ACA 2013 - Features

[Oilymo]

Anyone able to spill the beans on the new features on ACA 2013?  It's been two days since my e-mail from Autodesk prompted me to download ACA 2013 and I still cannot due to problems their end.

Thanks

Ben

[ntellery]

Don't worry about rushing Ben.  Move along, nothing to see here!

If we've been let down before by the lack of development, 13 is the one that said it all, or nothing at all.

The big one is some additions to room schedules (Room Book) (yes this is the big one). and then there is.....  

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Content pack improvements, IFC, Grips? Layer key inside a style, Migration, transparency to ACA objects. Something called geometry sharing which I never figured out what it was.

I think they are focused on the clouds and cload rendering (which ACA can't access).

Can't remember too much in Autocad either.  There is some good looking elevation tools that we already have in ACA.

AC has had some big improvements lately with rendering, solids, meshes etc. so I guess they've focused on 'other' things other than Acad.   I really appreciated the corner windows tool in 12.  

I've just paid sub so I'll keep hoping that some morsels will fall from the table in 14.

[pendean]

You can read about most of the core AutoCAD enhancements at many sites like THIS.

As for specific ACA enhancements:

• Layer Keys and Overrides as display properties: a tool for creating drawing templates without hard-coded layer names.
• Transparency Controls added to individual display components (Display Properties Editor, Display Theme Styles, Layer Key Styles etc.).
• Schedule Table now supports Grouping and Subtotals (rows), and new options in the Schedule Table Style Sorting Tab.
• New rotation options for schedule tags.
• Migration as an option for Content/Tool Catalogs from earlier releases.
• Annotative properties added to hatch display components.
• Fixes to Xrefing drawings with Annotative AEC objects that may have different units settings than the top file.
• There are more general fixes to some core tools. I'm sure I missed a few additional items, so look for others to jump in.

[Oilymo]

Doh! - we just renewed our subs as well.  On top of that I've got to upgrade my OS from Vista to 7.  I did ask my reseller about new features and I haven't had real response.

What about stability?  Any chance it is as stable as 2009?

[ntellery]

He did respond 🙂

In the new features for 13 it lists corner windows!!

Not sure what I can say there.  I've only tried the last beta.  It went from crashing every time to seeming to be quite stable.  I'd go to 12 though!  My opinon is the last of the 3 releases before the new dwg format.  I wouldn't jump to a new drawing version too quick anyway until at least the service pack is released.

[David_W_Koch]

Some details on the Grouping and Subtotals in Schedule Tables:

http://architects-desktop.blogspot.com/2012/03/aca-2013-grouping-and-subtotals-in.html

and the Layer Key/Layer Override within Display Representations feature:

http://architects-desktop.blogspot.com/2012/03/aca-2013-object-display-enhancements.html

I hope to post additional articles as time allows.