What's New in Upcoming Autodesk Software

During the keynote address of Autodesk Univeristy 2004 this week, Autodesk revealed publically to 4,400 attendees some of the features that might appear in future releases.

* Dynamic blocks - these are much like the symbols found in the now-abandoned Actrix product. These blocks have shape-coded handles that indicate whether the block can be rotated in increments, stretched, aligned, and so on. Just like the oft-used demo back in the Actrix days, Autodesk showed how stretching a conference table stretches it in pre-defined increments, as well as adding more chairs.

* Attributed Tables - data stored in attributes will be output into tables placed in drawings, and then adding and multiplying the data to produce totals.

* Dynamic input - this moves the "command line" to the object being edited. Autodesk shows how the command's prompts and coordinate input are displayed in small yellow boxes next to the object. For example, in drawing a line, the angle and length are displayed, each of which can be adjusted dynamically, locked, or overridden at the keyboard.

(The figure above shows two features: dynamic blocks and dynamic input. Click the thumbnail for a larger image.)

* 3D grips - these are like those found in Tri-spectives and IronCAD. You interactively change the size and location of parts in assemblies.

* Drag'n drop parts - these parts are dropped on the model, and then can be made to adjust to the model size.

- - -

For more ground-breaking news, subscribe to upFront.eZine -- delivered to your desktop every Tuesday morning by email.