AutoCAD Mechanical 2008 offers host of improvements

by Gary Bergero
CAD Training Manager
Hagerman & Company

Autodesk has just released their new 2008 series of products and AutoCAD Mechanical 2008 has been greatly improved. Hagerman & Company wants to keep you up to date on this latest technology by providing you information on what’s new. So, please spend a few minutes to see why you can create and edit mechanical drawings faster than ever before.

700,000 Standard Parts and Features
We know that you are creating complex drawings that may contain hundreds or thousands of parts. It may take you weeks or months to create them from scratch. AutoCAD Mechanical 2008 changes that by providing you a huge library of parts and features that you can select for your design. Choose from 7 drafting standards, 18 international industry standards and 700,000 standard parts and features. There are 500 new steel parts alone.



Associative Balloons and Bill of Materials
AutoCAD Mechanical 2008 has a new streamlined Bill of Material configuration manager that will make you more productive. There is support for multiple parts list per drawing, collapsible assemblies, automatic recognition of standard parts, and customizable options so features can be revised to match current company practices.



Enhanced Scaling
Save hours of rework by maintaining only one copy of a drawing, instead of multiple copies at different scale factors. AutoCAD Mechanical 2008 includes several new features for scaling drawings to fit on larger or smaller paper sizes. You can make a revision to the scale factor and the drawing annotations will remain appropriately displayed.

Enhanced Annotation Symbols and Notes
In AutoCAD Mechanical 2008, annotation symbols and notes have been updated to the latest industry standards. For example, surface texture symbols have been updated for JIS, ISO, DIN and BSI. Weld symbols have been updated for ISO, DIN, BSI and CSN. Using these standards-based drafting environments, groups of users maintain a common form of communication. Save time and increase accuracy by using these industry standards.

Enhanced DWF Tools
Are you using the new DWF Technology? If not, you should be-it’s free. You can publish DWF files directly from AutoCAD Mechanical 2008 and securely collaborate on 2D and 3D designs with customers, suppliers, and planners. Then you can use the free Autodesk Design Review software to digitally review, markup, measure, print and leave comments on your designs.



New “Workspaces”
AutoCAD Mechanical 2008 allows you to quickly customize toolbars and settings with the workspace toolbar. Designers can easily store and access different user-interface setups that can help them speed up their different job functions. Several prebuilt workspaces ship with the product, including beginner workspaces that make it easier to learn AutoCAD Mechanical 2008.

New Paper Space Annotation Views
With AutoCAD Mechanical 2008, you can now add specific parts and assemblies directly to a drawing. You can apply visibility, scale, color and view overrides directly to each drawing without the use of layers.

Enhanced Associative 2D Hide
The associative 2D hide will increase your productivity by automatically generating hidden lines that update to reflect drawing revisions. There are now two associative hides available: one for structure drawings and one for non-structure drawings. You can create 2D hidden line calculations based on your user-defined foreground and background selections. These selections automatically redraw geometry, reducing the tedious manual task of trimming and changing properties of lines in AutoCAD.



64-bit AutoCAD Mechanical 2008
AutoCAD Mechanical now ships in 64-bit and 32-bit versions. The 64-bit version supports the same functionality as the 32-bit version. Additionally you can open and work on drawings larger than 4 gigabytes.

Enhanced Power Dimensions
With AutoCAD Mechanical 2008, typical AutoCAD dimensions are easier to use with abbreviated dialog boxes that conveniently control and expand only the variables relevant to manufacturing. Dimension groups such as ordinate, parallel or symmetric can be easily created with minimal input. Dimensions are automatically equally spaced. Smart dimensioning tools force overlapping dimensions to automatically space themselves. AutoCAD Mechanical 2008 also includes the new inspection dimensions.



As you can see, AutoCAD Mechanical 2008 is a significant productivity boost for your company. The automated routines allow you to create and edit mechanical drawings faster than ever before. Hagerman & Company wants to help you and your company be more productive with the new 2008 products. Please contact your nearest Hagerman & Company office and schedule an onsite demo or a WebEx presentation to see it in action.