10 Things You Should Know About AutoCAD 2013

AutoCAD 2013 comes with many great new features and tools to help you get the most out of the software.  In this post we’ll go over 10 new features and upgrades that you should know about in AutoCAD 2013.

3D Free-Form Design Tools
AutoCAD 2013 gives you the power to create designs in nearly any shape or form you can imagine.  By pushing and pulling on faces, edges and vertices you can model extremely complex objects and modify the smoothing of surfaces.  You can select 2d and 3d curves for quick and easy press-pull operation.



Documentation Tools
When you import models into AutoCAD 2013, it can automatically generate documentation based on documentation tools built from almost 30 years of experience. If your drawing includes 3d solids or surfaces, you can use the new model documentation tools to quickly create 2d drawing views.

Scanned Drawing Capture
If you have drawings or rasterized images, you can now import those into AutoCAD 2013 to capture design information and clean them up with the despeckle tool.  AutoCAD provides tools for bitmap cleanup, editing and manipulation, raster to vector conversion, and image processing.

Raster-to-Vector Conversion
With AutoCAD Raster Design 2013 (which doesn't come with AutoCAD, but is available in the Design Suites) you can easily convert your designs into AutoCAD DWG vector objects.  AutoCAD Raster Design 2013 will automatically recognize lined drawings and convert them to vector objects.

3D Rendering
AutoCAD 2013 lets you convert your models into stunning 3D renderings that you can share and publish to the web or mobile devices.

Cinematic-Quality Presentations
Now you can generate cinematic quality rendered animations of your models while modifying the lighting and visual settings in real time.

Conceptual Design Sketching
You can take your freehand drawings and use them to create conceptual design sketches for AutoCAD.

Autodesk 360 Connectivity
AutoCAD 2013 helps you coordinate and collaborate your files by storing them in the cloud-based Autodesk 360 storage area.  You can keep your files synchronized and the settings customized directly within AutoCAD.

Autodesk Exchange Apps
You can easily expand the power of AutoCAD by tapping into the vast resources of the AutoCAD companion apps. You can browse through more than 100 AutoCAD apps to help increase your productivity.  You can also filter by specific categories and search for the app that fits your needs.

Modern User Interaction
Many of the ways to interact with AutoCAD have been updated to be more intuitive.  The Command Line tool has been updated to fit more easily into the screen while not getting in the way while you work.  Viewports have also been updated to be more customizable.  In addition, there are also a large number of smaller usability updates throughout the rest of the software.

All of the new features, updates and tweaks to AutoCAD 2013 are what make it the best tool for designers and engineers who need power and reliability when creating new products or managing existing models.

This article was created by guest author Brandon O'Brien.  Brandon O'Brien graduated from Purdue University in 2005 with a Bachelors degree in Computer Graphics Technology and a minor in Computer Programming.  He has used a wide variety of 3D modeling applications for design and animation.