AutoCAD-AutoDesk

What's New in AutoCAD 2012 | Trends

We are a few days from seeing the first notice of what brings back AutoCAD 2012, project coined as Iron-man. Before that happens, I have been reviewing my assumptions from the beginning of the year and comparing with the leaks that local dealers have released.

AUTOCAD-2012 The following is a comparative chart of the news that we have seen in the last four versions of AutoCAD. While there were many other existing commands that improved, this is only the novelty that stands out each year. 

  • It may be noted that the greatest impact of 2008 was on the ability to interact (import) with DGN formats and something with Excel.
  • Then in 2009 the big change is the Ribbon That initially seemed radical to us, but that between 2010 and 2011 we have been able to see insistence on avoiding less interference with the workspace and personalization. Also at the navigation level, the ViewCube was a great novelty.
  • In AutoCAD 2010, the constraints that make the vectors a bit more intelligent stand out, as well as improvements to 3D mesh management, handling of PDF files and support for 3D printers.
  • In the news of AutoCAD 2011 appears, it is difficult to understand why they took so long, the transparencies and management with similar objects. The support for point cloud is very useful, and continuing with improvements from 2010, the handling of 3D surfaces is enhanced.
AutoCAD 2008 AutoCAD 2009 AutoCAD 2010 AutoCAD 2011
Annotation Scaling      
Multileaders   Improved  
Data linking with Excel      
DGN 8 Import, Export, and Underlay      
  Ribbon Improved Improved
  Quick Access Toolbar    
  SteeringWheels   Improved
  ViewCube   Improved
  Autodesk Impression Improved
  Autodesk Seek Improved
  Action Recorder Improved Improved
    Geometry Measurement Tools  
    Geometric Constraints Improved
    Dimensional Constraints Improved
    Mesh Primitives  
    Mesh Conversion  
    Mesh Smoothing  
    Mesh Editing Improved
    PDF Underlay  
    3D Printing  
    Initial Drawing Setup  
    CUIx File Format  
    Online License Transfer  
      Inferred Constraints
      Object / Layer Transparency
      Hide / Isolate Objects
      Select Similar Objects
      Create Similar Objects
      Welcome Screen
      Surface Associativity
      Surface Analysis
      Point Cloud Support
4 news

7 news

0 upgrades to previous years

12 news

5 upgrades to previous years

9 news

7 upgrades to previous years

So, looking at what has happened in the last four years, we can assume the following trends:

1. More innovation in AutoCAD 2012.

As history has seen, the even versions of AutoCAD are always more innovative, while the odd ones focus on continuity of previous improvements. That is why we remember a lot as versions R12, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2006; and you can see this trend in the 2010 version compared to 2011.

Then, the version of AutoCAD 2012 can expect more general news, rather than focusing on specific topics.

AutoCAD 2012

2. Search for improvement of team performance.

Among the novelties, it is believed that AutoCAD 2012 may bring better performance in the management of views. When we refer to views, we are talking about displays of different areas of the drawing, in different perspective, with different hidden layers, and that work dynamically. So switching from one view to another does not imply regeneration of the drawing, while it would be more profitable to work with several monitors at the same time.

This is why competitive programs call it Dynamic Views, and well constructed would improve the performance of the equipment, because in some way they operate as a spatial index based on a deployment that is not in the same memory consumption nor does it require an extra process.

I have my doubts if they will be able to continue an almost parallel version between the version of Windows and AutoCAD for Mac. Because with the White Manzanita, implementing these types of changes do not require much prayer to the saints, but with the way PC processors operate and Windows resource management, things are different. It is very likely that on Mac we can see more efficient real-time rendering or point cloud management, but on PC AutoDesk will probably begin to think about sending multiple processes through equipment that support graphics cards of this level and thus we go from the obsolete PC to GPU.

For now, for 3D work AutoCAD 2011 requires an Intel Pentium 4 processor or an AMD Athlon, 3 GHz; otherwise an Intel or AMD dual-core with 2 GHz. 2 GB RAM. As we can see, it is not that it is at the top of the food chain of the best that PCs have done, but when AutoDesk says “or more” it means that in that resource the process runs, but with an iota of bad humor on the part user.

3. Improvements to previous news, not much.

Seeing the trend, we can have new improvements to the management of the Ribbon, perhaps the possibility of releasing it vertically so that more use can be made of the workspace on the monitors that are getting wider every day or when working on multiple monitors. Although in this I have my doubts, it could be that we can just customize it more, and find faster what we use frequently, but always up there.

Also in the trend we have seen to improve 3D capabilities, which began with the handling of meshes, then surfaces, we expect improvements in the rendering process, leading to saved styles that are applied if not on the fly, more efficiently in the Dynamic views. Perhaps the management of materials and their application is more practical than it is now.

Autocad 2012 news 4. Better object management

Here, it is expected that objects can be grouped together, not necessarily turning them into blocks. Remove, put new objects, stretch, scale, the group of objects maintaining characteristics such as text size, dimensioning style, line style scale as they are no longer a prisoner block. I can imagine this utility to manage objects with attributes instead of making them blocks or moving them to a specific level.

Also in this sense, it is hoped that the array command can be improved to apply to a path, similar to what we do with the measure command with blocks. But with 3D scope, and perhaps with a deformation from one figure to another, which would give it interesting potential for handling strange 3D designs.

 

We'll see in a few days what happens in a few days.

Golgi Alvarez

Writer, researcher, specialist in Land Management Models. He has participated in the conceptualization and implementation of models such as: National Property Administration System SINAP in Honduras, Management Model of Joint Municipalities in Honduras, Integrated Cadastre-Registry Management Model in Nicaragua, Territory Administration System SAT in Colombia . Editor of the Geofumadas knowledge blog since 2007 and creator of the AulaGEO Academy that includes more than 100 courses on GIS - CAD - BIM - Digital Twins topics.

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2 Comments

  1. I think you didn't read slowly. She says "It is very likely that on Mac we can see real-time rendering or more efficient point cloud management…”

    Referring to an upcoming version of AutoCAD for Mac, of which until now there is only the 2011 version, and as a probability.

    Whether or not we will see it is a matter of time. I give the reason that for that lack, despite the efforts we have seen in platforms that taking advantage of CUDA technology have already rendered efficient, as we saw in GeoTec 2008. We assume that the Luxology rendering technology will also have advances beyond what we already see, when it begins to take advantage of the multi-process.

  2. It does me an outrage to assume that any Mac can render in real time. The reality is that GPU rendering is barely on the cards, Nvidia (provider of commercial graphics cards and professionals of pc and apple) has little with CUDA technology, V-ray and the other leaders of render are in poor render versions in real time

    I consider that the article is imprecise and badly designed, lacking concrete information and unreliable sources

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