Autodesk Launches its 2011 Design Software Portfolio

Last week, Autodesk hosted a webcast to officially launch the next version of its design software portfolio. While it did not discuss any of its products in depth, the webcast summarized the main enhancements in the 2011 versions of AutoCAD, Inventor, Revit, and 3ds Max, which were identified as the key applications of its product portfolio. In addition to individual enhancements in each of these applications to make them "best of class," Autodesk has also launched an initiative to make the user experience more consistent across all of them. This has included implementing the ribbon-based interface to provide a similar—and modern—look and feel, as well as making common tasks such as model navigation, material selection, and so on work the same way across all of them. Other key objectives for Autodesk in this product release were improved graphics for better visualization, better data interoperability between its applications, and improving the power and sophistication of the applications while at the same time making them simpler and easier to use.

The highlights of Autodesk’s launch webcast from an AEC perspective are captured in this month's issue of the AECbytes Newsletter. Autodesk is holding another event next month to provide further details of the 2011 AEC product portfolio, which will be covered in a separate article at that time.

Also on the agenda is a thought-provoking Viewpoint article by architect and educator Randy Deutsch entitled "Notes on the Synthesis of BIM." He draws on the work of leading thinkers like Christopher Alexander and many other luminaries from diverse fields to assess the design and construction industry’s current efforts to produce and analyze vast amounts of information, arguing that the time has come for a synthesis of its technology and collaborative work processes.

Rounding up the offerings for the month are two Tips and Tricks articles. The first covers a very prevalent topic of debate—type versus instance parameters in Revit and when to use what. The second article is focused on the workflow from conceptual to detailed design and looks at how to go from a sketch concept to BIM and back again using SketchBook Pro and ArchiCAD.

As always, please continue to check out the AECbytes Blog for reader comments and the VendorHub to get a consolidated view of all the technology providers in AEC.

Thank you!

Lachmi Khemlani

Editorials > March 2010