What’s New AutoCad Electrical 2011
Productivity Enhancements
Catalog Lookup
Catalog lookup user-interface enhancements include:
• Control the fields to display and the field order in the catalog lookup dialog box.
• Filter catalog records by selecting existing values from any of the catalog fields.
• Search for a catalog record based on a value you supply, including wild cards, for any one of the catalog fields.
• Sort catalog records by clicking the column header of any of the displayed fields.
• BOM details displayed on the main dialog box (formerly called Catalog Check).
• Define a default filter value for any catalog field using the expanded _LISTBOX_DEF table in the catalog database.
• Dialog box tooltips describe the function of each control on the dialog box.
Import Wire Types
• Wire Types are defined on a per-drawing basis.
• Use the Import button on the Create/Edit Wire Type dialog box to import wire types to the active drawing.
• Use Project-wide Utilities to import wire types to a set of project drawings.
Item Numbering
The powerful panel layout tools in AutoCAD Electrical have been enhanced to save you time and reduce the potential errors inherent in resequencing.
Item numbering now supports fixed item numbers on panel components. Fixed item numbers do not change when the Resequence Item Numbers command is run.
Resequence item numbers based on the manufacturer values of the components. Select the manufacturers from a list of values used in the project. Only item numbers on components with selected manufacturers change.
Define the resequence order based on the manufacturer values of the components. Use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to change the order of the manufacturers for processing by the Resequence Item Numbers command.
Location Boxes
Enhancements to the Location Box functionality make it easy to identify locations for a device or group of devices, resulting in more accurate panel layouts.
When inserting a Location Box, a check box on the Location Box dialog box indicates whether to update the Location and Installation values for parent components that fall within the new location box.
AutoCAD Electrical commands are now aware of location boxes. If you insert or move schematic parent components into an existing location box, location and installation values update to match the location box.
When you move schematic parent components out of a location box, you can choose whether to update component values to match the drawing defaults.
Suppress Wire Collision Check
AutoCAD Electrical 2011 makes wiring components into your designs faster by enabling users to turn Wire Collision on or off with a single click of the mouse.
Temporarily disable or enable collision checking during wire insertion. Default behavior routes around a component when routing a wire from one location to another.
With collision checking turned off, AutoCAD Electrical automatically breaks the wire across components encountered as you insert the wire. This setting is remembered only for the current session. Collision checking is on when AutoCAD Electrical restarts.
Ease of Use Enhancements
Improved Learning Experience
AutoCAD Electrical 2011 introduces new in-product learning tools and tutorials designed to help you take advantage of the advanced functionality in AutoCAD Electrical and realize immediate productivity gains:
• Getting Started exercises added to the Help.
• The new Title Block tutorial guides AutoCAD Electrical users through the steps of creating a template, creating a title block, and defining the title block mapping for a title block update.
• The new Cable Design Interoperability tutorial explores the mechatronic capabilities of Digital Prototyping, demonstrating the seamless interoperability between AutoCAD Electrical and Autodesk Inventor, and includes exercises in both environments.
promis•e Data Migration
Users of promis•e® software can avoid hours of rework by easily migrating designs into AutoCAD Electrical design software using the promis•e data migration tool.
AutoCAD Electrical 2011 enhances this powerful tool to simplify and accelerate the data migration process.
Project-Specific Catalog Database
AutoCAD Electrical 2011 makes it easier for you to share catalog data from projects with your clients, or collaborate with other departments to specify which catalog selections to use.
Users can now create a project-specific catalog database by including just the relevant portion of the catalog database that was used for this project. This command starts with the default_cat.mdb database and removes all catalog values not used in the project
drawings.
Use this smaller catalog database to:
• Send to a client with the finished project.
• Limit future catalog selections to components used in the project.
Award-Winning Software
For seven consecutive years, AutoCAD Electrical has been the winner of the Control Design Readers’ Choice Award in the category of ECAD software.
Proven Benefits
An independent productivity study1 comparing standard AutoCAD and AutoCAD Electrical concluded that when using AutoCAD Electrical:
• Creation of new designs is 84 percent faster.
• Editing existing designs is 77 percent faster.
• Risk of errors is greatly reduced because of a 30 percent reduction in number of commands used.
Conclusion
We thank you for your continued support of AutoCAD Electrical and hope you feel we are listening to your needs. We added the new and enhanced functionality to AutoCAD Electrical 2011 to help make you more productive, make your company more competitive, and return true value to your bottom line.
