It's official, the gag order is off.
What's new in ADT 2007? Here's a few things (in addition to the new AutoCAD features):
Customizable Project Drawing Locations:ADT 2007 allows you to store your drawing files in folders other than the default project location. This may be the answer for those people who have been having trouble running Project Navigator because of issues with Novell serviers. You should be able to keep your project's drawings on the Novell server and store the project data, including the APJ file on a Windows server. That data doesn't take up much room at all. (Warning - I haven't tested this myself, so I can't say for sure, but it should work).
AEC Dimensions are finally usable for CD's. You can specify on a wall style by wall style basis, explicitly where the AEC dimension should dimension to. You can also add dimension points that are associative to deal with non-standard situations, and you can delete and add dimension points for explicit dimension strings.
Stairs got a major facelift. You can create a custom stair from linework, and you can customize individual treads and risers. Their display settings have been improved as well.
Spaces can now be freeform and are associated with their wall/slab boundaries. If you move a wall, simply select the space that was bound by it and select "Update" from the right-click menu. Areas and area groups are gone. Spaces now contain all of the information that areas used to and can be grouped into Zones. These spaces and zones are immediately readable by ABS 2007 as E-Spaces - no conversion necessary, and openings are already assigned from their bounding walls.
Slabs can now have multiple components, similar to walls.
Classifications can now be nested in a tree structure. Classifications can now be assigned to individual objects as well as styles. How long have I been telling people to use classifications? Did I not say that? USE CLASSIFICATIONS!!!
List definitions allow the storing of object names for selection from lists (room names, for example) to eliminate entering repetitive data.
Anchor properties can be used in schedules - example - use an anchor property on a door to extract the fire rating of the wall it's anchored to and assign it to the door as well. Change the wall fire rating and the door's changes as well.
Title overrides for schedules in the properties screen.
In the image above, you can see AEC Dimensions being used - on the right side, I'm using the new "Anchored Palettes" feature of AutoCAD 2007 to anchor my XREF Palette, DesignCenter and QuicCalc pallette to the left side of the screen. Neatly tucked away, but ready to be used by simply moving my mouse over them.
In the image below you can see a closeup of the AEC Dimensions. Note that I was able to control, through the wall styles, where to place the extension lines explicitly (in this case, on the outer edge of structure on the exterior walls, and on the edge of the stud for the interior walls).
In the following image, I've selected the dimensions to show all of the new grip-editing features. Without right-clicking, you can now remove dimension lines, move extension lines to override a default location, remove extension lines, etc. All with the click of a mouse. All extension lines are fully associative and AEC Dimensions work through XREF's. Say bye-bye to standard AutoCAD dimensions - now you can work smarter, not harder, when you annotate.
