AutoCAD for Mac

AutoCAD, the industry-standard Computer Aided Design (CAD) application from Autodesk, is back on the Mac after an 18-year hiatus. This is lovely news for lots of Mac fans in the architecture, engineering, and design professions who have been reluctant to give up their MacBook Pros and iMacs for the sake of a single application, despite its status as a important part of their workflow. With the new Mac version of AutoCAD for freeform 2D and 3D design and drafting, Mac users no longer need to make use of Boot Camp or Parallels or suffer a PC on the same table with their Mac.



In lieu of offering the ribbon-based interface of the Windows version, Autodesk has has selected to place more AutoCAD functions in the pulldown menus. Floating gizmo palettes also include most of the same tools as the menus, while the interface will look familiar to users of other Mac CAD applications. Autodesk has also taken advantage of multi-touch trackpad gestures (& offers similar moves on Apple's Magic Mouse () For example, two-finger swipes scroll up or down, pinching can zoom in or out, & a shift and two-finger swipe can rotate around a 3D model. Cover Flow navigation lets you flip through your designs. Nice

AutoCAD 2011 for the Mac is not a port from Windows. , Autodesk has programmed this version for the Mac from the ground up with a conscious work to take advantage of the Mac OS X interface.

While AutoCAD is a complex and powerful application, the technique requirements are higher than much of the competition on the Mac (such as Vectorworks (), TurboCAD (), and Ashlar-Vellum), beginning with a maximum of 3GB of RAM and higher screen resolution (1280 x 800 pixels). The program works with only with more recent Mac hardware such as Mac Pro (early 2009), MacBook Pro (mid-2009), and iMac (early 2008). To be fair, you'd require to make use of a high resolution monitor with a CAD program anyway, given the quantity and level of graphic detail you are usually working with. But, you are less likely to be disappointed with AutoCAD's performance in case you bought your Mac in the last couple of yearsWhile AutoCAD is a complex and powerful application, the technique requirements are higher than much of the competition on the Mac (such as Vectorworks (), TurboCAD (), and Ashlar-Vellum), beginning with a maximum of 3GB of RAM and higher screen resolution (1280 x 800 pixels). The program works with only with more recent Mac hardware such as Mac Pro (early 2009), MacBook Pro (mid-2009), and iMac (early 2008). To be fair, you'd require to make use of a high resolution monitor with a CAD program anyway, given the quantity and level of graphic detail you are usually working with. But, you are less likely to be disappointed with AutoCAD's performance in case you bought your Mac in the last couple of years.

When you first launch AutoCAD 2011, you will be introduced with the drawing canvas or Modelspace, the window where you will build your drawing or model. The menus are extensive, and the gizmo and information palettes are arranged to the left and right of the canvas.

of the first things you will notice is that the default background in AutoCAD is black or slate-colored with the lines and objects you draw in white (or bright colors). This differs from most Mac CAD or graphic design applications, which usually have a white background with black and color drawing elements on top. You can change the background color in the preferences and, in fact, much of the interface can be altered to fit your own tastes, including which tools show up in the palettes and where the palettes can be found on screen.

One interface element Autodesk brought over from the Windows version is the ViewCube, a useful graphical navigation element for controlling 3D views. It lets you rotate your drawing & model, or jump to standard 3D views & orientations with a single-click. The ViewCube rotates as you click on it, giving you a visual representation of your drawing at various angles. Moving around a 3D model can be disorienting, & the ViewCube does a lovely job of letting you know whether you are looking from above, below, or at some oblique angle.

Another uniquely AutoCAD interface element is the Command Line window. This has been an AutoCAD mainstay for lots of years. At first it looks like some DOS operating process throwback, but it is actually a very useful window because it displays in text format everything that is going on while you re drawing, line-by-line, command-by-command. Interestingly, it can operate both ways: you can enter text commands in to the window & control your drawing from the command line while maximizing the use of the keyboard & minimizing use of the mouse & menus. While overall that method of operation is not very Mac-like, in case you have been using the Windows version of AutoCAD for a very long time, this feature will be welcome.

From the Mac point of view, though, my largest complaint about the interface is that the method of drawing objects often includes more clicks than necessary, & can need the use of the keyboard.
For instance, drawing a simple line is not as simple as choosing the line gizmo and then clicking and dragging to generate the line. In AutoCAD, to finish the system of drawing the line, you require to hit another key such as Escape or Enter, or the Space Bar after the second click. Otherwise, you will keep adding more lines. Then, in the event you require to draw another line elsewhere, you require to pick the line gizmo again. No doubt, this is something you can get used to, but Id not must click so much.

While plenty of CAD programs can import & export DWG files, these translations sometimes need cleanup. Not having to worry about cleanup or whether your exported DWG files will open correctly is actual advantage of AutoCAD for Mac over other Mac CAD programs. I opened numerous DWG files received from Windows consultants I work with & AutoCAD for Mac opened most of them seamlessly. However, I did run in to a tiny number of drawings that necessary parts not obtainable for the Mac, such as some (but not all) ObjectARX parts my civil engineer makes use of. Some of these parts, made by third-party vendors, are widely used & personalize & extend AutoCAD. I hope that the developers of such parts update them for use on the Mac.

One of the reasons plenty of architecture firms use AutoCAD is the popularity of its file format. The DWG format native to AutoCAD is often used for collaborative work across a broad range of professions such as consultants, architects, and engineers.

This brings up the subject of add-ons for AutoCAD. thing that makes AutoCAD for Windows such a dominant product are all of the third-party extensions obtainable. In the Windows version, there's add-ons & extensions obtainable for any profession or specialty, & there's thousands of tools & scripts that you can add to AutoCAD that provide even more capabilities than are included in the basic application. A number of the add-ons are already obtainable for the Mac, but today, most are not. For example, I ran in to some missing extensions while trying to import AutoCAD files from a civil engineer I work with. Autodesk says it is working on having more extensions obtainable for later releases of the Mac program, & will be making the development of add-ons feasible on the Mac.

Like PDF, there's dozens of features in the Windows version that are not included in the Mac version. A quantity of them are important features such as Plot Style Configuration, Plot to File, or the Reference Manager.

One glaring feature missing from AutoCAD 2011 is support for importing and exporting PDF files. In the current version, there is no export or print-to-PDF feature from within AutoCAD. Using the print-to-PDF option in the standard Mac print dialog box gives poor results compared to other CAD programs with built-in PDF support (including AutoCAD for Windows). There is also no way to import a PDF file in to your drawing, another feature supported in the Windows version of AutoCAD, but not on the Mac.

With this first comeback version of AutoCAD, Autodesk appears to be applying the 80/20 rule for its Mac users, providing the 80 percent of features and tools that are used the most. I don't have a conceptual issue with that approach. It seems sane for such a immense program to implement the most important parts first and then fill inOn a positive note, Autodesk has a free iPhone/iPad app available in the iTunes store that lets you share and view AutoCAD files in the field. You may even do some light editing of the files right on your iPhone or iPad, including drawing new objects, moving, rotating, and annotating.