AutoCAD 2013

Have you ever wanted to run a script file on one or more drawings, without having to use the overhead of the entire AutoCAD application? Starting with AutoCAD 2013, you can. AutoCAD 2013 comes with a tiny application named AcCoreConsole.exe. (The AutoCAD Core Console). This is basically a stripped down version of the AutoCAD engine without the graphics screen.

Service Pack 1 for AutoCAD 2013 and AutoCAD LT 2013, was pulled from distribution quickly after its release. It it now available for download again, rebranded as Service Pack 1.1.  As always, be sure to download the correct version for your system (32-bit or 64-bit) and read the readme file

Image Courtesy Autodesk

I was excited to be invited to the Autodesk Media Summit last week at the Autodesk Gallery at Market One, in San Francisco. I arrived on Monday evening, a little late for the pre-event get together hosted by TechSoft 3D. However, the next morning we met next door at the Autodesk Gallery for a light breakfast and then quickly got started with the main event – a live webcast to introduce the Autodesk 2013 product line. 

The media room just prior to getting started Tuedsay morning

Users from all over tuned in via the Autodesk facebook page, while about 90 of us watched it live in person. I am sure we were burning up the Autodesk_Guest WiFi with all the live blog posts and tweets being sent out from the event. Carl Bass, President and Chief Executive Officer (@carlbass), led off the event by discussing how Autodesk received grief for predicting 10% growth last year. They ended up at 14% growth. Some of the interesting facts mentioned: 75% of Autodesk’s business is from outside the United States; in the past 30 years, AutoCAD has built a user base of about 12 million (legal) users, while the cloud based product AutoCAD WS has built a user base of over 7 million in only 2 years, with drawing uploads to AutoCAD WS over 300,000 per week.

Autodesk CEO Carl Bass - Image Courtesy Autodesk

Here is a direct link to the AutoCAD 2013 trial page.

If you would like to try AutoCAD LT 2013, see this link.

Shaan Hurley has documented the AutoCAD 2013 (I guess that will be the name!) system requirements on his Between the Lines blog. Notably missing is support for Microsoft Vista. Windows XP is still supported. It should also be noted that AutoCAD 2013 does introduce a new file format, in keeping with the current 3 year pattern.