For instance, what if you need to exclude an area within a larger viewport? The Rectangular and Polygonal viewport tools fall short in such scenarios. Fortunately, the Object viewport creation method provides a way to achieve this more complex composition. 

Understanding Regions and the Object Viewport Creation Method 

The key to using the Object method to create a viewport with a cutout area is first to make an AutoCAD object with a cutout area. But what AutoCAD object lets you cut out an area? 

While hatches might come to mind, they cannot be used to create viewports. So, what other options does AutoCAD provide? 

Although lesser-used, AutoCAD Regions allow you to cut (technically SUBTRACT) portions from a larger region. Once created, you can use the Object viewport creation method to select the region and create a viewport with its cutout area. 

Using Regions to Create Viewport Cutouts 

In the following video, I demonstrate how to use AutoCAD Regions to create viewports with cutout areas. 

The basic process is as follows: 

1. Erase any existing viewports. Tip: Create a named view to restore the displayed area of your viewport quickly. 
2. Use the REGION command to create a region representing the outer extent of your viewport and an inner region to cut out. 
3. Use the SUBTRACT command to combine the two regions into one, creating a cutout of the inner area. 
4. Use the Viewports, Objects command to create a new viewport from your combined region. 
5. Adjust the scale and visible area of your viewport as needed. 

I’d love to hear from you. How have you used this method in your work, or what other handy viewport tips do you apply for specialized Layout tab scenarios like this? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below. 

As an AU Speaker Mentor and a speaker myself for the last 17 years, I have learned that the question has a simple yet complicated answer, and that’s what I’ll share in this post. 

Call For Proposals 

Let’s get the simple part of how to become an AU speaker out of the way first. The journey to speaking at AU starts with a class proposal you author and submit to Autodesk during their annual call for proposal period. 

Though the exact dates vary from year to year, the annual Call for Proposals typically opens shortly after the annual product release in the spring and remains open for about a month. At the time of writing, the Call for Proposal period for AU 2024 opened on April 2nd and will remain open until April 30^th. 

Put simply, the annual Call for Proposal period is your one and only chance to submit a proposal to speak at AU. 

Preparing your Proposal 

While the simple answer to becoming an AU speaker is to submit a proposal, that raises an even greater question of what should your proposal include? 

The process to submit a proposal is entirely web-based. While the Call for Proposal period is open, you’ll find a button on the AU website to start the proposal process. 

To propose a class for AU 2024, your proposal must include the following information. 

• Session Title (125 Characters of Less) 
• Session Description (up to 1,000 characters) 
• Session Format 
  • Industry Talk 
  • Case Study 
  • Technical Instruction 
  • Product Demo 
  • Panel 
  • Theater Talk 
  • Hands-on Lab 
• Top Relevant Topics: Choose up to 3 from a predefined list. 
• Keywords: Add up to 3 from a predefined list. 
• American Institute of Architects (AIA) continuing education eligibility 
  • AIA Standard Learning Units 
  • AIA Health, Safety, and Wellness (HSW) Units 
• Speaker Experience 
  • Experience presenting at Autodesk University and other conferences. 
• Industry Segment Target Audience 
• Relevant Autodesk products (Limit 5) 
• Primary Audience Role 
  • Business Leaders 
  • Managers 
  • Product Users 
  • Software Developers 
• Primary Occupations of Target Audience (Limit 5) 
• Primary Focus of Content 
  • An industry or project case study 
  • Exploring industry practice and workflows. 
  • Getting started with new software 
  • Going beyond software basics 
  • Thought leadership and innovation 
• Level of Proficiency 
  • Associate (Entry-level professionals) 
  • Expert (Senior professionals with multiple years of experience) 
  • Professional (Mid-career to more seasoned professionals) 
  • Non Applicable (Content is not skills based) 
• Describe any prerequisite skills or knowledge, including a brief description of who will benefit from attending your session (consider industries, disciplines, job titles, specialties, interests, goals, memberships, etc.). 

What to Include in a Successful Proposal 

Submitting an AU class proposal is easy. The challenge rests in crafting a proposal that stands out from the many thousands of proposals fellow experts like you also submit. 

‘Fellow experts’ is the key phrase you must consider when crafting your proposal. As an AU speaker, you’re surrounded by experts. The expertise that makes you a unicorn at your office, is the ‘minimum installation requirements’ for becoming an AU speaker. 

So, what makes a successful AU class proposal? 

In my experience, the contrast separating accepted class proposals from rejected ones isn’t expertise –it’s problem-solving. Specifically, the proposals Autodesk accepts tend to solve two problems (fulfill two needs). 

Successful Proposals Fulfill an Autodesk Need 

Each year, Autodesk establishes a theme for AU. While many things support and bring life to that theme, one of the most substantial elements is the classes the conference offers. The classes that start life as proposals from experts like you. 

As an aspiring AU speaker, the good news is that you don’t have to guess about the types of sessions Autodesk is looking for. Each year, Autodesk publishes a Call for Proposals guide that outlines the industry topics and themes that Autodesk will place centerstage at this year’s conference. 

For example, the introduction of the AU 2024 Call for Proposal Guide reads as follows: 

We live and work in a time of radical transformation. Professional practices in the Design and Make industries are changing rapidly. AI is no longer a future possibility—it’s a present-day reality, changing how we work on a monthly, if not weekly basis. Over the past four years, many companies discovered new levels of resilience and agility through innovation—and have seen their technology investments pay off with unexpected growth. But they face continued challenges—from labor shortages and material constraints to cost increases—that continue to drive the search for better, more connected, and more sustainable ways to design and make.  

AU is the conference that brings together practitioners, innovators, and thought leaders from the fields of architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, and media and entertainment to share how they’re adapting to challenges and seizing new opportunities—creating better projects in ways that are better for people, the planet, and the bottom line. 

The bottom line is that proposals matching and embodying this vision have a much higher chance of being accepted than those that don’t. 

Successful Proposals Fulfill a Conference Attendee Need 

Despite the rich depth of information inside Autodesk’s Call for Proposals Guide, there is no similar guide that tells you what conference attendees want and need. So how do you write a successful proposal for an imaginary audience you won’t meet until you’re standing in front of them at AU? 

Although the challenges have increased, I’ve found that the core need of most attendees is virtually unchanged since I presented my first class at Autodesk University 2007. 

Much like the Call for Proposals Guide itself, the best AU classes curate information in a way that makes impossibly complex technical concepts and workflows both approachable and doable by attendees. Let me say that again, they enable your attendees to take action on a topic that, before your session, was impossibly complex to them. 

The value successful AU speakers deliver isn’t their expertise, it’s their ability to curate. 

Curating Complexity 

We live in an age of information parity. Practically anything you might want to know, including the topics of your AU class proposal, is little more than a Google search (or ChatGPT prompt) away. 

From Autodesk’s product documentation and online forums to YouTube videos and blog posts like this one, ‘your expertise’ is omnipresent – especially at AU. The problem AU attendees face isn’t a deficit of information; it’s making sense of the surplus of information they must navigate every hour of every day to do their jobs. 

It’s for this reason that I’ve found that the best and most successful AU sessions present less, not more, information. 

As you start writing your class proposal, ask yourself, what’s the 1% of your topic that makes the other 99% understandable?  

Your answer. The 1% of what could be known about your topic is the extent of what your AU class should be. 

Find the 1% of Your Topic 

Arguably, the most difficult part of writing a class proposal that’s accepted and later made into a class is finding the most important 1% of your topic. 

While I’ve not found an easy button for this, there is a series of questions I like to ask myself to help me discover it. 

• Question 1: What job title(s) does your audience have? 
• Question 2: Who is your target audience? 
• Question 3: What existing knowledge does your audience have? 
• Question 4: Where do people typically stumble with this topic? 
• Question 5: What are the biggest pain points people often have with this topic? 
• Question 6: What is the first thing a person needs to know about this topic/content? 
• Question 7: What is the most important thing you want to leave learners with once they attend your class? 
• Question 8: If you had to distill your content into just 3-4 main points, what’s the first point you would make? 
• Question 9: What are the other ones? 
• Question 10: Is there a system or process you use to explain this content? 
• Question 11: What often surprises people about this topic/content? 
• Question 12: At this stage of learning, what doesn’t a learner need to know about this topic/content? 
• Question 13: What existing resources do you know of on this topic, either created by you or others? 
• Question 14: What verbs most align with the content you think you might present? 

You can likely see the correlation of the above questions and the information your AU proposal must contain. This is no accident. The above questions are a way to help you express your amazing idea more clearly and convincingly to the reviewers of your proposal. In short, the clearer your proposal is to reviewers, the higher your chances of getting it approved. 

Four Years of AutoCAD Tips & Tricks

In 2018 we had Delightful Drafting Techniques; in 2019, we had More Delightful Drafting Techniques; in 2020, we had Dazzling Drafting Techniques and this year? Well, in 2021, we had AutoCAD Tips, Tricks, and the Most Dependable Drafting Techniques. 

Apart from having fun with the class title, I’ve also had a great deal of fun with the class itself. Finding ways to make a highly technical topic both informative and entertaining has taken much practice over the years but is something I believe is on display in this year’s class.

Unique Challenges of a Virtual Format

As I mentioned in last year’s class recap, the digital format remains a great wildcard for me. While I have extensive practice presenting to in-person audiences, presenting to virtual audiences remains an area where I have many opportunities to grow.

Beyond honing my craft delivering virtual presentations, this year’s conference threw another curveball my way—a new class format. Instead of classes featuring 60-minutes of instruction, classes were to feature 30-minutes of instruction with 30-minutes of live QA.

After so many years of building 60-minute Autodesk University classes, finding a way to cut things in half was far more difficult than anticipated. While I didn’t keep a log of hours invested into the development of the class, I estimate spending at least double the time building this year’s 30-minute class over the 60-minute variety for years past.

With just 30-minutes of instruction, factors like how long it takes to open drawings become significant considerations to the class structure. Estimating 30-seconds to switch between drawings, opening five drawings would represent more than 8% of my available instruction time. The idea of wasting 8% of my audience’s time just opening and switching between drawings seemed outlandish to me. I needed a better approach.

Keeping in mind the time it might take between drawings, I moved on to arguably the most challenging part of building any presentation. Designing it.

Designing an Award-Winning Class

What would I include in a thirty-minute version of my AutoCAD tips & tricks class?

In years past, I included a mix of quick tips I could demonstrate in 1-2 minutes each plus more significant tips that might take five or more minutes to present. With a voice in the back of my head that five minutes equals about 16% of a thirty-minute presentation, I questioned whether a similar format could work this year?

Without answering either of my time considerations, I started the brainstorming process. Unlike a workflow-based class where the workflow imposes some constraints on what you present, tips & tricks classes have none of those constraints. This is both the blessing and the curse of developing a tips & tricks class.

On the one hand, you have absolute freedom to include whatever you want. On the other hand, your class still needs to have some structure. In my experience, finding a balance between these two extremes is critical.

Starting with a brainstorming process, I incrementally went through the creative process of organizing each potential tip into categories and culling the list of tips I could present into the list of tips I would present. Unraveling the creative process of going from an idea to a final course outline is a topic unto itself and one we’ll save for another day.

The Creative Process

Suffice to say, after a lengthy creative process, I had the final presenter outline for my class. Now I had to turn it into an actual class that took into account the time constraints I was under.

What I finally decided was to host a class that was mostly a series of quick 1-2 minute tips. Since that also meant working with a proportional number of drawing files, I also opted to pre-record my demonstrations.

Each tip would be a silent video that I would embed into my PowerPoint and speak to during the class. To make the delivery seem natural, I needed to make sure the cadence of the videos matched my dialog. To achieve that, I opted to write what was practically a word-for-word script of the entire presentation.

After writing the script, I then recorded the demonstration videos as I read the script to myself.

The Payoff

With the videos recorded, it was just a matter of embedding them into my PowerPoint and scheduling my recording session with the Autodesk University speaker team. While time-intensive, the immense preparations I invested into building my class paid off. 

First I was able to record a clean take of my class that didn’t require any editing by the Autodesk University speaker team before being broadcast during the conference. Secondly, my efforts solicited outstanding feedback from those who attended my class. In fact, their feedback was so positive, it earned me another Top Rated Speaker award.

While I remain optimistic that next year’s conference will be in-person, I am grateful for the growth these virtual years have forced me to ascend to. Although I still have a bevy of things I want to improve about how I present to a virtual audience, I feel fortunate to have built a strong foundation over the last couple of years. 

To me, the fact I can still find things to learn and improve about the work I do after fifteen appearances on the Autodesk University stage is a testament to the conference itself. Although I’ve been able to earn numerous Top Speaker awards over the years, earning one is never a given with the outstanding caliber of speakers the conference attracts each year. 

So what’s been going on in that time? As you can probably imagine, the most straightforward answer to that question is – quite a bit.

Working on getting back into the swing of blogging on a more regular basis, much of what’s happened in the last several months deserves its own post. I’ll get to those in due time, but in the meantime, I wanted to catch you up on some highlights.

Autodesk University

The last time we caught up, I had recently submitted several proposals for Autodesk University 2021. Of those proposals, my “AutoCAD Tips, Tricks, and the Most Dependable Drafting Techniques” proposal was accepted.

Continuing my run as an Autodesk University for a fifteenth consecutive year, I presented that class during the conference in October. Although we were still virtual this year, the feedback and connections I made during the conference and my presentation didn’t disappoint.

I’ll talk more about Autodesk University in an upcoming post. In the meantime, if you haven’t already, be sure to check out my class on the Autodesk University website.

Contributing Author for the Official AutoCAD Blog

Although I’ve not published any new posts here on The CAD Geek since April, that doesn’t mean I haven’t published any new posts anywhere. In fact, I’ve taken on a new project as a contributing author for the Official AutoCAD Blog. As part of that project, I’ve published five new posts there, with several more on the way!

I look forward to expanding upon some of the ideas shared in those posts both here and on the Official AutoCAD Blog in the coming months. Of course, if you’d like to catch up on all I’ve shared on the Official AutoCAD Blog, here’s a list of my recently published articles:

• 4 Steps to Uncover Workflows, Procedures, and What Teams Really Need: AutoCAD Process Assessment – Step One
• 4 Steps to Uncover Workflows, Procedures, and What Teams Really Need: AutoCAD Process Assessment – Step Two
• 4 Steps to Uncover Workflows, Procedures, and What Teams Really Need: AutoCAD Process Assessment – Step Three
• 4 Steps to Uncover Workflows, Procedures, and What Teams Really Need: AutoCAD Process Assessment – Step Four
• Ten Critical Questions to Ask Before Your Next AutoCAD Upgrade

Training the Timmons Group Team

Finally, beyond everything outlined above, what’s kept me most busy is helping the Timmons Group team be better through a myriad of learning and development initiatives. In the last year, we’ve added hundreds of new people to our team, and a big part of my role is to implement and manage the learning and development programs that help ensure their success.

We’ve both implemented new programs and built upon many existing programs in the last year to achieve that. Among those programs was the extensive training series we hosted over the summer, the in-person (Zoom) and on-demand version of our Civil 3D Fundamentals course, and elevating our onboarding program with a blend of coaching, live training, on-demand training, and more.

Suffice to say; it’s been as challenging as it’s been exciting at the office this year. With the number of new projects coming in the door, it seems we’ll likely add as many new people to our team in 2022 as we have in 2021.

Nonetheless, stay tuned over the coming weeks as I expand upon several of the highlights shared in this post. In the meantime, as we venture into the holiday season, may you remain safe and make magical memories with your family this year!

For the last month, Autodesk product experts worldwide have authored proposals for Autodesk University 2021. If you’re not familiar with Autodesk University, it’s Autodesk’s annual user conference. Typically, Autodesk hosts the conference as an in-person event at a place like Las Vegas, NV. Of course, as fantastic as Autodesk University is to experience in-person, these are still far from typical times. Because of that, like the 2020 conference, Autodesk will host Autodesk University 2021 as a digital conference this fall.

Now, even though fall is many months away, now is your chance to help choose what classes Autodesk includes as part of this year’s conference. You can visit the call for proposals voting page now thru May 12^th to vote for your favorites.

After delivering the top industry talk in 2019, and the top on-demand class in 2020, I hope to deliver at least one extraordinary session at Autodesk University this fall. Like all of the outstanding proposals submitted, you can find and vote for any of my three proposals on the Autodesk University website until May 12^th.

This year, my proposals include:

• AutoCAD Tips, Tricks, and the Most Dependable Drafting Techniques
• Civil 3D Tips to Maximize Project Performance
• CAD Management Unmasked: Life after COVID-19 at Small to Mega-Sized Firms

AutoCAD Tips, Tricks, and the Most Dependable Drafting Techniques

Vote For This Proposal

Sit down, buckle up, and keep your hands on your keyboard for the fourth installment of the top-rated on-demand class of Autodesk University 2020 by Autodesk Expert Elite member Donnie “The CAD Geek” Gladfelter. After a challenging year that disrupted many established workflows, the focus for this installment is dependability. Join Donnie as he shares the most dependable drafting techniques acquired from fifteen years of blogging, over two million YouTube video views, and as the design technology manager for a civil engineering firm of more than seven hundred professionals. From simple to advanced, you’re sure to discover new ways to remove tedium and boost your ability to meet project deadlines. Hourly employees need not attend as this session will only include dependable techniques proven to improve productivity.

Learning Objectives:

• Implement dependable drafting techniques that are proven to improve productivity.
• Maximize your use of AutoCAD by stretching the limits of common commands.
• Discover how recently added features can supercharge your use of AutoCAD.
• Impress your colleagues with secret tips that only AutoCAD veterans and gurus know.

Civil 3D Tips to Maximize Project Performance

Vote for This Proposal

What runs faster, a tortoise, or your Civil 3D projects? If you answered tortoise, this session is for you. Guided by the practical experience of the CAD manager for an ENR Top 500 firm, we’ll explore common myths of Civil 3D performance before identifying the most common root causes of those very problems. From best practices for drawing maintenance to recommended drafting and project-structure practices, you’ll discover experience-driven solutions to performance problems most commonly encountered by Civil 3D project teams. So sit down, buckle up, and keep your hands on your keyboard as this session helps put your Civil 3D projects into overdrive.

Learning Objectives:

Debunk common myths of Civil 3D performance while identifying the root cause of common performance problems.

Implement and automate critical drawing maintenance to keep projects running smoothly.

Adopt actionable and performance-focused Civil 3D drafting practices on projects.

Leverage proven data management strategies that maximize Civil 3D project performance.

CAD Management Unmasked: Life after COVID-19 at Small to Mega-Sized Firms

Vote for This Proposal

As the world unmasks and a post-pandemic life emerges, how has COVID-19 changed CAD management? Although a question asked by all firms, the size of your firm nuances the answer.

Join a panel of expert CAD managers from small, medium, large, and mega-sized firms for a discussion about the ways COVID-19 has forced them to think differently. Learn how each organization has risen to meet the needs of their employees and clients after a pandemic.

What role have Autodesk technologies played in making it possible to work throughout the pandemic and beyond? How has the way CAD managers implement, support, and train staff on Autodesk technology changed? What measures persist after the pandemic?

Led by Donnie Gladfelter of Timmons Group (700+ employees), you’ll gain answers to those questions and more from a panel of experts; George Othitis of Daft-McCune-Walker (50+ employees), Joshua Paulan of ESP Associates (150+ employees), and Stacey Morykin of Gannett Fleming (2,800+ employees).

Learning Objectives

• Compare the similarities and differences of CAD management at varying sized firms in the COVID-19 era.
• Analyze how a firm’s size empowered or impeded its ability to adapt and respond to COVID-19 in the workplace.
• Identify ways Autodesk technologies allowed their teams to remain productive throughout the pandemic.
• Examine the ways CAD managers support their teams has changed, and where they prioritize their time.

What do you do with the old software versions you no longer plan to use?

The simple answer to this question is to uninstall the old version(s) you will no longer use. If only things were that simple.

Chances are your Autodesk subscription includes access to more than one software product. For example, an AutoCAD subscription provides access to industry toolsets like AutoCAD Architecture. Similarly, the AEC Collection provides access to more than a dozen software tools.

This extended access is excellent, but it means we tend to install more Autodesk software on our machines. Some might say we over-install Autodesk software. Beyond that, we also tend to install new versions every year.

To keep everything under control, it’s best to uninstall old and unused versions each year. While a best practice, uninstalling old versions can be cumbersome.

Using the Autodesk Uninstall Tool

The typical way to uninstall Windows software is with the Add or Remove Programs interface. While it gets the job done and technically works for Autodesk software, it’s a tedious process.

With the Windows Add or Remove Programs, you must uninstall applications one at a time. This isn’t the end of the world, but it makes one question if there’s a better way?

Good news! There is a better way.

That better way is the Autodesk Uninstall Tool. Its purpose is to let you uninstall multiple Autodesk applications at once. With it, there’s no need to babysit the uninstall of individual applications. Instead, you can batch uninstall many applications at once.

Despite the efficiencies it offers, I find few know about the tool. You’ll find the Autodesk Uninstall Tool under Start > Autodesk > Autodesk Uninstall Tool.

Once opened, you’ll see a list of all installed Autodesk applications. Select the checkbox next to each application you want to uninstall, click Uninstall, and let the tool do the rest. It’s that simple!

How long it takes to complete the uninstall will vary. A complex application like AutoCAD will take longer to uninstall than a small add-in. Likewise, the number of chosen applications will impact your net uninstall time.

Post-Uninstall Clean Up

No matter your chosen method, your selected Autodesk applications are now uninstalled. Although uninstalled, some traces of your uninstalled applications remain. In fact, most Autodesk applications include residual files that remain post-uninstall.

Important to note, both uninstall methods leave the same residual files behind. While the Autodesk Uninstall Tool automates the uninstall process, its uninstall process is the same as using the Add or Remove Programs functionality built into Windows.

Check the following directories for residual files after successfully uninstalling your software:

• C:\Program Files\Autodesk\
• C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\
• C:\Users\YourUserid\AppData\Local\Autodesk\
• C:\Users\YourUserid\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\

IMPORTANT: Do not empty the above directories. Instead, only delete the directories associated with the applications you uninstalled.

So far as uninstalls go, that’s about it. For me, the Autodesk Uninstall Tool is my go-to method for uninstalling Autodesk software. Although my experience has been positive, how was your experience with the Autodesk Uninstall Tool? Share your experience with it, and any other uninstall tips you might have in the comments below.

Looking Back at Autodesk University 2020

Because of the global coronavirus pandemic, Autodesk University 2020 became the first all-digital Autodesk University event. Although I certainly missed connecting in-person with industry friends I’ve made over the years, I was pleasantly surprised by the 2020 conference. Despite being an all-digital conference, it still offered impactful keynotes, opportunities for attendees to connect, and of course, some of the highest caliber presentations on design technology.

The Second All-Digital Autodesk University

Although, at least here in the United States, vaccines are providing hope that the coronavirus pandemic will soon be behind us, there’s still a long way to go. While I hope fall resembles some semblance of pre-pandemic life, far too many unknowns remain. As such, while details such as the date and cost to attend have not yet been announced, Autodesk has announced that Autodesk University 2021 will be an all-digital event once more.

While I will undoubtedly miss connecting with industry friends in-person for a second year, I do support and agree with Autodesk’s decision to prioritize safety over preference. I remain hopeful that 2022 will let us gather in-person once again but will certainly look to get some additional mileage off the lessons I learned from presenting at Autodesk University 2020.

Call For Proposals Survival Guide

In preparation for this year’s conference, today Autodesk opened its annual Call for Proposals cycle. Anyone interested in presenting at Autodesk University 2021 can submit their proposal between today, March 30^th, 2021, and April 30^th, 2021.

As with any year, I strongly encourage anyone interested in submitting a proposal to read the Proposal Requirements FAQ and Proposal Worksheet documents published on the Autodesk website. Although you can undoubtedly draw many parallels between the 2020 and upcoming 2021 conferences, there are some notable differences. Some key points that stuck out to me as I read the FAQ document include:

• Only English language proposals are being accepted at this time.
• Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced level of experience classifications have been replaced with Foundational, Associate, Professional, Expert, and Not Applicable.
• The current Call for Proposals is for classes only, not other content types like theater talks and articles.
• Technical requirements are not yet finalized but include “a good computer, microphone or headset, web camera, and reliable internet connection.”
• The honorarium for speakers remains $500 as it was for Autodesk University 2020.
• Autodesk will accept fewer than 300 proposals this year. They traditionally receive over 2,000 proposals, meaning the acceptance rate will be about 1:7.
• Some classes will be pre-recorded and available on-demand, whereas others may be live-streamed.

Community Voting Now Open

In addition to the Call for Proposals process opening today, the Community Voting process also opens today. For those unfamiliar with the community voting process, it’s pretty simple. Autodesk University is fundamentally an end-user conference. As such, Autodesk is interested in knowing what you would like to see at your conference.

Autodesk allows prospective attendees to vote on the presentations they would like to see included at the conference to achieve this. Throughout the Call for Proposals window and until May 12^th, prospective attendees can cast their vote for any proposal submitted.

Since the Call for Proposal and Community Voting windows overlap until April 30^th, the list of sessions you can vote for will change until Call For Proposals closes on April 30^th. As Autodesk receives session proposals, those proposals will be forwarded to the community voting portion of the Autodesk University website for any community member to vote.

In Summary

While it saddens me that we will not experience an in-person Autodesk University for a second year, my objective self wholeheartedly supports the decision for a second all-digital conference. I have several session proposal ideas in my head and will commit them to paper in the coming weeks. Should I be so fortunate, I look forward to applying the many presentation lessons I took away from the 2020 conference to the conference this fall.

What about you? Do you plan to submit any proposals this year? If not, what sessions and topics do you hope to see included as part of Autodesk University 2021? Sound off in the comments below to share your thoughts.

For me, comparing AutoCAD 2022 to the way I work, I feel this year’s release adds several meaningful improvements to the software. In my short time with the release, my first impression is that many of these features will positively impact the way I work.

So what are the improvements we find packed inside AutoCAD 2022?

Installation Experience Improvements

As the CAD Manager for Timmons Group, a roughly 700-person civil engineering and survey firm, I’ve amassed more than one Autodesk software installation battle story. For that reason, I was initially optimistic that Autodesk would ever make meaningful progress with its overall installation experience. After many years of talking about possible installation improvements, we get to see much of that in AutoCAD 2022.

Overall, I find AutoCAD 2022 to be significantly easier to install. That experience not only applies to one-off installations but also the deployment creation process itself. There’s a lot to unpack here, and if you’re a technology manager, just the installation improvements could be reason enough to consider AutoCAD 2022 in your company.

Start Tab Improvements

At this point, the Start Tab is nothing new in AutoCAD, but the 2022 release does refine its overall implementation. The updated design focuses on four themes: resuming work, beginning new work, learning new things, and engaging with the product team and community.

For me, I find this to be a relatively minor change. Put another way, while the improvements are nice, they’re not so jarring that you’ll feel lost immediately after opening the software.

Floating Drawing Tabs

One feature you might overlook is the new Floating Drawing Tabs. This feature adds a floating behavior to the Drawing Tabs you’re probably already familiar with inside AutoCAD. With it, you can drag any drawing into its own window.

Like many, I use multiple monitors at my desk. With the new Floating Drawing Tab feature, I can now run a single AutoCAD session and place two (or more) drawings on separate screens. Functionally, this is similar to running multiple AutoCAD sessions, one for each monitor. With Floating Drawing Tabs, you can reduce that overhead, running a single AutoCAD session, thus leaving more system resources for your drawing files.

Block Count Palette

A key takeaway from hosting my AutoCAD Tips, Tricks, and Dazzling Drafting Techniques class at Autodesk University is that quantity takeoff tips are consistently among the most popular AutoCAD tips and tricks. As we think about quantity takeoff tasks, Blocks are a ubiquitous part of that conversation.

Over the years, many have turned to the BCOUNT command or something like Data Extraction Tables. Each method has its advantage, but none have built-in quality control measures. People (accidentally) insert multiple instances of a block atop each other or even explode blocks. Without a way to account for these common mistakes, it’s hard to know how accurate your block counts are.

ON the surface, the new Count Palette seems like little more than a modernized BCOUNT command. However, digging deeper, you’ll find the interface not only counts blocks but also performs some AI-based QC of your drawing. When counting the blocks in your drawing, it will also look for things like exploded and duplicate blocks and call your attention to them.

Share Current Drawing

Especially as remote working has forced the world to become even more digitized, digital collaboration is more critical than ever before. From Shared Views to the recently introduced Publish to Autodesk Docs functionality, digital collaboration is an area Autodesk has made significant investments in recent years. That trend continues in AutoCAD 2022 with the introduction of its new Share Drawing functionality.

The new Share Drawing functionality works like a ETRANSMIT command built for sharing. With just a couple of clicks, you can upload your drawing, including its image and drawing references to AutoCAD for Web, and get a link you can share with anyone. When creating the link, you can choose whether the recipient has view-only permissions or can save a copy. No matter which option you select, links expire after seven days.

As we increasingly rely upon tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams for workplace collaboration and communication, I appreciate how Autodesk simplifies the task of sharing a drawing to a few clicks and a URL you can paste wherever you need.

Multi-Core Performance Improvements

Finally, in addition to the new functionality mentioned above, we also find several under-the-hood improvements inside AutoCAD 2022.

As Autodesk continues its multi-year project of modernizing the AutoCAD codebase, we similarly continue seeing small but impactful improvements to everyday tools in the software. Because of this modernization project, we’ve seen things like the ability to snap to the gap of dashed lines added to the software in recent years. That trend continues in AutoCAD 2022.

You might know, AutoCAD is mostly a single-core application. AutoCAD 2022 changes that for two common bottlenecks; background plotting and hatching. Although the core functionality remains unchanged, AutoCAD 2022 takes advantage of multiple processor cores for both background plotting and hatch boundary detection.

What do you think?

Taking things for a test drive, I think the new Count Palette and Floating Drawing Tabs will define AutoCAD 2022 as a meaningful release for many users. As I transition between releases in my daily workflows, I know that I instantly miss two features when working in earlier releases.

But what are your thoughts? Let me know your favorite AutoCAD 2022 feature in the comments below.

Last week, Autodesk announced the Best of Autodesk University 2020 Speaker Awards. To my delight, my “AutoCAD Tips, Tricks, and Dazzling Drafting Techniques” session was named the Top On-Demand Video Session in the Americas.

Although practically everything about the conference was different this year, the Autodesk University team made a point of keeping the event’s cornerstone of learning intact. For more than two-decades, Autodesk University has been the place to go for some of the highest caliber presentations on design technology.

Preparing for Autodesk University 2020

Since 2007, I’ve had the privilege of both attending and being among the conference’s speakers. Though there was no in-person event to travel to, I was excited to receive an invitation to present at the conference for a fourteenth consecutive year.

Among the more than 750 classes presented at Autodesk University was my class “AutoCAD Tips, Tricks, and Dazzling Drafting Techniques.”

Despite my vast experience speaking at Autodesk University, this year challenged my presentation skills in many new ways. I put my best foot forward but submitted my session with a great deal of apprehension of whether my session would be good enough to rise to the occasion.

Challenges Building an On-Demand Video Session

So much of delivering an outstanding Autodesk University session is connecting with your audience. As an online event, my audience wasn’t a crowd of people, but instead a microphone in an empty room several weeks before the conference. How would I break through the digital wall and connect with my audience?

Finding ways to deliver a dynamic presentation to a faceless audience was a challenge for me. My quest to overcome that challenge brought me right to the deadline for speakers to upload their final class recordings. At that moment, my session wasn’t what I considered perfect, but it’s what I had, and there was no time to make it any better.

Virtually Experiencing Autodesk University 2020

When the week of Autodesk University 2020 arrived, I wasn’t sure what to expect from my session. To my delight, my course page had quite a bit of activity on it. Fast forward to my live Q&A, and over 800 people dialed in to ask questions about my session. Thankfully, Autodesk assigned a moderator to my live Q&A session who managed the queue of questions while I focused on providing answers.

Suffice to say, despite my apprehensions before the conference about the quality of the session I was able to construct, I was impressed by the response I received from attendees during the week of Autodesk University 2020 itself. I still wasn’t sure if my session was above average, below average, or somewhere in between, but I was satisfied with the positive impact it seemed I had provided to those who attended.

Decades into my professional career, I still maintain an immense appreciation for my high school drafting teachers who first taught me AutoCAD. As such, I’ve always viewed speaking at Autodesk University as a way to pay forward what those teachers provided me all those years ago. Even if my session wasn’t perfect, it seemed to provide real value to those who attended, and that was all the validation I needed.

Best of Autodesk University 2020 Speaker Award

Of course, little did I know the forthcoming announcement that would come last week. My session, “AutoCAD Tips, Tricks, and Dazzling Drafting Techniques,” was named the conference’s Top On-Demand Video Session – Americas.

Although I have won top-speaker honors in past years, the 2020 conference stands above the rest because of the challenges I had to overcome to build my session. While I remain optimistic Autodesk University 2021 can be in-person once again this fall, I am grateful for the many ways Autodesk University 2020 forced me to grow and improve as a presenter.

Thank You to the Speaker Team

Finally, in closing, I’d be remiss to ignore the many challenges the Autodesk University team themselves faced in 2020.  My success as a speaker in 2020 would not have been possible if not for the incredible ability of Janice Miller-Kellerman, Matt Murphy, and the rest of the AU speaker team to masterfully overcome the many challenges associated with pivoting to an online format. They and dozens of others on the speaker team worked incredibly hard in the background to make sure Autodesk University 2020 delivered the same high-caliber learning experience of past conferences. So, to them. Thank you!

Before the pandemic, workplace culture primarily centered around a physical location everyone reported to daily. Because of the Great Dispersion, the workplace locality has more to do with a common interest in our companies’ goals than our geographic location.

While I hope teams will once again collaborate in person soon, I also expect many parts of our remote work practices to persist in our post-pandemic world. Even before the pandemic, many of the top employers placed an intentional focus on work-life balance. As we discover our post-pandemic normal, working from home will become a vital part of the work-life balance firms strive to provide for their employees.

Recognizing this paradigm, the trend I see among firms focuses on answering how more flexible work-from-home policies can be supported by their organizations. Among the many facets of this question is, how do teams collaborate when some or all team members are working remotely?

Like most things related to IT, there are many answers to that question, but the purpose of this post is to explore six possible options for Civil 3D users. So without any further ado, let’s jump in.

Option 1: Manually Copy and Reconcile Drawings

When remote collaboration is only an occasional endeavor, a decidedly low-tech solution might be the best approach. Although a reconciliation of edits is necessary, this approach avoids typical internet bandwidth constraints present with other collaboration forms.

Despite these advantages, the manual reconciliation process cannot be overstated. That reconciliation, coupled with the asynchronous visibility of edits made to the project, only introduces new opportunities for project errors and omissions. For these reasons, such a workflow is only recommended for occasional remote collaboration – if ever.

Pros

• As a simple file-based operation, no additional purchases are necessary.
• Working from the local computer, remote workers can open and save drawings without experiencing network latency.
• Teams can work on projects with neither a network nor an internet connection.

Cons

• Reconciling edits can be more time consuming than the benefit gained from working remotely.
• Teams have no visibility into edits made until edits are manually reconciled at a later time.
• The asynchronous work dynamic provides no guarantee other team members are working from the latest project version.

Option 2: Collaborate using Cloud Storage (OneDrive, Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, etc.)

Today, cloud storage services like OneDrive and Dropbox are ubiquitous workplace collaboration tools. Over the last several years, Autodesk has even worked to build integrations between the most popular cloud storage services and AutoCAD. While these integrations are well made, none specifically accommodate the unique Civil 3D functionality, such as Data Shortcuts.

Beyond potential functional limitations, cloud storage tools like OneDrive excel at individual collaboration, not project collaboration. While such services can be a step-up from manually copying drawings to your computer, the limited data governance associated with them can be a liability for projects.

Pros

• Because of their inclusion with Microsoft 365 and Google Workplace, cloud storage services often require no additional purchase to begin using.
• Drawing edits automatically synchronize between individual users, reducing the possibility of team members working from out-of-date drawings.
• Many of the most popular cloud storage services have direct integrations with AutoCAD, including viewing and comparing modifications between versions.

Cons

• Despite tight integrations with AutoCAD as a foundation to Civil 3D, cloud storage services are not compatible with critical Civil 3D functionality such as Data Shortcuts.
• Cloud storage services excel at individual collaboration and are often limiting when implemented for team collaboration.
• Data governance over operations such as users’ ability to create public links is limited and can pose data security concerns.

Option 3: Leverage Remote Desktop/VNC to Access Work Computer from Home

The large file size of Civil 3D drawings makes editing them over a VPN connection difficult. An easy way to mitigate this is to leverage Remote Desktop or some other VNC service to access your work computer from home. With Remote Desktop, your work computer’s screen is streamed as a video to your remote computer, while your remote computer relays mouse and keyboard inputs back to your work computer.

While Remote Desktop will reduce bandwidth usage compared to opening and saving drawings over a VPN connection, the method is not without bandwidth concerns. The live video broadcast of your work computer consumes bandwidth. Consequently, this method’s viability is a function of both the bandwidth available at your office and the number of concurrent users. As the number of simultaneous users grows, so too will your office’s bandwidth demands, and remote employees could begin experiencing laggy video.

Pros

• Open, save, and edit large drawing files without the latency of a VPN.
• Teams open drawings from your existing file server, thus maintaining a single source of truth.
• Remote Desktop is included with Windows and requires no change in your current data infrastructure, such as file servers.

Cons

• The video quality of remote connections will quickly degrade as the number of remote workers increase and consume a more significant amount of available internet bandwidth.
• Each remote worker must have access to two physical computers, including a Civil 3D workstation at the office and a second computer at home.
• Setting up Remote Desktop to work from outside the office can be tricky, and even after setup will not automatically reconnect after rebooting your work computer.

Option 4: Leverage a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Service like Workspot

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) services like Workspot provide a way to overcome many of the challenges of using Remote Desktop at scale across an organization. Like Remote Desktop, remote workers use a host machine to connect to a remote workstation collocated with your drawing data. The critical difference between Remote Desktop and a VDI service like Workspot is where and what that remote computer is.

As the “virtual” terminology in the term VDI implies, the workstation remote workers connect to is not a physical machine, but instead a virtual machine located in a data center. Since your Civil 3D workstation lives in a data center, you can access a virtually unlimited amount of bandwidth. Beyond that, VDI services provide a suite of tools to manage tasks such as rebooting your machine or adding new workstations as your needs grow. Despite the many advantages of VDI services, you will also need to migrate your Civil 3D data to the cloud to realize their benefit fully.

Pros

• Cloud VDI services are often more economical than procurement and management expenses associated with workstations, and server infrastructure.
• With files stored in datacenters open and save times can be significantly faster than typical workstation SSDs.
• Machine images make scaling to a larger workforces.

Cons

• Cloud VDI services like Workspot often requires migrating your data to a cloud provider like Microsoft Azure.
• Performance dependent on remote workers internet connection.
• Storing drawing data in the cloud could have contract implications (ie. Some government projects).

Option 5: Leverage an On-Premise Document Management Solution like Autodesk Vault

Document Management solutions like Autodesk Vault function under the concept of creating managed copies on a user’s workstation. Under this model, a user will check-out the drawing they need to edit. Doing so will lock that drawing to prevent others from editing it and simultaneously copying the latest version of that drawing to a user’s machine. From that point, the user who checked out the drawing can open, save, and otherwise edit that local copy without limitation.

This basic workflow lets users edit drawings without bandwidth constraints while also avoiding the creation of conflicting versions commonly encountered with unmanaged copies. While this is a benefit, it’s important to note other team members will not be able to view the latest edits to a drawing until a drawing is checked back into the Vault. Likewise, as an enterprise document management solution, a qualified Vault system administrator is necessary to perform system administration tasks such as backups.

Pros

• Managed local copies of drawings allow remote workers to open and edit drawings without latency.
• Once checked out from Vault client, remote workers and open, edit, and save drawings without an internet connection.
• Each drawing check-in creates a new version of that drawing on the server that can be compared with past versions of the drawing to identify updates easily.

Cons

• A knowledgeable Vault system administrator is required to perform essential system administration tasks such as backups.
• Edits are asynchronous; users must check-out drawings before they can be edited and checked-in before others can see changes.
• Drawings are only accessible from the Vault client and are not accessible from Windows File Explorer.

Option 6: Leverage a Cloud Document Management Solution like Autodesk BIM 360 Docs

As a product built by Autodesk, it should come as no surprise that BIM 360 offers the best overall integration and support for Civil 3D. Fundamentally, BIM 360 works like general-purpose cloud storage services like OneDrive and Dropbox in the way that a small application, the Autodesk Desktop Companion, caches copies of drawings on your computer. This means you’re able to open and save drawings without the latency of a VPN.

Although the mechanics of BIM 360 work a lot like OneDrive and Dropbox, there are some critical differences. Concerning Civil 3D users, BIM 360 is the only cloud storage service built to work with Civil 3D Data Shortcuts. In addition to this, BIM 360 is project-oriented and offers unlimited storage (including file versions) and granular permissions for data governance.

Despite the many advantages of BIM 360, there are a few requirements that might dissuade some. First, teams need to use Civil 3D 2020 or newer to utilize BIM 360 on their Civil 3D projects fully. In addition to this, Civil 3D users will need both a BIM 360 Docs license and a BIM 360 Design license to work on Civil 3D projects using Data Shortcuts. The good news is non-Civil 3D users only require a BIM 360 Docs license, which includes robust viewing and markup functionality that could reduce your Civil 3D (AEC Collection) license usage for passive software users.

Pros

• The Autodesk Desktop Companion application caches drawings on the local machine, making it possible to edit drawings without latency.
• Robust AutoCAD/Civil 3D DWG viewing and markup functionality built into BIM 360 could reduce Civil 3D (AEC Collection) license use for reviewers.
• Data governance is managed through a project-based structure that provides unlimited storage and unlimited versions for project teams.

Cons

• A separate BIM 360 Design license is required for Civil 3D teams to use design collaboration features such as Data Shortcuts.
• Teams must invest time to migrate data from existing file servers to BIM 360.
• Civil 3D 2020 or newer is required to use design collaboration features such as Civil 3D Data Shortcuts.

Summary

While I am optimistic we are nearing the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, I believe many of the work habits we have adopted over the past year will persist for years to come. In my opinion, remote work is among the work habits from 2020 that will continue. Of course, what remote work looks like at one firm will likely vary from another.

How your firm defines remote work into the future will determine what option or combination of collaboration options are best for your company. For companies whose primary focus is to get through the current pandemic, I would start with a tool like Remote Desktop. It mitigates challenges associated with opening large drawings over a VPN while also leveraging tools your company probably has in place already.

By contrast, for companies looking for a solution that will support them today and well into the future, my default recommendation would be BIM 360. Although relatively new in the Civil 3D space, BIM 360 is well established among Revit users. Where a majority of companies self-hosted their Exchange server 5-10 years ago, a majority have adopted a cloud service like Microsoft 365 today. Just as companies incrementally migrated to services like Microsoft 365, I believe AEC firms will adopt BIM 360 in the same way over the next several years.

What has the remote work dynamic looked like at your firm, and what tools have you leveraged to support it? Let me know in the comments below.

A pleasant surprise to me with Civil 3D 2021.1 is the introduction of what I consider a flagship new feature in the form of Project Explorer. With it, you will gain several new ways to interact with, modify and report upon the design elements that comprise your model. Moving on from Project Explorer, we find several smaller, but no less handy new features introduced to Civil 3D. For me, my favorites are the new Feature Line tools, but the work you do will undoubtably influence what your favorites are. Let’s jump in to explore some of the features you will find inside Civil 3D 2021.1.

Civil 3D Project Explorer

The flagship new feature of Civil 3D 2021.1 is Project Explorer. If you have followed Autodesk news over the last year, you may recall that Autodesk acquired Project Explorer from 3AM Solutions in the UK. As a point of reference, 3AM Solutions is the same company Autodesk acquired DynamiteVSP, now known as Civil View, from back in 2010.

Project Explorer gives you a whole new way to review, analyze, and edit your project. With it, you can explore model elements without worrying about the documentation overhead of Civil 3D. For example, you can review the profile and cross sections of a road design entirely in Project Explorer without touching profile views and section views.

Additionally, Project Explorer provides several simple, but often wished for features. Among my favorites is the ability to set a constant pipe run slope. Beyond that, Project Explorer also extends the conventional reporting abilities of Civil 3D. With it, you can generate customizable reports, generate dynamic AutoCAD tables (not to be confused with Civil 3D tables) from Civil 3D data, and more.

From my limited beta use of Project Explorer, I really like what I see. This is undoubtably a tool that I am excited to put into the hands of the end-users I support to see how they begin integrating it into their daily workflows.

A few things to note about Project Explorer. While Autodesk is advertising it as part of the Civil 3D 2021.1 update, it is not part of the Civil 3D 2021.1 download. Instead it is a separate download and install. The reason for that is Project Explorer is only available to subscribers of the AEC Collection. If you only subscribe to Civil 3D as an individual product, Project Explorer is not available to you. Additionally, for those with multi-user licenses, you will likely need to generate a new license file to gain access to Project Explorer.

Civil 3D Feature Line Editing

Beyond Project Explorer, some of my favorite features inside Civil 3D 2021.1 are the Feature Line enhancements.

New Insert Points At Crossing Locations command.

Civil 3D has long placed a split point PVI where two Feature Lines intersect. While this has helped make sure intersecting Feature Lines share a common elevation, split point PVIs do not allow you to edit or specify an elevation. The new Insert Points At Crossing Locations command will insert a regular PVI or Elevation point where two Features Lines intersect. As a PVI or Elevation Point like any other on your Feature Line, you gain all the same editing capabilities as the other PVIs and Elevation Points in your project.

New Set Grade/Slope Across Feature Lines command

Think of this as a supercharged Similar to the Set Grade/Slope Between Points command. Where the Similar to the Set Grade/Slope Between Points command is limited to a single Feature Line, the new Set Grade/Slope Across Feature Lines command allows you to set the grade or slope across multiple Feature Lines. The only requirement to make this work is the Feature Lines must share a PI or Elevation Point at their intersection. This is where the previously mentioned Insert Points At Crossing Locations command can come in handy; placing those PI or Elevation Points if they don’t already exist.

New Set Corridor Baseline Elevation by Reference command

Similar to the Set Feature Line Elevation by Reference command, the new Set Corridor Baseline Elevation by Reference command allows you to set the elevation of a point on a feature-line based corridor at a given grade or slope from a specified location. While I haven’t seen too many people adopt Corridors for full parking lot design, I have noticed more feature-line based corridors for various site elements. For that, I see this new Feature Line editing command to be a great addition to Civil 3D.

Pressure Networks

Civil 3D 2021 was already a big release for Pressure Pipes, but Civil 3D 2021.1 extends that even further. Among my favorite Pressure Pipe additions is new Add/Move/Remove Vertical Bends. With it, you can interact with vertical pipe bends the way you probably always expected them to behave. You can place bends, move the bend by sliding its location along the pipe run, and if you remove the bend, everything heals back in place. This simple functionality has long been a pain point of mine when using Pressure Pipes in Civil 3D, and certainly a feature that will make Pressure Pipes more useable for users.

Fixed Issues

Beyond the new features found inside this release is a lengthy list of issues Autodesk has fixed. You can find the complete list of issues fixed by consulting the Civil 3D documentation, but some highlights include.

Autodesk Collaboration for Civil 3D

First introduced to Civil 3D 2020, Autodesk continues to make improvements to Collaboration for Civil 3D (formerly BIM 360 Design and Collaboration for Revit). While the initial introduction of Collaboration for Civil 3D added essential functionality to the software, it did omit some important functionality. Civil 3D 2021.1 closes many of those gaps by adding support for Sheet Set Manager data files (DST). Now when you upload a DST file to BIM 360, all sheets that are part of that Sheet Set will also be uploaded to BIM 360.

In addition to the new Sheet Set Manger functionality, Civil 3D 2021.1 also adds support for Civil 3D Reference Templates. If you are using Civil 3D Reference Templates on a drawing you upload to BIM 360, the Reference Template will also be uploaded to BIM 360. Likewise, as others open that drawing, the associated Reference Template will be downloaded.

A Note about BIM 360

To continue using BIM 360 services after installing Civil 3D 2021.1, you will also need to update the Autodesk Desktop Connector application.

In Summary…

Project Explorer is something I would consider a major new feature for Civil 3D. While I wish its licensing was a little less confusing for Civil 3D users, it is a feature I am pleasantly surprised to see added to the “little-r” release. While I hoped the tool would be added to the 2021.1 release, I did not expect to see it until the 2022 release in the spring.

Beyond that, the Civil 3D 2021.1 update is what you are come to expect of the fall update to Civil 3D. Autodesk has added several small but significant new features to the current release of the software. As such, I see the update as one worth taking the time to download and install on your machine.

For me, the Feature Line tools are among my favorite new features found inside the release, but it is likely you’ll find your own favorites. Go give Civil 3D 2021. 1 a try and let me know what your favorite new feature is in the comments below.

As in past years, while the update does introduce some new features we’ll see in the next version of AutoCAD, the update itself predominately focuses on enhancements to existing features. Among the features you’ll find inside this update, the enhancements to the Blocks Palette are the most significant.

Blocks Palette Enhancement

First introduced in AutoCAD 2020.0, the Blocks Palette continues to improve with each update of the software. AutoCAD 2021.1 is no different as we see several enhancements centered around the broad “anywhere, anytime” theme seen throughout the last several releases of AutoCAD. These improvements include a new Favorite and Recent tabs of the Blocks Palette, plus new control options.

Favorite AutoCAD Blocks

First, we see an expanded integration between the AutoCAD Blocks Palette and popular cloud storage providers such as Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, and more. Such integration with cloud storage providers has been a theme throughout several parts of AutoCAD in the last several releases, so it’s no shock we see deeper cloud integration with the Blocks Palette.

With AutoCAD 2021.1, you can mark blocks from the Current Drawing, Recent, or Libraries tabs as a favorite. You can think of the new Favorite tab like a bookmark you might save in a web browser. While you are free to choose any storage path of your choosing, the real magic comes from specifying a cloud storage location.

When you specify a cloud storage location, your favorite blocks sync across devices. As with the cloud integration seen in other areas of AutoCAD, this gives you easy access to your favorite blocks not just from the desktop version of AutoCAD, but also and AutoCAD for Web.

Recent AutoCAD Blocks

AutoCAD 2021 added the Recent tab to the Blocks Palette. As great as the dynamic library of recent blocks can be, it is also an interface that tends to quickly gather clutter. Working to address that very issue, AutoCAD 2021.1 offers several new options to manage the blocks you see on the Recent tab.

The first of those is the ability to clear individual blocks from the Recent tab. Just right-click on any block displayed on the Recent tab and choose “Remove From Recent List.” Easy peasy!

Of course, you may get to the point where, to eliminate clutter, you need to declare bankruptcy on the blocks shown on the Recent tab. If that is you, AutoCAD 2021.1 has you covered there too. Just right-click, and then choose “Clear Recent List.” Just like that, the Recent tab is cleared, and you have a blank space to start anew.

Block Palette Control

As the Blocks Palette matures within the software, so too does our access to it. AutoCAD 2021.1 further expands our command-line access to the Blocks Palette with a new BLOCKSYNCFOLDER system variable. With it, you can specify the path AutoCAD uses to store blocks displayed on the Recent and Favorites tab.

Multiple Monitor Improvements

Although the Blocks Palette is where you will find many of the AutoCAD 2021.1 updates, there are other worthwhile features packed inside this update too. Among my favorites is the new multiple monitor updates.

If you run AutoCAD from a laptop, you’ve undoubtedly found yourself playing Where’s Waldo with various AutoCAD user interface elements like Tool Palettes, the Command Line, Ribbon panels, and even toolbars. The AutoCAD 2021.1 update aims to fix that.

Now, when you undock your laptop, thereby switching to a single-screen configuration, all AutoCAD user interface elements automatically move to the same location on the screen in use. We should no longer find ourselves hunting for user interface elements stuck on a screen that no longer exists!

As a laptop user myself, this is the quintessential definition of a “small but significant” new feature.

AutoCAD Web App – Open in Desktop

Finally, while the spotlight is brightest on the Windows version of AutoCAD, AutoCAD for Web continues seeing new features added to it too. Among the newest features we find inside AutoCAD for Web is the new Open In Desktop feature.

Similar to what you may be familiar with using Microsoft Office, the new Open In Desktop feature allows you to take a drawing you have open in the web version of AutoCAD, and finish editing it with the fill desktop version of the software. As useful as this feature can be, it’s worth nothing the Open In Desktop option is only available with drawings saved to AutoCAD Web & Mobile or Microsoft OneDrive.

In Summary

Consistent with past “little r” or “dot-one” releases, AutoCAD 2021.1 does not seem to distract from what I anticipate will be a larger portfolio of features added in AutoCAD 2022 next spring. Overall, I would classify the new features we find inside this release as enhancements to existing features, not so much the introduction of groundbreaking new features.

Still, while the new features inside AutoCAD 2021.1 mostly enhance existing features, I do believe it does so in a meaningful and worthwhile way. As such, I’ve found my initial interactions with the update to be frictionless and worth the time to update.

Have you installed AutoCAD 2021.1? What has your experience with it been? What features are your personal favorite? Let me know in the comments section below.

Further Reading

To learn more about AutoCAD 2021.1, be sure to check out the following resources:

• AutoCAD Blog: AutoCAD 2020.1 and AutoCAD LT 2020.1 Update Now Available
• Autodesk Knowledge Network: What’s New in AutoCAD 2021