AutoCAD 2009
Published Mon 19 May 2008
The trees are blossoming and lambs are in the fields – that must mean it’s also time for a new AutoCAD! Autodesk has just released its yearly update to its flagship and foundation drawing and modelling tool. Martyn Day reports.
With Autodesk Subscription being the lowest-cost way to own and maintain AutoCAD seats, the annual Spring update has now become the highlight of the Autodesk year. But what could Autodesk add this time to the world’s most popular drafting package and how easy to learn are the new features?
With each instalment to the AutoCAD story, Autodesk has tended to bundle up functionality to focus on specific problems or expand capability in new areas, such as 3D, Design Management, Collaboration, Printing etc. It’s also a chance for Autodesk to add base functionality to assist vertical products which are built on top, such as AutoCAD Mechanical. For AutoCAD 2009 the development work has been all about getting back to good old-fashioned productivity, with some changes to the User Interface and useful additions to its visualisation capabilities.
The improvements really cover a broad range of everyday-used features and if I had to sum up 2009 in a word, it would be ‘slick’.
What’s new?
On opening up the CD box the first thing that struck me was the handy set of ‘feature cards’ which are there to help you get acquainted to the new interface and features. These are really clear and handy for when you load it up for the first time and want to dive straight in. After install, the software also provides a wealth of orientation materials to get you up and running really quickly. The new User Interface is strikingly different but if you don’t want to use it, you can simply opt for the ‘Classic’ interface.
The big news for AutoCAD 2009 is a brand new ‘Ribbon’ interface which not only looks the part but is designed to decrease the number of steps to reach a command.
The new interface is designed to optimise the workspace and is said to really come into its own should you opt to run AutoCAD in dual monitor mode. The menu palettes are organised in what’s called a ‘Ribbon’, a strip of tabbed and panelled commands, with quick menu access (with dynamic filtering) and a status bar at the bottom.
I have to say I really like the new interface; it’s really customisable too and it doesn’t take that long to get used to. In fact the menu access command will re-introduce you to many of the features in AutoCAD that you probably forgot were there. Recent documents are visually previewed, together when browsing to open files. There are a number of ‘Quick’ commands; quick properties, quick layouts and quick view and these are certainly worth exploring. Right clicking menu commands works more intuitively and the background is default ‘creamy’ off-white and have no fear, the command line is still there.
Drafting and design
For all those repetitive tasks there’s the new ‘Action Recorder’. Simply start the command and AutoCAD will record what you do, save it as a macro and you can call it back. Macros can call on other macros and it’s possible to insert text prompts and pauses for user input. This is a great way of writing macros for those that don’t want to learn AutoLISP or Visual Basic.
The Action Recorder makes it incredibly easy to write Macros without having to learn AutoLisp or Visual Basic.
The Layer management properties manager has been beefed up and now can be made persistent so you never have to hit ‘apply’ again as selections are applied immediately. Layer isolate and Layer combine are welcome additions.
There are a number of other additional features and enhancements. Of particular note are: the ability to edit clipped Xrefs with grips, the Array command is now interactive (allowing zooming and panning before accepting arrayed objects) and Find and Replace commands have been given more options.
AutoCAD 2009 now supports DGN out, allowing files from AutoCAD to be imported into MicroStation V7 or V8 and there are new tools to allow the mapping of layers, linetypes and lineweights to AutoCAD equivalents.AutoCAD 2009 also includes support for DWFx, which is a DWF format that is compliant with Microsoft’s XML Paper Specifi cation (XPS) format and is viewable in Windows Vista without any additional software. It’s also worth noting that the DWG file format is the same as 2008.
Visualisation
As part of an ongoing company-wide directive, interface standards are being harmonised and AutoCAD 2009 now includes the ViewCube and Steering Wheel icons for easily manipulation and navigation around 3D files. You will find these in many other Autodesk applications.
The big new visualization feature for Auto-CAD 2009 is called ShowMotion and this lets you create and play camera animations or shots, stored within the file, as well as navigate through your design. These can be cinematic, recorded walk-throughs or stills.
The ‘virtual’ locations can be geographically located by importing files in the Google Earth format, in addition to Latitude and Longitude.
Conclusion
AutoCAD 2009 packs a punch for both 2D and 3D customers. Its new, contemporary User Interface really does make for more drawing space and offers some cool innovations for navigating, opening and searching through drawings. However, you don’t have to use it if you don’t want to, as the classic UI is still optional. The support for 64-bit and Windows Vista will also benefit those users with large models.
