AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT 2018 Released

AutoCAD 2018 and AutoCAD LT 2018 have been released, Autodesk’s flagship products for the AEC industry.

While Autodesk has developed hundreds of products and applications over the years, AutoCAD continues to be a winner in the AEC space.

The following are a number of new features of the new release for both AutoCAD and LT:

• New productivity tools for creating and sharing accurate drawings
• Tools for fixing broken paths for externally referenced files.
• SHX text recognition tool to convert imported PDF geometry to text objects.
• Performance enhancements including 3D navigation when zooming and panning.
• Share Design View enhancements
• Combine Text

SHX Text Recognition Tool

The SHX text recognition tool allows users to convert imported PDF geometry to text and Mtext objects. The enhanced Text to Mtext tool, lets you convert a combination of single- and multi- line text objects to a one multi-line text object, automatically inferring formatting.

External Reference Path Enhancements

Broken reference paths create problems but the new external reference path enhancements aim to fix those. Integrated tools enable you to replace the paths of one or more missing references with a new path.

Off-screen Objects

The new release allows you to start a selection window in one part of your drawing and then pan and zoom to another part while maintaining selection of the off-screen objects.

Share Design View enhancements

According to company materials, Share Design View enables you to publish views of drawings to the cloud so you can collaborate with stakeholders, while also protecting your DWGTM files. Stakeholders viewing the design don’t need to log into A360 or have an AutoCAD-based product installed. Plus, as they don’t have access to the source DWG files, so you can share with others who don’t have the same software as you do. Share Design View functionality is enhanced in AutoCAD 2018 to support the new TrustedDWG file format. You can access the new Share Design View tool from the Publish flyout on the Application menu or from the A360 ribbon tab with the ONLINEDESIGNSHARE command.

Functionality also included in the AutoCAD 2017.1 Update 17 The design views are posted online with a link you can share with collaborators. You can access your recent uploads from the A360 viewer Home page.

Combine Text

The Combine Text tool enables you to combine many individual text objects into one multi-line text object. This can be particularly useful after recognizing and converting SHX text from an imported PDF file. You can access the Combine Text tool (TXT2MTXT command) from the Insert ribbon tab. The following are enhancements to the TXT2MTXT command:

• You can select Mtext objects in addition to text objects.
• A Settings option on the Command Line displays the Text to MText Settings dialog.
• Character codes translate correctly between Text and Mtext (for example the degree symbol appeared as %%d when converted to Mtext).
• The “Select objects” prompt adheres to standard error checking and messaging. For example, objects on locked layers are filtered from the selection set, and so on.
• Justification (top left, top center, top right) is inferred for the Mtext object being created based on the positioning of the text objects in the drawing instead of always using top left justification. When no justification can be logically inferred, it defaults to top left.
• Numbered and lettered list formatting is inferred when the word‐wrap text box is checked. If a line starts with one or two characters followed by a period and up to 10 spaces, list formatting will be applied automatically.
• An option was added to the Settings dialog box to not combine selection into a single Mtext object (converts text object to Mtext without combining).
• The top‐down sorting order is relative to the current UCS, and sorting is left‐to‐right when text objects are collinear. When multiple text objects are collinear, they are treated as if they’re on the same line with a space between them.
• A new Settings option enables you to force uniform line spacing or maintain existing line spacing.

Tags: 3D, AEC, architects, architecture, AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2018, Autodesk, CAD, design, visualization

Categories: 2D, 3D, AEC, AECCafe, architecture, AutoCAD, Autodesk, construction, engineering, mobile, project management, subscription programs

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