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Andy Blackwell

AutoCAD LT 2000 might still be baby brother to AutoCAD 2000’s baby brother –  but it is a significant release with radical new features to whet the appetite. 

AutoCAD LT 2000 brings the LT version into line with its big brother, AutoCAD 2000, and, indeed, it seems to be based on mostly the same code with the usual notable exceptions, which remain  missing from LT. There’s still room in AutoCAD LT for a more advanced form of programming.

Favorite files
The installation offers the usual set of options, in that you can change the destination of the software and the typical compact or custom-installation type. The actual size of the installation will depend on the installation type, but it is somewhere between 60Mb-80Mb.

Also included within the installation process is a migration assistant for LT 98 users that can import all your favorite customized files, such as toolbars, menus and PGP files, etc, to aid you to get up and running as soon as possible.

If you have no Internet browser installed on your system, the LT 98 installation will automatically install Microsoft IE4 (not the much better IE5), which will hit your hard disk for another 50MB. This is required to display the online help, which is in HTML format.

This version of LT 2000 has added extras over the full version of AutoCAD, as did LT 98 over Release 14, such as multiple undo/redo history accessed directly from the standard toolbar. This enables the user to select a whole range of previous commands to undo or redo in one action.

The array command dialog box allows you to change parameters for the rectangular and polar arrays and to preview the changes that you have made before committing yourself. The purge command dialog box gives an explorer-style view of the drawing elements that can be purged. Each element can be highlighted and purged individually or the ‘Purge All’ button is still available.

What’s new in LT 2000
If you have read any reviews of AutoCAD 2000, you will already know most of what’s new in this release of LT 2000, as it boasts most of the features of its more expensive counterpart. The single most sought-after feature that users have been crying out for has been a multiple drawing interface. This has now been included and basically it means that you can open more than one drawing in each AutoCAD session, thus saving valuable computer resources by the user not having to open more than one AutoCAD.You can drag & drop, cut/copy/paste and even property paint between drawings with great ease.

The AutoCAD LT screen, showing multiple drawings open in one session

Certainly, one of the best things to come out of the LT series has been the content explorer. This has been replaced with the new similar, but more advanced, ‘design center’.

The Design Center open, showing how to browse to the favorites folders

The new design center is the main tool to manage all your blocks, xrefs and raster files, together with the ability to get even deeper into other drawings enabling you to transfer layers, dimstyles, textstyles and layouts. However, one thing that needs to be borne in mind is that, when you send your drawings to others, they can use the ‘design center’ to gain access directly to all of the blocks and symbols you have taken months to produce and which you have no way of protecting from being reused. Other important factors which have now been incorporated within AutoCAD LT 2000 – and that are worth noting – include the LT 97 polar snap command, which has been both enhanced and renamed ‘polar tracking’. This allows you to place objects accurately or start lines in relation to existing entities at any angle.

Greater choice
The ‘change property’ command has been completely overhauled with a new ‘property window’, giving the user a far greater choice of options that can be altered.

The Properties window, showing every aspect that can be altered on a selected entity

This AutoCAD now supports ‘lineweights’, meaning that the user doesn’t have to specify a thickness in the pen assignments when printing; instead, ‘lineweights’ can be assigned directly to objects or layers. These lines can then be displayed on screen, so that you can see exactly how it will be when it is printed out.

There are new dialog boxes for named views, UCS manager, dimension manager and boundary hatch which make the commands more user friendly. The MTEXT command has been updated to include line spacing, stack fractions such as ½, and to change selected text automatically to upper case.

The next biggest overhaul within LT 2000 is the plotting enhancements that now include plot settings – which are saved within the drawing – and the ability to create more than one paper space layout per drawing. I really must say that I found the new plotting changes slightly confusing, especially the plot style command.

The new Heidi plotter drivers allow much greater flexibility over the old ADI drivers and, of course, the plot previews and layout provide a true representation of what your plot will look like. Lastly – and this really is a very important development – AutoCAD LT 2000 now has much tighter integration with the internet by incorporating within the software new internet buttons, such as search the web, ‘look in favorites’ and ‘add to favorites’, allowing you even to access and use a drawing on the internet as an xref file.

What’s missing…
LT 2000 is a low-cost package, compared to the full version of AutoCAD, and so inevitably there must be features that are not included. As usual, it is not possible to create complex 3D solids and then render them, nor is it possible to create non rectangular viewports; and there is no advanced programming language included, such as Visual LISP, VBA and Object ARX, though there are some third-party solutions to these shortcomings.

Conclusions
This new release of AutoCAD LT incorporates some radical new features that should enhance drawing productivity and aid the sharing of information. LT 2000 is a big step in the right direction for Autodesk, with the inclusion of the ‘design center’ and the multiple drawing interface. I would still like to see a more advanced form of programming over the included ‘diesel’ code. An upgrade to LT 2000 is highly recommended, but only after some level of training to enable the use of some of the new functions.

Andy Blackwell

 

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