Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1997 - 71

ing and then move, scale, and manipulate the
image. It's intended to be used to insert an
aerial photograph of a new buildings' location
and then place the ground plan of the proposed building on it to show how and where
the new building will sit on the site. The new
"draworder" command allows you to send the
photograph to the back or to bring other objects to the front much like many paint progranls. The presentational possibilities of this
feature are likely to appeal to scenery designers as well as graphic designers.
Lastly, AutoCAD has prO\~ded a number of
very powerful Internet utilities. Using the new
DWF or draWing web format, you can post
your CAD drawings to a Web site. You can even
embed URLs into the drawings as hyperlinks to
other Web sites or drawings or whatever. Using
the WHIP! plug-in with a browser such as
letscape or Internet E,xplorer, anyone can
view these drawings. The WHIP! plug-in which
is available from Autodesk (www.autodesk.com)
even provides dynamic zoom and pan as well.
You can also launch your Web browser from
within AutoCAD and open, insert and save
drawings from anywhere on the Web. I tllink
our drawing libraries just got a lot bigger.
The documentation and training aids with
this release are quite good. The included
"Learning Assistant" CD can be launched from
\\~thin the program, and it provides a wealtll of
demos, tutorials, and fast answers about techniques and concepts. Also there are ten easy
lessons built into the program that teach the
basics very well. Can a novice sit down and
learn AutoCAD in an hour? Not likely. Three or
four hours a day for several days is normal for
a large and complex program like this.
So what's not to like? For one thing, the
price. At the suggested retail price of $3750.00
and a street price around $2800, most designers and technicians working in theatre will
find AutoCAD a bit of a reach. Universities can
buy it for around $1350 per package, and it is
somewhat cheaper when purchased in tenpacks, in a volume purchase agreement, or
even as a site license. Faculty and students can
buy it through their bookstores for around
$900. All educational versions, except the site
license, require hardware locks to prevent
fraudulent use of the software. I guess if you're
not a student and pay full price, you're expected to be honest. The educational upgrade
cost is $275.00 from R13 and $525.00 from
any earlier upgradeable version. The other serious drawback to tllis software is support.
Just try to talk to a human at Autodesk. If you

get one, he or she will be glad to tell you where
your nearest dealer is located and that's about
all. Your dealer is supposed to provide you
with the first means of support. Be sure you
know what kind of support you can expect before you buy.
As a longtinle user, I must admit iliat Release 14 has fulfilled just about everything on
my wish list and fixed all ilie things that have
irritated me about past releases. While I
wouldn't have recommended upgrading to Release 13, I believe that Release 14 is well worth
it if you can come up wiili the bucks. There are

certain to be shortcomings with tltis release
that will need fixing or new features to be
added for the power users because as sure as
"tlle sun will come out tomorrow," there will
be a Release 15.
Reviewed by Bill Browning, Professor,
Head of Production, University of Delaware

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