What’s New in AutoCAD® 2011

Autodesk has just released their new 2011 series of products and AutoCAD 2011 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 drawings faster than ever before.

As soon as you execute the new AutoCAD 2011 product you will instantly see an interface change. AutoCAD 2011 has more status bar functions then AutoCAD 2010.

On the left side of the status bar is the INFER button. The “INFER” button will automatically add parametric constraints as you draw geometry. For example, if you draw a rectangle, its sides will automatically be parallel and perpendicular.

The “3DOSNAP” button will allow you to snap to midpoints of solid edges, vertices of solids, and centers of faces. This is really helpful while working on 3D solids inside AutoCAD.

The “TPY” button will show or hide transparency. Transparency is now a property of an object. You can add transparency to any type of object. It is most beneficial with hatching. Use it to fade hatching that is overlapping other objects.

The “SC” button stands for selection cycling. Selection cycling allows you to select objects that are overlapping. You can configure the display settings of the selection cycling list box. So, if there are 2 or more objects overlapping each other, select one of the objects. Immediately, a list of all the overlapping objects will show on your screen. Now you make a choice of the object that you intended to select.

Another interface change that you will immediately see on the screen is the “View Cube” and “Navigation” commands.

The View Cube is very helpful for working in 3D. It has quick standard views like Top, Front, Right and Left. It also has quick isometric views like Top-Front-Right, Top-Front-Left, Top-Right-Back and Top-Left-Back. The Navigation commands include 3D Orbit and 3D Constrained Orbit

A productive new command in AutoCAD 2011 is “Select Similar." This command selects similar objects of the same type based on specified matching properties, such as the color or block name. While in an edit command, select an object, then right click and choose “Select Similar.”AutoCAD will search the drawing and select all objects of a similar type.

As you can see, AutoCAD 2011 is a significant productivity boost for your company. These new tools allow you to create and edit drawings faster than ever before. Hagerman & Company wants to help you and your company be more productive with the new 2011 products. Please contact your nearest Hagerman & Company office and schedule an onsite demo or a GoToMeeting presentation so that you can see it in action.

This page last edited on Monday, February 14, 2011