The ECN No Name Newsletter is no longer being published. This is an archived issue.

AutoCAD Release 10 and AutoSolid

AutoCAD is a universal design and drafting program for desktop computers and workstations. Autodesk announced recently that AutoCAD Release 10 will be available for the Sun, Apollo and Mac II platforms in January of 1989. Release 10 adds three major areas of functionality to AutoCAD's 3-D environment.

DRAWING AND EDITING FEATURES

A user defined coordinate system (UCS) allows the user to specify construction planes in 3-D space. Once a construction plane is defined, entities may be drawn in 3-D using existing AutoCAD commands. A UCS may be named, saved and restarted at any time. In addition a Coordinate System Icon (CSI) provides visual confirmation of the current working construction plane.

DISPLAY FEATURES

Release 10 allows the user to define up to 16 viewports on 32-bit workstations (4 VPs for PCs). Each viewport can have a different viewpoint of a 3-D model. Any changes made to a drawing are automatically updated in all viewports. Any viewport can be made active by pointing to that viewport and clicking the pointing device. Also available is a dynamic viewpoint feature that allows the user to rotate objects in 3-D space - on the screen interactively - in real time. In addition, perspective projection of 3-D objects can be generated at any time and from any point in space.

NEW DRAWING ENTITIES

Several 3-D surfaces have been added to AutoCAD that enable it to develop 3-D wire-frame models.

• The 3-D Surface Patch allows creation of generalized surfaces.
• Tabulated cylinders can be created by specifying a curve and vector.
• Ruled surfaces can be created by picking two boundary curves that define the desired surface.
• Coons surfaces can be created by picking four boundary curves that define the desired surface.

AutoCAD Release 10 retails for $3000 per workstation. However, Purdue has a purchasing agreement with Autodesk that allows us to purchase AutoCAD at a substantial discount. This agreement is now being renegotiated and should be finalized early this spring. Hopefully this new agreement will allow the purchase of AutoCAD Release 10 for less than $500 per workstation.

Student acceptance of AutoCAD has been good, and we are continuing to integrate its use in our curricula. Already we are seeing some students receiving very positive response from prospective employers as a result of their AutoCAD experience. With the addition of AutoCAD Release 10 and AutoSolid (see next article) to our CAD facilities, we hope to further enhance the educational process in the Agricultural Engineering Department.

HTML