New Versions of AutoCAD

This is me voicing an opinion, if you don't want to hear it just don't read
it, although I think a lot of you will agree with me (hopefully).

I just read a previous post about AutoCAD 2005 and went on google to find
out more, from what I could make out there aren't going to be major changes,
its more bug fixing than anything else, there maybe a few new commands but
that's about it. If you take AutoCAD as it stands now there is not much
Autodesk can do to improve it, there are no commands that don't exist that
the vast majority of users don't already have or can get a lisp for, so in
the future why don't they focus on the modelling and rendering side of acad.
Since r14 I've been modelling on autocad because I find the wcs and setting
of ucs within the 3d space a very simple and logical process to grasp
(unlike the co-ordinate system in 3d max which to this day still pisses me
off), yes the modelling potential is far greater in packages like 3d max and
Maya etc... but why cant you do these operations in acad? there is a lot you
can do in acad modelling wise, why not just add a few more operations to
bring the modelling up to par with the other programs? then there's the
rendering, I think it is disgraceful that they have included the exact same
rendering system in 2000 2002 and 2004 as the one in r14 which, from what I
can see, has absolutely no changes in quality or speed. I think they should
incorporate lightscape into autocad, and before you all say 'they have put
it in viz instead' Viz is more like 3d max and for any autocad user to learn
viz it would be just like learning a completely new package, whereas when I
learned lightscape 3.2 it took me about 2 days to go through the whole
tutorial and to produce something very impressive because the environment is
so similar, is it really too much to ask for AutoDesk to even consider this?
even though lightscape 3.2 is quite a few years old now, so if they were to
do this just imagine the possibilities for autocad users who are unwilling
to learn new packages from scratch just to do something you should be able
to do in autocad. Autocad is a Computer Aided Design package and should
cover ALL aspects of that title, lets please have some more functions,
instead of releases that don't warrant spending the upgrade costs. I don't
feel I am asking for much as Audesk attempts to do these thing in autocad
anyway, why not do them properly is all , especially if you're going to
charge almost £4000 for 1 user liscense.

Rant over

I hope Autodesk read these newsgroups

Regards
Mark

 

The new version has plenty of "new stuff"...
Tables, Fields, Sheet Set Manager, MText improvements, etc.
It doesn't sound to me like you have really read what is new.

It is to new to Google much about it. Give it time.
Read the news releases on the following website...
What's new in Autocad 2005...
http://www.hyperpics.com/

This is just the first day of being able to talk about it... There is not
much information to make the leap you have... At least keep an open mind
about it before downing it, if you still feel this way in a couple of
months, then, so be it... at least you would have seen, read and heard more
about it.

All I can say is, as a beta tester, I was really wowed by the program. I
will certainly be upgrading as soon as I can.

Ted

 

"AutoCAD 2005 is btw, faster, both for open/saves and for
plotting/printing." How in the hell do you know that? Have you used it? If
not, please don't make stupid statements like this.

the speed and quality remark was for 2004 anyway which I own, I also own
r14, that was the comparison. and why shouldn't AutoCAD be all things to all
cad users, its a CAD program!!

the major changes you remark on are yet more ways of doing the same damn
thing that was available in 2000, 2002 and yes 2004 - who the hell needs
more ways of plotting? the existing method is fine. who the hell needs more
ways of adding mtext? the existing method is fine. I could go on for your
benefit but the majority of people got what I was talking about from the
first post. The fact is there are NO major changes just a bunch of minor
changes and yet more ways of doing the same things.

Don't get me wrong I love AutoCAD and have used it for years but as I was
saying previously they got the 2d technical side of AutoCAD right since at
least 2002 if not as far back as r14, why not improve the 3d side of things,
they do it anyway, why not do it properly?

How long you have used the package don't mean a thing, there is only so much
you can learn about a package before you know everything, Just because your
old doesn't mean you know better. remember that.

 

doesn't matter what I say does it?. Lets just agree to disagree, I think
they need to improve on the 3d asspect, you think the other improvements are
enough to warrant the release, nuff said.

 

They have. They call it "Inventor".

 

My vote would be R12 or R14 for that statement.

Terry

 

I would vote for R13, but then everybody (including me myself) would
argue that there wasn't a R13 at all - just a big black hole between
R12 and R14

Tm Berger

 

I'll tackle your comments on the 3d aspects of AutoCad:

AutoCad is a CAD program, not a rendering program. While it does include
some rendering ability it's somewhat rudimentary. I'm glad they don't add
to it or "improve" it. (let it be known, I do my modelling with ADT and
then render with Viz). There was talk a while back about dropping Viz (at
least as a stand-alone product) in favor of Max. Problem is, I don't need
the additional Max features so why should I have to pay $1000s more for
features I'll not use? That's the tightrope AutoCad treads, if you add
features to it that some people won't use then they'll of course feel like
they're overpaying.

ADT (and in the future Revit) now includes VizRender. This is why I won't
be upgrading to any future releases of Viz, I'll just use VizRender, since
it's "free", why should I pay $500/year to upgrade? AutoCad is a "basic"
platform that is (IMHO) supposed to be "most everything, to most everyone",
Autodesk than makes other products for specific fields (i.e. Mechanical
Desktop, Architectural Desktop, Inventor, etc). I know a ton of people
using Autocad products, only a couple do any 3D rendering. Why should all
of them pay for 3D features they'll never use? It's far better to have an
add-on or additional product that will give that functionality to those that
need it.

IMO Autodesk has made some good strides in the 3D realm. Viz now includes
Radiosity, which is leaps and bounds beyond the old ScanLine renderer. They
then included VizRender "free" with the latest release of ADT. So before
now it took ADT3.0i (or ADT3.3) + Viz to get "photorealistic" renderings.
Now it just takes ADT4. IF you want high quality rendering with AutoCad you
should look into ADT(w/ VizRender) to see if it meets your needs.

Granted, I'd love to see some improvements to AutoCads solids and modelling
capabilities. But, I also realize the majority of AutoCad users shouldn't
have to pay for functionality they won't use.

HTH,


Michael (LS)

 

Now that was informative.

 

My real favorite was R12 on a SUN using the OpenLook environment -
this was some time before R12 came for MS Windows. I had R10 and R11
on SunView before, and the new GUI really was something.

Tom Berger

 

My introduction to AutoCAD was Ver. 13, with the c4 patch, in 1995. I used
it only
in MSDOS. It never crashed or had any problems. I never got an error
message. Printing
wasn't a problem, as I had an MSDOS printer driver for use in AutoCAD.
Autocad has moved on, but I miss Ver. 13.

 

Tom,

Then that is why people have the subscription plan. Patches? Just got to
fix those upgrades.

W. Kirk Crawford
Rochester Hills, Michigan

<Snip>

 

AutoCAD + Inventor- Save yourselves a lot of accumulated AutoDesk grief and
dollars and use a real program loje Solidworks which does more than these
two products put together- much cheaper too.