Productivity Enhancements: AutoCAD Electrical 2011 offers controls designers immediate productivity gains with a set of enhanced features and tools designed to help create accurate electrical control systems in less time.

Catalog Lookup: AutoCAD Electrical 2011 makes significant improvements to the catalog lookup process. Database performance enhancements enable dramatically faster loading times. Users now have instant access to the extensive component catalog, where improved filtering and sorting make it quick and easy to find the exact component needed.

Import Wire Types: AutoCAD Electrical 2011 enables users to easily reuse frequently specified wire types. Users can now import wire types from an existing drawing or template into another drawing.

Item Numbering: Item numbering now supports fixed item numbers on panel components. Fixed item numbers do not change when the Resequence Item Numbers command is run.

Location Boxes: Enhancements to the Location Box functionality make it easy to identify locations for a device or group of devices, resulting in more accurate panel layouts. When inserting a Location Box, a checkbox on the Location Box dialog box indicates whether to update the Location and Installation values for parent components that fall within the new location box.

Suppress Wire Collision Check: AutoCAD Electrical 2011 makes wiring components into designs faster by enabling users to turn Wire Collision on or off with a single click of the mouse. Default behavior routes around a component when routing a wire from one location to another.

Ease of Use Enhancements: Enhancements to the help system, data migration tools, and catalog sharing make AutoCAD Electrical 2011 easier than ever to learn and use.

Improved Learning Experience: AutoCAD Electrical 2011 introduces new in-product learning tools and tutorials designed to help users take advantage of the advanced functionality in AutoCAD Electrical and realize immediate productivity gains:

• Getting Started exercises added to the help section
• The new Title Block tutorial guides AutoCAD Electrical 2011 users through the steps of creating a template, creating a title block, and defining the title block mapping for a title block update.
• The new Cable Design Interoperability tutorial explores the mechatronic capabilities of Digital Prototyping, demonstrating the seamless interoperability between AutoCAD Electrical and Autodesk Inventor, and includes exercises in both environments.

promis•e Data Migration: Users of promis•e® software can avoid hours of rework by easily migrating designs into AutoCAD Electrical design software using the promis•e data migration tool. AutoCAD Electrical 2011 enhances this powerful tool to simplify and accelerate the data migration process.

Project-Specific Catalog Database: AutoCAD Electrical 2011 users can now create a project-specific catalog database by including just the relevant portion of the catalog database that was used for the project. This command starts with the default_cat.mdb database and removes all catalog values not used in the project drawings.

Content Library: Create, manage, and standardize content more efficiently with enhancements to the Content Library in AutoCAD Mechanical 2011 for standard features and custom parts.

Update Content Selectively: If a content library is modified after inserting a part or feature from it in a drawing, the parts or features in the drawing become out of date. In previous versions of AutoCAD Mechanical, users had to double-click each part or feature in the drawing to update it. In AutoCAD Mechanical 2011, users can run the AMUPDATECONTENT command and select what parts or features to update.

Part Publishing: Part Publishing enhancements in AutoCAD Mechanical 2011 make all features that previously applied only to standard parts now available for custom parts.

Import Data from Excel: Users can now import XLS files directly to the Family Table. The first row of the Microsoft Excel data is assumed to contain column names. The import option replaces columns when names match columns that exist in the Family Table and automatically creates new columns when no matching name is found.

Resize Content by Dragging: When users dimensionally constrain a part or feature in AutoCAD Mechanical 2011, they can specify that size selection must be performed at draw time.

Select Geometry for New Views: Users can now select geometry for a new view directly from the New Content dialog box.

BOM, Balloons, and Parts Lists: Enhancements in AutoCAD Mechanical 2011 help users create accurate bills of materials (BOMs) and parts lists even faster.

BOM Migration Wizard Enhancements: If the parts list in an assembly drawing is a table that a user typed manually, the BOM Migration Wizard can analyze the parts list, identify the part or subassembly drawing referred to in the parts list, and generate a BOM for the assembly drawing as well as all other drawings referred to in the parts list, among several other capabilities.

Symbols: AutoCAD Mechanical symbols help users produce consistent, accurate results—quickly and efficiently.

Attach and Align Leaders: All symbols now recognize the object users attach them to and will change behavior depending on the object type. When users attach a symbol to a circle, arc, or spline, the first leader segment extends perpendicularly from the selected object.

Draw Surface Extension Lines: After users select the object to attach to, and move the pointer beyond the end of the line or arc, AutoCAD Mechanical 2011 draws extension lines.
When the distance between the cursor and the end of the arc is greater than the value set in the DIMEXO system variable, the surface extension line is displayed with an offset gap.

In-Place Editor: Improvements made to the In-Place Editor are all aimed at giving the canvas back to the user.

Streamlined Design Environment: A streamlined tolerance and dimensioning user interface has been incorporated into the ribbon, giving the canvas back to the user and providing “what you see is what you get” functionality when changes are made to dimensions.

Create Dimensions: The AMPOWERDIM family of commands has been enhanced to display an In-Place Editor and a contextual tab, instead of the Power Dimensioning dialog box. Users can access all the options that were available in the Power Dimensioning dialog box, without having to switch tabs, as was the case previously.

Edit Dimensions: When users select a dimension for editing, the In-Place Editor is displayed. In the In-Place Editor, elements of the dimension text are grouped together to form chunks. Users click a chunk to select it, double-click to select related chunks, and can move, cut, copy, or delete the selection.

User Interface Updates: AutoCAD LT 2011 offers a variety of user interface enhancements that allow users to design with greater ease and efficiency.

Drawing Window: The drawing window has been updated in AutoCAD LT 2011 to display a dark gray background in modelspace. Users can easily modify the drawing window color from the Display tab of the Options dialog box. The traditional dot grid has been replaced with horizontal and vertical gridlines to more closely represent engineering graph paper. When the grid is enabled, red and green lines extend from the UCS icon to represent the X and Y axes of the origin.

The Ribbon: A new pull-down menu has been added to the Ribbon Cycle button at the end of the list of tabs. Users can minimize the ribbon to panel buttons, tabs, or panel titles. When the ribbon to panel buttons are minimized, large icons appear for each panel. Hovering over the button causes the panel to expand, similar to the behavior users see when the ribbon is minimized to panel titles.

Quick Access Toolbar: The Quick Access toolbar in AutoCAD LT 2011 displays the name of the current workspace. Users can easily select a different workspace and access other workspace tools. In addition, the default Quick Access toolbar now includes both the Save and the Save As tools.

Document Updates: AutoCAD is synonymous with documentation for good reason. Powerful documentation tools in AutoCAD LT 2011 help users work even faster with automation, management, and editing tools that minimize repetitive tasks and speed the time to completion.

Transparency: AutoCAD LT 2011 includes a new transparency property that enables users to apply transparency to objects and layers in the same way they apply colors, linetypes, and lineweights. Users can set transparency by layer, by block, or individually for an object.

Hatches and Gradients: The Hatch command received several enhancements in AutoCAD LT 2011 for faster creation and editing of hatch objects. It now immediately prompts users to select an internal point without displaying the Hatch dialog box, among several other improvements.

Polylines: Polyline objects now have extra grips to make editing them easier than ever. In addition to the familiar primary grips located at the end of each polyline segment, there are now secondary grips located at the midpoint of each segment. These grips, like the new hatch grips, are multifunctional. The available functions can be seen by hovering over a grip, and users can choose an option directly from the menu that appears.

Learning Resources Updates:

Welcome Screen: A welcome screen is automatically displayed when users start AutoCAD LT 2011. From the welcome screen, users can link to short videos to learn about key topics in AutoCAD LT. Additional links provide easy access to more learning resources, including what’s new in the 2011 release, Learning Path, and AutoCAD LT Online Help.

New Features Workshop: The New Features Workshop has been updated to include AutoCAD LT 2011 functionality. This interactive learning tool helps users discover the newest functionality with minimal effort. Users can access the New Features Workshop from the drop-down menu on the InfoCenter toolbar.

Online Help System: AutoCAD LT 2011 includes web-based help, which users can launch from the Help icon on the InfoCenter. A control on the System tab of the Options dialog box allows users to disable the online help. Doing so displays a local version of the AutoCAD Help system.

New to AutoCAD LT 2011:

There are a few features in AutoCAD LT 2011 that will be familiar to long-time AutoCAD users, but have been unavailable in AutoCAD LT until now:

• Gradient hatches are now supported, and can be found in the pattern list on the Hatch Creation and Hatch Editor contextual ribbon tabs.
• Quick Dimension, available on the Dimensions panel of the Annotate tab, is a useful tool for creating a series of baseline or continued dimensions for selected objects.
• Layer Previous enables users to undo the most recent set of changes to layer properties.
• The Sketch command, available at the command line, can be used to create irregular boundaries or to trace with a digitizer. You can set the increment for recording points, choose the type of sketch to create (lines, polylines, or splines), and set the tolerance for spline-fit sketches.

User Interface Updates: AutoCAD 2011 offers a variety of user interface enhancements that allow users to design with greater ease and efficiency.

Navigation: AutoCAD 2011 includes a new Navigation bar with frequently used navigation tools, including Autodesk SteeringWheels®, ViewCube, and ShowMotion, as well as Pan, Zoom, and Orbit. It replaces the navigation tools that were previously accessible on the Status bar.

UCS Icon and 3D Gizmos: The UCS icon has been updated to display a different color for each axis: X for red, Y for green, and Z for blue. In addition, the appearance of 3D gizmos has been updated for clarity and consistency.

Visual Styles: AutoCAD 2011 provides five new predefined visual styles including: Shaded, Shaded with Edges, Shades of Gray, Sketchy, and X-Ray. With the most common combinations of visual style properties right at users’ fingertips, visual styles are easier to use than ever.

Document Updates: AutoCAD is synonymous with documentation for good reason. Powerful documentation tools in AutoCAD 2011 help users work even faster with automation, management, and editing tools that minimize repetitive tasks and speed time to completion.

Parametric Constraints: The 2D parametric functionality has been enhanced in AutoCAD 2011, and includes predefined command macros to access options within in the GEOMCONSTRAINT and DIMCONSTRAINT commands.

Splines: Splines have been updated in AutoCAD 2011 to provide more flexibility and control. Users can define a spline using fit points or control vertices (CV). When drawing a fit spline, users can specify additional settings for its start and end tangencies, tolerance, and knot parameterization.

External References: When users select a reference object in the drawing (xrefs, images, DWFTM, DGN, PDF, data extraction tables), the corresponding reference is selected in the External References palette. Similarly, if users select file references from the External References palette, the references are highlighted (but not selected) in the drawing if they are visible in the current view.

Explore Updates: AutoCAD 2011 gives users 3D power to explore ideas in almost any shape imaginable. Both AutoCAD and a blank canvas give users the ability to create the previously unimaginable, but AutoCAD provides the flexibility to explore design ideas in both 2D and 3D with intuitive tools that help concepts become real.

3D Modeling Workspaces: AutoCAD 2011 includes two 3D-related workspaces, which users can access from the Workspace menu in the Quick Access toolbar. The 3D Basics workspace provides a simple workspace with the most basic tools for creating and visualizing 3D solid models. The 3D Modeling workspace provides access to the complete array of 3D tools in AutoCAD.

3D Object Snaps: New tools and variables in AutoCAD 2011 separate 3D object snaps from 2D object snaps. A new 3D Object Snap toggle is available on the Status bar, enabling users to toggle 3D object snaps on and off. Right-clicking on the status bar icon provides access to a menu of the 3D object snaps and the Settings option, which links to the new 3D Object Snap tab in the Drafting Settings dialog box.

Solid Modeling: 3D modeling tools in AutoCAD 2011 have been updated to provide more flexibility and increased ease of use. The EXTRUDE, LOFT, REVOLVE, and SWEEP commands now allow users to select an edge or sub-object for using as a profile or curve to create a new surface. Users are no longer limited to using planar curves.

Autodesk Seek: Autodesk Seek web service makes it easy to search for building product information and design files from inside an Autodesk® design application, and enables users to download directly into their AutoCAD drawings. More than 1,200 manufacturers and 35,000 products are available on Autodesk Seek. In addition, users can share designs with peers by uploading them directly from AutoCAD files to the Autodesk Seek User Uploads.

New Design Methodologies: Autodesk Inventor 2011 introduces radically superior ways to design in 3D. Breakthroughs in both assembly design and part modeling usher in a new era of dramatically easier to use, easier to learn design tools.

Direct Manipulation Part Modeling: With direct manipulation part modeling in Autodesk Inventor 2011, all the input needed for a command (radius, angle, dimensions, etc.) can be controlled right at the point where users are directly affecting geometry.

Dynamic Input in the Sketch Environment: Autodesk Inventor 2011 now offers dynamic input for the most commonly used sketch commands. Dynamic input in the Sketch environment provides a heads-up display (HUD) to help users keep their focus in the sketching area.

Autodesk Inventor Fusion Technology Preview: The Autodesk Inventor Fusion Technology Preview is innovative, new Digital Prototyping technology that is changing the way people work with 3D mechanical design software.

Unites Direct and Parametric Workflows: With the Autodesk Inventor Fusion Technology Preview, both direct, history-free and parametric, history-based workflows are united. The unique fusion of capabilities enables users the freedom of direct modeling with the ability to exercise control over change; automatic creation, deletion, or modification of features necessary to accommodate changes; and automatic update of a parametric model’s feature history with each change.

Autodesk Inventor Fusion Technology Interoperability: The Autodesk Inventor Fusion Technology Preview is fully interoperable with Autodesk Inventor 2011, giving users two base modeling environments to choose from. Once the Inventor Fusion editing session is ended and the Autodesk Inventor environement is re-entered, the edited model is redisplayed in the Autodesk Inventor graphics window showing any new or changed features. Users can also open Inventor Fusion technology designs in AutoCAD to easily create drawings and assemblies of digital prototypes.

Design Automation: Autodesk Inventor 2011 features rules-based design and automation tools to accelerate design by automating common tasks, enabling engineers to focus on design intent rather than manually modeling geometry.

iLogic: Autodesk Inventor iLogic technology dramatically simplifies rules-based design for any Autodesk Inventor user (even those with little or no programming experience) by allowing designers and engineers to capture and embed engineering and product knowledge directly into virtual models.

iCopy: The new iCopy feature in Autodesk Inventor 2011 enables users to easily customize commonly used assemblies by automating the process of copying and positioning similar components in the assembly.

State-of-the-Art Visualization: Autodesk Inventor 2011 provides state-of-the-art visualization capabilities to provide stunning representations of designs, improving design communication with partners in the design process.

Realistic Rendering: The visual display in Autodesk Inventor 2011 features significantly improved shading, lighting, and material properties in the default work environment, giving users a more realistic representation of their design at all times.

High-Quality Visual Materials: The library of visual materials in Autodesk Inventor 2011 has been substantially enlarged so users can display more accurate and stunning representations of their products with management and customers.

Drawing and Productivity Enhancements: The Autodesk Inventor 2011 drawing environment is packed with productivity enhancements and tools to quickly generate more consistent drawings.

DWG Block Browser: With Autodesk Inventor 2011, users can browse for various blocks in DWG™ files and precisely insert them into an Autodesk Inventor drawing without ever opening the AutoCAD drawing.

Chain Dimensioning: Create chain dimensions quickly and easily by placing or creating a base dimension, and then selecting individual points from the drawing view to insert and align each additional dimension to the chain dimension.

Interoperability

Alias-Inventor Interoperability: Autodesk Alias Design 2011 software now includes Autodesk Alias Design for Inventor 2011, an additional application that works directly within Autodesk Inventor, providing free-form 3D shape modeling workflows.

CATIA Translators: With Autodesk Inventor 2011, users can now open, import, place, or drag and drop CATIA V4 models and CATIA V5 files into Autodesk Inventor files. Association is not maintained, but the imported model behaves as if it were created with Autodesk Inventor.

BIM Interoperability: Autodesk Inventor 2011 also includes key enhancements designed specifically for mechanical engineers and fabricators working in collaboration with architects, builders, and contractors.

BIM Exchange: Models published from Autodesk Inventor 2011 now maintain the same visual fidelity of materials when imported into Revit and AutoCAD for architecture.

Simulation: The powerful simulation tools in Autodesk Inventor 2011 software have been enhanced to make it easier for users to create and validate multiple design iterations.

Frame Analysis: Fully integrated with Frame Generator, Frame Analysis offers a complete end-to-end Digital Prototyping environment. Users can sketch out their framed structure, create the detailed design with frame members from an extensive library, and then quickly simulate the response of the frames to gravity and other loads in an easy-to-use environment that automatically brings over the material properties and member cross sections from Frame Generator.

Simulation Guide: The Simulation Guide in Autodesk Inventor 2011 walks users through the steps required to define the best scenario to represent the particular loads or interactions.

Tooling: The tooling functionality introduced into the Autodesk Inventor product line last year has been significantly enhanced and improved.

Unique Instance Support: Autodesk Inventor 2011 supports working with unique core/cavity, insert, and core pin instances in pattern. This allows for instance-specific detailing of mold aspects, such as gates, runners, and cooling channels, helping engineers to create more realistic patterns.

Core/Cavity Creation Robustness: Autodesk Inventor 2011 introduces mold-specific functionality to increase the robustness of core/cavity creation with context-sensitive error checking and reporting.

Deeper CAD Integrations: The Autodesk Vault 2011 family of products introduces an innovative, new technology to evaluate and interact with users’ managed design data.

Data Mapping: Data mapping offers an interactive interface that allows users to generate report data for a model and publish the results as a chart within Autodesk Inventor. Users can then color code the model to see a direct correlation between the report results and the design, allowing them to make more informed decisions.

Data Cards: Users can now directly review Autodesk Vault status and property information within the Autodesk Inventor graphics window with the new Data Cards feature.

Enhanced Context Menus: Autodesk Vault 2011 family of products users are now able to directly select the desired components that require Autodesk Vault interaction and select the necessary Autodesk Vault command from the context menu.

Connect Global Workgroups: The Autodesk Vault 2011 family of products offers several enhancements to their ability to connect global workgroups.

Full Replication: Autodesk Vault Collaboration and Vault Professional 2011 introduce an enhanced multi-site capability, leveraging both file replication and Autodesk Vault database replication to help customers connect their workgroups globally.

Scalable and Cost-Effective:. As Autodesk Vault traffic increases at a particular site, the site can be brought online with database and file store replication, allowing the team to gain a return on investment based on user productivity and accelerated project delivery.

Coordinate Data Between Sites: With Autodesk Vault Collaboration and Vault Professional 2011, all data is synchronized between all sites per the replication configuration, keeping all locations up to date with the latest design data.

Autodesk Vault Client Customization: The application programming interface (API) for the Autodesk Vault 2011 family of products has been enhanced to support client-side customization and automated events using the job server.

Configurable Environment: Administrators may enable an item and change order environments independently as their deployment phases roll out to the user community. Until these environments have been enabled, users will not be able to access or see items and/or change order objects, minimizing the amount of information that a new user must learn and understand.

Client Extension SDK: Included in the installation of Autodesk Vault Workgroup, Vault Collaboration, and Vault Professional 2011 software is the introduction of the Vault Client Software Development Kit (SDK). This kit enables the creation and integration of custom features and user interface elements, allowing administrators to extend the Autodesk Vault interface to support unique business demands.

Customizable User Interface: Utilizing the client SDK, administrators may now alter the client interface within the Autodesk Vault Workgroup, Vault Collaboration, and Vault Professional2011 interfaces.

Improved Usability: The Autodesk Vault 2011 family of products includes many customer-driven enhancements focused on improving usability and productivity.

Common Property Definition: In the Autodesk Vault 2011 family of products, utilizing a common property definition for files, items, and change orders; managing property configuration; mapping; and editing has never been easier.

Enhanced Property Interaction: User-defined property lists are now directly available within the Advanced Search functionality, making it easier to create search criteria. In addition, wildcards may now be used with these list properties in order to find multiple search results based on numerous list values.

Office Document Preview: Users of the Autodesk Vault 2011 family of products are now able to quickly preview the office documents that are associated with their designs. Specifications, customer quotes, engineering calculations, customer proposals, and all other office documents that have been created as part of a design project may now be viewed directly within the Preview tab within the Autodesk Vault stand-alone thick client. The integrated native viewer supports the Microsoft® Office 2003 and 2007 editions of Microsoft Word, Excel®, and PowerPoint®.

Smart Data Workflows: New workflows in Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011 help users handle data from numerous sources more intelligently. Solids or surfaces can now be imported from Autodesk Inventor software or from SAT files while retaining the mathematical description of the solid or surface.

Design Refinement: Expanded Graphite and Viewport Canvas toolsets deliver intuitive new brush-based interfaces for 2D/3D painting, texture editing, and object placement, while a new in-context direct manipulation UI helps make polygon modeling faster.

Higher-Quality Presentations in Less Time: Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011 brings new tools that enable users to create compelling presentations even when time is at a premium. An intuitive new node-based material editor, Slate, helps make it easier and faster to create and edit complex material networks. And, with the addition of Save to Previous Release, users can save scene files in a format compatible with the previous 2010 version.

Quicksilver Hardware Renderer: Create higher-fidelity preview animations and design dailies in less time with Quicksilver, an innovative new hardware renderer that uses both the CPU and the GPU to help produce higher-quality images at incredible speeds.

Autodesk Inventor Import Improvements: Take advantage of new Smart Data™ workflows when importing data from Autodesk Inventor into Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011. Autodesk Inventor is no longer required to be installed on the same machine, while support is improved for solid objects, materials, surfaces, and composites.

Viewport Display of Autodesk 3ds Max Materials: Develop and refine scenes in a higher-fidelity interactive display environment that enables users to help make better decisions in context with the enhanced ability to view most Autodesk 3ds Max texture maps and materials in the viewport.

Modeling and Texturing Enhancements: Accelerate modeling and texturing tasks with new tools that extend the Graphite and Viewport Canvas toolsets to provide intuitive brush-based interfaces for assisting with 2D/3D painting and editing textures, creating geometry within a scene and editing UVW coordinates.

Native Solids Import/Export: Nondestructively import and export surfaces and solids between Autodesk 3ds Max Design and certain other applications supporting SAT files: Autodesk Inventor, Revit Architecture, Rhino, SolidWorks®, and form•Z® software.

Google SketchUp Importer: Import Google SketchUp sketching software (SKP) version 6 and 7 files into Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011 more efficiently. The enhanced SketchUp Importer supports SketchUp entities: layers, groups, components, materials, cameras, and the daylight system.

Autodesk Material Library: Exchange material data between Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011 and certain supporting Autodesk applications (AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor, Revit Architecture, Autodesk Revit MEP, and Autodesk® Revit® Structure) with the new Autodesk Material Library.

Local Edits to Containers: Collaborate more efficiently with significantly enhanced workflows for Containers that enable users to meet tight deadlines by working in parallel. Multiple users can layer local edits nondestructively on top of referenced content, working simultaneously on different aspects of the same container.

Slate Material Editor: Easily visualize and edit material component relationships with Slate, a new node-based editor that helps significantly improve workflow and productivity for creating and editing complex material networks.

Save to Previous Release: Manage the transition to Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011 with the option to save scene files in a format compatible with the 2010 version. This enables users to take advantage of the new features in the 2011 version before their entire studio, pipeline, or client base is ready to upgrade.