AutoCAD 2005

With AutoCAD 2004, Autodesk has made some grassroots changes to the industry standard 2D product. Alterations have come in the form of the file sizes becoming up to 52 percent smaller, and improvement in the workflow techniques. AutoCAD 2004 also offers migration from older versions in a much simpler way with automatic migration of all the settings such as menus, quick key settings and hatch patterns being transferred painlessly. Now whether designers adopt these techniques is a question only time can tell, but they are some great enhancements all the same. 

Sheet Sets



File management is one of the most difficult tasks for any designer, be an architect or a graphic designer. Since by the end of the project you are left with hundreds of files in various versions, and finding a file in this case can be a nightmare. To solve this problem AutoCAD 2005 has introduced sheetsets. A layout is called a sheet and can be managed through the Sheet Set Manager, which is a collection of sheets of the same project. Members of a project can access all the sheets from a LAN. This reduces the time taken and confusion caused because of redundant and missing drawings.

The Sheet Set Manager also helps in maintaining all references and cross-references of the various drawings in a sheetset. For instance, in the older versions, if you inserted a new sheet in a set of drawings, you would need to go to each sheet to update the page numbers. Now it gets done automatically.

Interface



The interface enhancements have come in a multitude of ways to enhance the workflow. Firstly, the tool palettes, one of the major improvements in the previous version of AutoCAD have been given additional functionality. Now all commands, macros and calls to LISP routines can be assigned to these custom toolbars.

Another major improvement comes in the form of Layer Properties Manager, in which a small apply button, helps you preview the changes that have been made in the layers before committing them. A very simple thing, but a big time saver. 

Tables



One of the major problems with all the older versions was creating of a list, schedule or legend. You had to draw tables row-by-row and column-by-column using basic shapes such as lines and squares, making the task tedious and time consuming. And if you had to insert a row or a column, then you really had it. 

The new table command takes care of all aspects of making a table in AutoCAD, and is similar to the table command in Word. The features include merging of cells, insertion of rows and complex commands such as changing the height and width of cells.

It also does the inevitable-import text from various applications such as Excel to facilitate data entry into these tables.

Fields



With all sheets of a project organized under the sheetsets, it gives a lot of control to the project manager. One of the tools that lets you exercise this control is fields. These are object placeholders that let you place content in them, which could be changed across sheets. For instance, in the earlier versions of AutoCAD, if your client changed his address, you would need to go to each sheet and make the change manually. In AutoCAD 2005, you can do it using a single command.

Autodesk DWF composer and viewer



A format called DWF (Design Web Format) was introduced in AutoCAD 2004, using which you could convert your drawings to this format and send them to clients for approval. A DWF Viewer was made freely available to clients so that they could easily view these drawings. The trouble was, they could only view the drawings and whatever changes were required, could only be done in the hard copy. So there was the issue of keeping track of these changes. With AutoCAD 2005, the DWF Composer has also been introduced. This costs around $100, and can be used by clients to mark changes directly to the DWF drawings. This eliminates the need for exchanging hard copies, making it easier to manage/track changes across a drawing. 

The Bottom Line: A worthy upgrade for users, given the enhancements, especially if they had not upgraded to the earlier version. 

Geetaj Channana