How Suite It Is!

I’m sure by now you have at least heard about the Autodesk® Suites and most likely you may already have a version in your office or home. The Autodesk® Autocad® Design Suite 2014 Edition comes in three versions, Standard, Premium, and Ultimate. These are bundled Autodesk® products designed to enhance your productivity. You have probably asked yourself or your local Autodesk® reseller, “Why do I need all that software to do my job?” That is a valid question. In my next few posts I will key on these products and try to help you understand how you can benefit from them. 

Here are the offerings for each edition:

The products in the Standard version give you tools to do the following:

·         Digitize scanned drawings and plans
·         Create and sketch you designs
·         Explore your designs in 3D
·         Translate 3^rd party file formats into DWG
·         Use comprehensive documentation tools
·         Online file exchange in the Autodesk Cloud
·         Showcase designs with illustrated drawings, renderings and 3d presentations
·         Explore form, fit, finish, and function of your designs

In addition to the above the Premium version gives you:

·         Interactive presentations and high quality renderings
·         Simulate and analyze sun, sky and lighting on your design.

And the Ultimate version gives you ALL the above plus:

·         Ability to model Class-A surfaces, dynamic shapes, and advanced 3d geometry

AutoCAD® is a no-brainer, and you probably have a good idea what AutoCAD® Raster Design can do. So, what about the other products in the bundle?

AutoDesk® SketchBook® Designer

Autodesk SketchBook Designer software is no longer available for retail purchase effective November 1, 2012

Autodesk will continue to support SketchBook Designer customers with standard support through 2014. They will honor valid Autodesk® Subscription agreements until they expire.

Autodesk® SketchBook® Pro is available as a separate purchase.

Autodesk® Showcase®

This package gives you easy to use presentation and design exploration tools. It is valuable to architects, designers, engineers, and marketing professionals. You can quickly transform your 3D CAD model into an interactive walk-through or presentation. You can apply materials, lights and even environments.

I have had the opportunity to review the courseware for this product and it is very easy to use. We offer a 2-day course here at Mid-West CAD, Inc. on ShowCase Fundamentals.

Here is a rendering using Autodesk® Revit® 2013 and Autodesk® ShowCase® 2013.

I will talk about the other offerings as well as other Suites such as the Autodesk® Building® Design Suite in future posts.

Till next time

Bob

AutoCAD 2014 - Merging Traffic!

Merge Layers

We now have the option to merge layers. You can select one or more layers from your layer list and merge the objects from those layers into a different layer. The original layers are then purged from the drawing file. In the past I used the “Layer Translator” in a way that it was not intended to accomplish this.

Select the layers that you wish to merge in the Layer Properties Dialog, right-click and select “Merge selected layer(s) to…

The “Merge to Layer” dialog appears for you to select which layer you want to merge the selected layers into.

How easy is that! Thank you Autodesk! Till next time.

Bob

AutoCAD 2014 - Keeping Tabs on your drawing files

In earlier version of Autocad, switching between drawings required you to use Ctrl+Tab keys or switch your Ribbon to the View tab and use the Switch Windows drop-down menu. In Autocad 2014 we now have drawing file tabs.

You will find them just below the Ribbon. There are several tasks that you can perform from this area.

• Switch between open drawings             
• Reorder the drawing file tabs
• Access layouts of open drawings         
•  Open an existing drawing
• Create a new drawing                            
• Close all drawings, one drawing, or all except one drawing
• Save a drawing, Saveas, and save all open drawings
• Copy the file path to the clipboard
• Open Windows Explorer at the location of the drawing

I used Ctrl+Tab but I had to keep hitting it until the drawing that I wanted was on top. I can now just go to the tab of the desired drawing and click just once to access it!

Till next time.

Bob

AutoCAD 2014 and Windows 8

One of the first questions that I receive is "Can Autocad 2014 be installed on Windows 8 ?". The answer to that is yes you can. AutoCAD 2014 can be installed on Windows XP, Windows 7, and Windows 8. AutoCAD 2014 is the first release that supports Windows 8. Earlier releases of AutoCAD do run on Windows 8, but they are not officially supported. So if you are using Windows 8, you will want to upgrade to AutoCAD 2014 for support purposes.

If you are going to use AutoCAD 2014 on a touch screen device, you will want to make sure you enable the Display Touch Mode Ribbon Panel option on the System tab of the Options dialog box.

Till next time

Bob

P.S. Have you seen the new Autodesk Logo?