Autodesk AutoCAD Mechanical 2004 - 2003 Cadalyst Labs All-Stars - Brief Article

CADalyst, Dec, 2003

REVIEWED 09.03, p. 34

Though most vendors are focusing their development efforts and marketing pitches on 3D design, Autodesk earns a nod for acknowledging that for many mechanical design applications, 2D works just fine. AutoCAD Mechanical 2004 ($4,195) implements new features above and beyond those found in AutoCAD 2004. Particularly noteworthy is mechanical structure, which lets you organize geometry into reusable components using a tree format. The mechanical structure browser is similar to the feature trees found in 3D modeling applications. Mechanical design tasks are made easier through standard parts libraries, mechanical line objects, and the ability to perform simple FEA calculations. Autodesk also recently introduced AutoCAD Electrical, a version of AutoCAD for electrical controls design, another task best done in 2D.

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