New Features Overview - AutoCAD 2024

 

Apple Silicon Support - AutoCAD 2024 for Mac

AutoCAD for Mac 2024 runs natively on both Intel and Apple Silicon architectures. The performance is improved significantly when running natively on Apple Silicon machines.

Note: You may be prompted to install Rosetta 2 when you install AutoCAD on an Apple Silicon machine. Because the installer is built to run Intel architectures, Rosetta 2 is required to run the AutoCAD installer on Apple Silicon. Once you install Rosetta 2 you will not be prompted to install Rosetta 2 again.

3Dconnexion Device Support - AutoCAD 2024

You can use a 3Dconnexion device to reorient and navigate a model's view.

The device has a pressure sensitive controller cap designed to flex in all directions. When a view change occurs with the 3Dconnexion 3D mouse, the ViewCube tool is reoriented to reflect the current view.

Note: The 3Dconnexion device only works in a 3D visual style.

Install the latest device driver for macOS found at 3Dconnexion.com to use the buttons on the device.

Smart Blocks Placement - AutoCAD 2024

The block placement engine learns how the existing block instances are placed in your drawing to infer the next placement of the same block. 

As you insert a block, the engine gives placement suggestions close to a similar geometry where you've placed that block before.

For example, if you've already placed a chair block close to the corner of a wall, when inserting another instance of that same chair block, AutoCAD automatically positions the chair as you move it close to a similar corner. 

As you move the block, the walls are highlighted, and the position, rotation, and scale of the chair block are adjusted to match the other block instance. 

You can click to accept the suggestion, press Ctrl to switch to other suggestions, or move the cursor away to ignore the current suggestion. 

To temporarily turn off suggestions when placing a block, hold Shift+W or Shift+[ while inserting or moving your block.

Trace Update - AutoCAD for Mac

The Trace environment continues to improve and now includes the new COPYFROMTRACE command and new settings controls on the toolbar.

The new COPYFROMTRACE command lets you copy objects from a trace into the drawing. To copy objects from a trace:

While a trace is open, with TRACEBACK on, start the COPYFROMTRACE command.

Select objects in the trace, and press Enter.

The objects are added to the drawing.

New Trace Settings

There are new settings available in the Settings drop-down menu on the Trace toolbar.

Overlay Effect: Adjust the transparency of the tracing paper overlay.

Geometry in Trace: Adjust the transparency of the trace geometry in the background. When TRACEFRONT is on, geometry in the drawing is affected. When TRACEBACK is on, geometry in the trace is affected.

Drawing Background: Adjust the transparency of the imported markup that is laid over the drawing.

Faded Markup: Adjust the transparency of markups that have been marked as faded.

Note: Drawing Background and Faded Markup settings are available only on traces that have used Import Markup to overlay a markup file on the drawing.

Markup Import and Markup Assist - AutoCAD 2024

 Markup Import

Use Markup Import to place a marked-up version of your drawing on top of the original file to make it easier to view and incorporate changes to your drawing. For example, if you have a PDF version of your drawing that has text and revision notes added, use Markup Import to overlay the revised drawing on top of the original. Or, if you have a printed version of your drawing that contains hand-written revision notes, you can take a photograph of the printed version and then import it as a JPG or PNG.

The imported file is automatically placed and aligned on top the drawing file in a new trace.

If the imported file is not aligned correctly, you can manually align, move, scale, or rotate the imported file.

Markup Assist

Markup Assist automatically identifies markups as text, leaders, and revision clouds. Click an identified markup, then insert it as an mtext, mleader, or revcloud object. You can edit the text before inserting it, or choose to copy the text to the clipboard.

3D Color Background Application Preference Updates AutoCAD 2024

 

In the AutoCAD Preferences dialog, the Look and Feel tab now has settings to customize the background color for 3D visual styles including both parallel and perspective mode.

• 3D Parallel Background. Specifies the background color of the drawing area when a 3D visual style and the parallel view is active.

• 3D Top Sky. Specifies the color of the sky top when a 3D visual style and the perspective view is active.

• 3D Sky Horizon. Specifies the color of the sky horizon when a 3D visual style and the perspective view is active.

• 3D Ground Origin. Specifies the color of the ground origin when a 3D visual style and the perspective view is active.

• 3D Ground Horizon. Specifies the color of the ground horizon when a 3D visual style and the perspective view is active.