AutoCADder

... hope you're out of depression quickly.


Microsoft Expression is a not very well known Windows application for graphic designers (codename Acrylic). Currently it is a CTP (Community Technology Preview) phase software. It's homepage says about Expression: Vector? Bitmap? It doesn't care.
See more details and download the CTP version on www.microsoft.com/products/expression


Autodesk Impression is a soon to released Windows application for graphic designers and technical illustrators (codename Vespa). Autodesk plans to release it first as a Technology Preview software on labs.autodesk.com. It's homepage says nothing about Impression yet but the sofware should Bring associative raster tools to vector (CAD) data. Watch the Autodesk Labs site - Impression should appear there in Sep or Oct.

Still want to see Microsoft's expression when Autodesk puts Impression on its Labs web site?

If you happen to choose a new PC for your AutoCAD, Inventor or other CAD application, grab that with the new dualcore technology. Dual-cores are good both for coming Microsoft Vista and for 2D and 3D CAD apps. Even a lower clocked dual-core CPU brings more power and faster CAD operations than an old single-core CPU with higher clock frequency. And this applies also for applications which are not multithreaded (like e.g. Inventor) - i.e. which do not directly make use of the multiple CPU cores. Operating system always performs tens of different tasks in parallel - and if it can dispatch those tasks to multiple processors, it helps also for the main running application.
For AutoCAD - and AutoCAD based applications - it helps even more as parts of AutoCAD are multithreaded since version 2000i. There is a good overview of what operations in AutoCAD can use multithreading - see Using multiprocessing in AutoCAD.

Students in many countries can now obtain free licenses of Autodesk 3D applications - Inventor, Revit, Civil 3D and other (all of them contain also AutoCAD functionality). The registration process, activation codes, design contests, discussions and job offerings are centralized on a new students web portal - students.autodesk.com
Autodesk has already offered substantially discounted versions of its CAD, GIS and multimedia software for students and educational institutions but it was not completely free. Now it is.

It is always good to educate new generations of future customers...