The AutoCAD World Cup

JONATHAN HAND: Hello everybody, and welcome to The AutoCAD World Cup. Today, we're going to look and determine the best command within AutoCAD. I'm Jonathan, and I'm also joined by Shir. And we're going to take you through and get you involved today.

For those of you that do not know me, my name is Jonathan. I'm the AEC industry community manager here at Autodesk. I've been in and around the Autodesk channel in various different roles for about 20 years. My specialism tends to lie within structural and offsite manufacturing.

As I said, I work within the community team here at Autodesk, and the community is our place for people to come together in the design and make world to connect and inspire each other. We offer a place where you can engage with content, you can gather insights, and also build connections within the community.

I'm going to hand over to Shir, and she can do a quick introduction.

SHIR ERLICH: Hi, everybody. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Shir Erlich, and I'm a product owner at Symetri. And I've been in the industry about 10 years working in BIM and dynamo. I've worked in the US and overseas in Munich, Germany. And I really get a kick out of working with different technologies in the AEC industry.

So like I said, I work at Symetri, formerly Microdesk. And Symetri was actually founded in 1989 and has grown tremendously over the years to be in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, the UK, Ireland, and now the United States. And at Symetri, we create and provide technology solutions and services for design, engineering, construction, and manufacturing businesses.

And our goal is really to empower people to work smarter for a better future by ensuring that we have access to enterprise and technology to improve performance and, of course, sustainability.

JONATHAN HAND: Thank you, Shir. So this is the AutoCAD World Cup. Can't have a World Cup without some kind of rules. So this is a different type of class. We will be determining the best command within AutoCAD. We're taking a different approach this year. We're going to use for the group stages of the tournament some interactive voting.

That will be done through Slido where you can vote with your smartphone or tablet. And in the class, you can then determine which of your favorite commands can rank highest within each of the groups. A change for this year-- in the knockout phases, we are going to use a system of yellow and red cards.

Each of you will have a yellow and red card in your seat, and you can determine your favorite command by simply raising the red bar the yellow card. And then, when we get through to the final two commands, we are going to allow you to get up from your seat and pick a side of the room, which can then determine which is your favorite command.

So hopefully, it's pretty simple. Three different ways to engage and three different ways to get different winners within the tournament. So like any World Cup, we have split it into a group phase, a knockout phase, and then through to a final.

Some small changes based on feedback from 2019 is that we're going to group the various commands together based upon their discipline. So you will see that we have groups like utilities. We've got annotate. We've got drawing tools. We've got variables. And we've also included some of the great tools that have been added in the 2023 and 2024 release.

So this is the tournament bracket. We will go through each of the groups through interactive voting, then into a red and yellow card system, and then ultimately determine the winner. Like any tournament, the referee's decision is final. So where we may have some interjection, particularly in the red and yellow cards where it may be quite close in the voting, myself and Shir will act as the referees. And our decision is final.

So let's get into it and let's have a quick preview of each of the groups. So I'm going to take you through Group A, which is based upon some of the utility tools within AutoCAD. So Group A comprises of the Purge, Overkill, Audit, Recover tool.

So for those of you that may not be fully aware of these tools, the Purge tool allows you to remove any unused items or named objects such as block definitions and layers from your drawing. The Overkill is used to remove duplicate geometry. And this is where you have a line basically on top of a line, and AutoCAD does a clever little thing and allows you to remove that content that is duplicating.

The Audit tool allows you to evaluate the integrity of a drawing and correct any errors. And then we, finally, cover out the Recover tool where it repairs and then opens a damaged file. And it's over to you, Shir, to look at group B.

SHIR ERLICH: Which is the Modify group, yes. So within the Modify group, we have Move, Copy, MatchProp or Match Properties, Trim-- and that's it, and Trim. So let's go into detail on some of these features-- or commands.

So we have Move, which moves objects a specified distance in a specified direction. Copy copies objects a specified distance in a specified direction. MatchProp applies the properties of a selected object to other objects. And then Trim trims objects to meet the edges of other objects. Back to you, Jonathan.

JONATHAN HAND: Now looking at Group C, it's all about the annotation tools. So in here we have Mtext, Table, Dim or dimension, and then Mleader. So the Mtext is probably one of the common tools. It's multi-line text for you to create multiple lines of text.

Then we have the Table tool where it allows you to create a table of entities. Dimension tool. It wouldn't be AutoCAD without dimension. And this allows you to create and dimension multiple objects within a single command. And then we have the Mleader or multileader, which then allows you to create a multileader object. Over to you, Shir, looking at Group D.

SHIR ERLICH: So Group D is some of the new commands in 2023. Here we have Markup Assist, GSF Graphics, Macro Advisor, and Web Sheet Set. So let's go into some of these details as these are new to 2023 and you might not be familiar with them.

Markup Assist. Markup Assist uses machine learning to identify markups and provide a way to view and insert drawing revisions with less manual effort. GSF Graphics. Graphic Fabric System, which now leverages all the power of modern GPUs and multi-core CPU to offer a smooth navigation experience for much larger drawings.

Macro Advisor. Macro insights are suggested command macros intended to help you be more productive. And lastly, the Web Sheet Set. Display and organizes named collections of drawing sheets stored in Autodesk Docs. Back to you, Jonathan, for Group E.

JONATHAN HAND: So this is my favorite group. And we have labeled it Revenge because it's a little bit naughty. And when we were looking at the commands that we would include, I thought we would do something [INAUDIBLE]. So these commands are commands in AutoCAD. And I tend to-- you would use these if you want to get back at someone in your office or you want to play a prank.

What I would say with these commands is that myself and Shir and Autodesk and Symetri do not endorse using these commands for any productive work because they do some naughty things within the software. So within the Revenge category, we have Cursor Type, RegenAuto, .blipmode, and Undefine.

So the Cursor Type allows you to adjust the system variable, which will change the AutoCAD cursor type to the Windows cursor. So when someone comes to the machine, it's automatically changed and it just looks and feels a little bit different. The RegenAuto command allows you to turn off the automatic region on a drawing. So if it's turned off, AutoCAD will not regen the drawing.

.blipmode leaves a little mark on your drawing at the points that you specified. So these marked are visual references and do not appear on the printouts and the drawing. But it can be quite hard to figure out why they're there unless you know what the .blipmode command is.

And then Undefine allows you to basically remove a command from the completed [INAUDIBLE] So using that Undefine command can allow you to play a prank on your coworker and remove a complete command from the software. It can be redone by using the Redefine command. So it's a little bit naughty, but I do think it could be quite a fun category when we start to vote. So over to you, Shir, to look at Group F.

SHIR ERLICH: Yeah. I already have some ideas of how I can pull some pranks on some of my coworkers. But let's go over to Group F with the drawing commands. So we have Pline, Hatch, Rectangle, and Line. And I'm sure you are all familiar with these commands, but let's go into details with them as well.

So Pline creates a 2D polyline, a single object that is composed of line and arc segments. Hatch fills an enclosed area or selected objects with a hatch pattern, solid fill, or gradient fill. Rectangle creates an oblong shape by specifying two points. And then, finally, Line creates a series of line segments. Each segment is a line object that can be edited separately. Take it away, Jonathan.

JONATHAN HAND: So onto group G, and this is where we look at some of the system variables that are quite useful within AutoCAD. So here we have Startmode, Filedia, Tooltips, and Statusbar. The Startmode allows you to control the display of the Start tab. Some people enjoy not having that on. Selecting the variable and toggling it will turn that on or off.

Filedia suppresses the file navigation dialog box. So that effectively is the Save As or the Open Dialog box will be turned off. Tooltips controls the display of the tooltips on the ribbon, toolbars, and any other interface elements. And then Statusbar controls the display of the status bar.

And then over to you, Shir, to look at Group H.

SHIR ERLICH: And the last group is what is new in 2024. So the new commands in 2024 are Activity Insights, AutoLisp for LT, Smart Blocks, and Performance Analyzer. Now bear with me as I go through these, as they are quite descriptive.

So Activity Insights. My Insights is personalized information shown to you as individual insights and to your product administrator as team-based insights, both of which are based on your use of an Autodesk product. AutoLisp for LT enables the ability to streamline workflows and enforce CAD standards through automation, and uses thousands of programs that were previously written for use in AutoCAD-based programs.

Smart Blocks offers placement suggestions based on where you've placed that block before in the drawing and replace specified block references by selecting from a palette of suggested similar blocks. And lastly, Performance Analyzer. Use the Performance Analyzer to diagnose operations in AutoCAD that seem slow or unresponsive.

These are some great additions to AutoCAD 2024.

JONATHAN HAND: Thank you, Shir. So that is the qualifiers and the teams or the commands, and these are the things that are going to determine our World Cup Championship. As we've said, we've shown you how the voting will work. We've run through all the commands. So now it's time to let's get started.