
To celebrate the new AutoCAD, the
Autodesk Web site has
been redesigned.
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