AUTOCAD TUTORIAL AND TIPS

First Look Review: Bundle of joy? If you use more than one design solution, this new package could help integrate your workflow and save money.

Among the big news for the Autodesk 2012 product lines announced this spring is the bundling of individual applications into suites designed to provide users with a more integrated workflow, as well as better value. The Autodesk Building Design Suites are comprehensive architecture and building engineering design solutions that provide a prepackaged selection of tools for the design professional and are offered in three versions: Standard, Premium, and Ultimate. For this First Look, I focused on Autodesk Building Design Suite Premium 2012.
Flash-y

Autodesk Building Design Suites ship on a single flash drive, which may indicate that Autodesk is phasing out CDs and DVDs. Suites are also available for download from the company’s subscription site.

The installation process, whether on the desktop or network, initiates with a single click and functions similarly to single-product installations.

Suites are available by desktop or network license. For stand-alone subscriptions, the applications within each suite can only be installed on a single computer; you cannot split applications across multiple workstations. For network licenses, customers can install varied sets of the applications on different machines.

Just the Basics

All Autodesk Building Design Suites contain the same core group of applications, including AutoCAD 2012, the AutoCAD-based vertical applications (AutoCAD Architecture, AutoCAD Structural Detailing, and AutoCAD MEP), Autodesk Showcase, Autodesk Showcase Designer, and Autodesk Design Review.

New features in AutoCAD 2012 expand workflows. Modeling documentation improvements include the ability to import models from a variety of applications including Inventor, SolidWorks, Rhino, and CATIA. (For further details, see Cadalyst’s "AutoCAD 2012: Who Says 2D Is Dead?")

Autodesk continues to develop AutoCAD Architecture, and it’s still widely used. Improvements include faster startup and drawing load times, plus windows, doors, spaces, structural members, and IFC support.

One of the new applications for the AEC industries is Autodesk Showcase 2012, a real-time rendering and presentation tool that lets designers, engineers, and marketing team members explore and showcase their designs in an immersive 3D environment. Autodesk states that with Showcase, users can create stunning 3D visualizations without investing a great deal of time working in the application — and I tend to agree with that. You can fairly quickly bring in geometry from 3ds Max, Revit (FBX), FBX, AutoCAD, and the like; use preconfigured scenes; and add materials. In no time you’ll have a good real-time visualization of your project.

Showcase 2012 offers some pretty interesting features. It supports the Autodesk materials library, which means materials that were assigned in AutoCAD, Inventor, Revit, and 3ds Max Design can be imported into Showcase. Features include automatic ambient shadows, real-time geometry on geometry shadows, and nonphotorealistic styles.

Premium Suite

Autodesk Building Design Suite Premium includes all the tools found in the Standard edition plus building information modeling (BIM) functionality via Revit Architecture, Revit Structure, and Revit MEP. Autodesk 3ds Max Design adds advanced visualization and animation capabilities. This package is ideally suited for those who design, document, and share drawings in the DWG file format while taking advantage of the optimized workflows of BIM and enhanced visualization.