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System requirements for AutoCAD 2016
Operating System	Microsoft® Windows® 8/8.1 Enterprise Microsoft Windows 8/8.1 Pro Microsoft Windows 8/8.1 Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
CPU Type	Minimum Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon™ 64 processor
Memory	For 32-bit AutoCAD 2016: 2 GB (3 GB recommended) For 64-bit AutoCAD 2016: 4 GB (8 GB recommended)
Display Resolution	1024x768 (1600x1050 or higher recommended) with True Color
Display Card	Windows display adapter capable of 1024x768 with True Color capabilities. DirectX® 9 or DirectX 11 compliant card recommended.
Disk Space	Installation 6.0 GB
Pointing Device	MS-Mouse compliant device
Media (DVD)	Download and installation from DVD
Browser	Windows Internet Explorer® 9.0 (or later)
.NET Framework	.NET Framework Version 4.5
Network	Deployment via Deployment Wizard. The license server and all workstations that will run applications dependent on network licensing must run TCP/IP protocol. Either Microsoft® or Novell TCP/IP protocol stacks are acceptable. Primary login on workstations may be Netware or Windows. In addition to operating systems supported for the application, the license server will run on the Windows Server® 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows 2008 R2 Server editions. Citrix® XenApp™ 6.5 FP1, Citrix® XenDesktop™ 5.6.

Additional Requirements for Large Datasets, Point Clouds, and 3D Modeling
Memory	8 GB RAM or greater
Disk Space	6 GB free hard disk available, not including installation requirements
Display Card	1600x1050 or greater True Color video display adapter; 128 MB VRAM or greater; Pixel Shader 3.0 or greater; Direct3D®-capable workstation class graphics card.
Note:	64-bit Operating Systems are recommended if you are working with Large Datasets, Point Clouds and 3D Modeling.

New Tab

It displays as a file tab when you launch AutoCAD

When there are no drawings open
When you create a new tab
New Tab contains two sliding content frames: Learn and Create

Help

AutoCAD Help system includes a new way to help you locate tools in the AutoCAD user interface (UI) directly from the relevant Help content

Color Schemes

The new dark-themed interface combined with the traditional dark model space minimizes the contrast between the drawing space and the surrounding tools to help reduce eye strain

You can easily change between the dark theme and a more traditional light theme using the Color Scheme control on the Display tab 

Workspace

The Workspace drop-down list has been turned off in the Quick Access toolbar

You can turn it on or switch workspaces using the control on the status bar 
The option for classic workspace has been removed

Block Galleries

New block galleries to view and insert blocks directly from the Ribbon for block definitions that are stored in the current drawing

View Ribbon

The new View Ribbon tab make it easier to control the visibility of UI elements such as the UCS icon, ViewCube, Navigation bar, and Layout tabs.

BIM 360 Ribbon

A new BIM 360 Ribbon offers easy access to tools for sharing your AutoCAD models and viewing clash results with the project team using Autodesk® BIM 360 TM Glue® online service.

Layout

Layout tabs are enhanced to include a new plus (+) icon for quickly adding new layouts

The appearance of layout sheets has been updated and a new color option

Line Smoothing

Anti-aliasing enable by default
2D objects — such as lines, arcs, circles, and drawings aids like grid lines — look smoother, especially when drawn at an angle.

You can enable Smooth Line Display in the Graphics Performance dialog box

It does not affect plotting

Create and Edit Enhancement

During a move operation, the selected objects are displayed in their originalposition
with a faded deletion effect instead of a dashed selection effect.

Complex linetypes display as you draw, move, copy, or rotate them, enabling you to

more easily place them. 

Displays color, linetype, and lineweight for lines and polylines as you draw them.

Lasso Selection

Click the cursor in a blank area of the drawing and then drag around objects to create a lasso selection

Setting in Options dialog box to control this new selection

Command Preview

A new Command Preview control enables you to preview the results of Trim,
Extend, Lengthen, Break, and MatchProp operations. 

Pass the cursor over the object you want to trim or extent, 
A preview of the resulting object is displayed. 

The Break tool displays the results of the Break operation prior to specifying the second break point

MatchProp tool temporarily displays those properties on the destination objects as you pass the cursor over them to select

Cursor Enhancements

Provide contextual feedback by the badges to reflect the state of many common operations

The crosshairs have been removed from the inside of the pick box to make it
easier to see what you’re picking

Selection badges indicate when you are creating crossing or window selections

An Inspection badge is displayed when using inquiry tools such as Distance, Radius, Angle, Area, Volume, List, and ID.

Rotation badges are displayed when specifying the angle of rotation during a Rotate operation

The badge displays a clockwise or counter-clockwise arrow according to the direction specified by the Drawing Units

Relevant badges are displayed for other editing commands including Copy, Move, and Scale

Zoom and Erase/Delete also display relevant badges

Model Space Viewports

A bright blue boundary clearly identifies the active viewport

Drag the intersection to resize viewports both horizontally and vertically at the same time

Layer Sort

Layer lists are now displayed using natural ordered sort

Layer names 1, 4, 25, 6, 21, 2, 10 are sorted as 1, 2, 4, 6, 10, 21, 25 

Mtext Enhancements

The background is now transparent when hardware acceleration is enabled. 
so you can see drawing geometry even when the editor opens on top of it.

A corner resizer offers more obvious and intuitive resizing of coumns, enabling you to adjust both the height and width at the same time. 

Auto Bullets and Numbering

Then when you begin a line with a symbol or with a number or letter,
AutoCAD automatically creates a bullet or numbered list.

An icon indicates that automatic bullets or numbering has started

Cap Lock

When you enter text in the Mtext editor, AutoCAD recognizes if Caps Lock is turned on 

AutoCAD automatically corrects the text and turns off Caps Lock 

Subscript and Superscript Text

Text Editor tab > Formatting panel

Autostacking of Fractions

When you enter numbers with a forward slash, for example 1/20,
AutoCAD automatically treats it as a fraction and displays it as such. 

You can click on the icon to access relevant controls for that stacked fraction

Paragraph Tabs

A new Modify button in the Paragraph dialog box enables you to easily modify the values of existing tabs

Match Properties for Multi-line Text Objects

Text Editor Ribbon tab

Apply properties between selected text within an mtext object
Including dimension and table

Text Alignment

Align single and multi-line text

1st set of text aligned with the 2nd set of text
1st set can be multiple text

Options including:
Distribute then evenly
Set a spacing value
Maintain current horizontal or vertical spacing

Object Snap Ignore Dimension Extension Lines

Existing dimension extension lines are ignored to prevent them from being inadvertently snapped to while attempting to pick nearby geometry.

The default setting in Options dialog box

Polyline Enhancements

Fillet polyline arc segment

Hold-down Ctrl key to change the arc's direction

Geographic location

2D Drawing
Insert tab > Location panel > Set Location

3D Drawing
Render tab > Geographic Location panel > Set Location

If you’re not signed into Autodesk 360, you can still use the Geographic Location tool to enter latitude and longitude for the location. 

Design Feed

The Design Feed palette provides a way of adding messages and images to a
drawing, which you can then share with colleagues, clients, and consultants
online through Autodesk 360. 

AutoCAD 2015 enables you to store them locally on your computer’s hard
drive. 
In this case, the Design Feed data for these drawings are still stored
in Autodesk 360
But the association to the Design Feed data is maintained by a unique Design Feed ID, which is saved in the drawing. 

Import File Type

The new Autodesk Translation Framework (ATF) is used when importing model data from popular file formats

ATF supports importing of meshes and curves as well as object colors and layers 

BIM 360

BIM 360 tab > BIM 360 panel

This add-in supports round-trip BIM coordination workflows between AutoCAD and the BIM 360 cloud.