INSTALLATION & INITALISATION

Installing & Configuring Software

1.     Click Install. See Selecting the Installation Type for an explanation of the options on this screen.                                                                                                                                                   Note: You can change the Installer language by clicking the Installation Instructions drop down on the top right.
2.    Read the License and Services Agreement for your Country or Region. Select I Accept and then click Next.
3.    Select the license type you have purchased.  For installing on a single computer, select Stand-Alone.
4.      Enter your Serial number and Product key and then click Next.
5.      If you're installing a Free Product Trial (and don't have a serial number and product key), select I want to try the product for 30 days and click Next.
6.     Select the install location and features to be installed. The default configuration pre-selects the components to be installed with your product. The Installation path indicates the location where your Autodesk product will be installed.
7.     To proceed with the default configuration and location (recommended) click Install.
8.       Click Finish to close the installer. When the installation is finished you'll see a list of the products that have been installed on your computer. The installation process is now complete! 

One of the first thing you will notice in AutoCAD 2015 is the new tab. The new tab contains two sliding content pages.

• 1.      Learn and
• 2.      Create

The create page is displayed by default and serves as a launch pad where you can access files, product updates and the online community. It is divided into three columns.

• 1.      Get started
• 2.      Recent documents
• 3.      Connect

In the Get Started column you can use the starting drawing tool to quickly begin a new drawing from default templates or choose from a list of available templates organized by groups. The last templates you use become the new default. Other tool enables you to open an existing drawing and sheet sets, get more templates online and explore sample drawings. 

In the recent column document you can view and open your recent drawings. You can pin them to ensure that they are on the list. Icons at the bottom of the column enable you to change hoe you preview the recent documents: thumbnail view, text view or thumbnail view and text view.

The third column enables you to sign in to the auto-desk 360 and send feedback directly to Autodesk. This column also display relevant notifications about product updates, hardware acceleration, trail period, and offline help. You can also slide to learn from the Create by clicking on the Learn at the left or bottom of the page. To return to the create page, click on Create at the right or bottom of the page. The learn page provides tools to help you learn AutoCAD 2015. It is divided into three columns: What’s new, getting started videos, and tip/online resources. These are all great resources for getting up to speed on AutoCAD 2015 whether you are a new user or AutoCAD veteran.

As the installation is finished, click on the icon A on your desktop . A window as shown below is displayed on your computer screen.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

System requirements for AutoCAD Mechanical 2015

^[2]The system requirements for Autodesk AutoCAD Mechanical 2015 are listed below in the table.

System requirements for AutoCAD Mechanical 2015
Operating System	Microsoft® Windows® 7 Enterprise Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate, 7 Professional, 7 Home Premium Microsoft Windows 8/8.1, 8/8.1 Pro, 8/8.1 Enterprise
CPU Type	For 32-bit AutoCAD Mechanical 2015: Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon™ dual core processor, 3 GHz or higher with SSE2 technology For 64-bit AutoCAD Mechanical 2015: AMD Athlon 64 with SSE2 technology AMD Opteron™ with SSE2 technology Intel® Xeon® with Intel EM64T support with SSE2 technology Intel Pentium 4 with Intel EM64T support with SSE2 technology
Memory	2 GB RAM minimum (3 GB recommended for 32-bit, 8 GB recommended for 64-bit)
Display Resolution	1,024 x 768 (1,600 x 1,050 or higher recommended) display with true color
Display Card	Windows display adapter capable of 1024x768 with True Color capabilities. DirectX® 9 or DirectX 11 compliant card recommended but not required.
Disk Space	Installation 6 GB
Network	Deployment via Deployment Wizard The license server and all workstations that will run applications dependent on network licensing must run TCP/IP protocol Either Microsoft or Novell TCP/IP protocol stacks are acceptable. Primary login on workstations may be Netware or Windows In addition to operating systems supported for the application, the license server will run on the Windows Server 2012, 2012 R2, 2008, and 2008 R2 Citrix® XenApp™ 6.5 FP1
Pointing Device	MS-Mouse compliant device
Digitizer	WINTAB support
Plotter/Printer	Same as AutoCAD Mechanical 2013-2014 — system printer and HDI support
Media (DVD)	Download and installation from DVD
Browser	Windows Internet Explorer® 9.0 (or later)
Side-by-side Install	Supported
ToolClips Media Player	Adobe® Flash® Player v10 or up
.NET Framework	.NET Framework Version 4.5

Additional requirements for large datasets, point clouds, and 3D modeling
CPU Type	Intel Pentium 4 processor or AMD Athlon, 3.0 GHz or higher with SSE2 technology; Intel or AMD Dual Core processor, 2.0 GHz or higher Note: 64-bit Operating Systems are recommended if you are working with Large Datasets, Point Clouds and 3D Modeling.
Memory	3 GB or greater for 32-bit, 8 GB RAM or greater for 64-bit
Disk Space	6 GB free hard disk available, not including installation requirements
Display Card	1280x1024 True Color video display adapter 128 MB or greater, Pixel Shader 3.0 or greater, Direct3D®-capable workstation class graphics card.

INTRODUCTION TO AUTO-CAD

AutoCAD is a commercial software application for 2D and 3D computer-aided design (CAD) and drafting — available since 1982 as a desktop application and since 2010 as a mobile web- and cloud-based app marketed as AutoCAD 360.

Developed and marketed by Autodesk, Inc.,^[1] AutoCAD was first released in December 1982, running on microcomputers with internal graphics controllers. Prior to the introduction of AutoCAD, most commercial CAD programs ran on mainframe computers or minicomputers, with each CAD operator working at a separate graphics terminal.

By the March 1986 AutoCAD had become the most ubiquitous CAD program worldwide. As of 2014, AutoCAD is in its twenty-ninth generation, and collectively with all its variants, continues to be the most widely used CAD program throughout most of the world.

History

AutoCAD was derived from a program begun in 1977 and released in 1979 called Interact CAD, also referred to in early Autodesk documents as Micro-CAD, which was written prior to  Autodesk's  formation by Autodesk cofounder Mike Riddle.

The first version by the Auto-Desk company was demonstrated at the 1982 Comdex and released that December. The 2015 release marked the 29th major release for the AutoCAD for Windows. The 2014 release marked the fourth consecutive year for AutoCAD for Mac.

File formats

The native file format of AutoCAD is .dwg. This and, to a lesser extent, its interchange file format DXF, have become de facto, if proprietary, standards for CAD data-interoperability. AutoCAD has included support for .dwg, a format developed and promoted by Autodesk, for publishing CAD data.

Versions

Official Name	Version	Release	Date of release	Comments
AutoCAD Version 1.0	1.0	1	1982, December	DWG R1.0 file format introduced.
AutoCAD Version 1.2	1.2	2	1983, April	DWG R1.2 file format introduced.
AutoCAD Version 1.3	1.3	3	1983, August	DWG R1.3 file format introduced.
AutoCAD Version 1.4	1.4	4	1983, October	DWG R1.4 file format introduced.
AutoCAD Version 2.0	2.0	5	1984, October	DWG R2.05 file format introduced.
AutoCAD Version 2.1	2.1	6	1985, May	DWG R2.1 file format introduced.
AutoCAD Version 2.5	2.5	7	1986, June	DWG R2.5 file format introduced.
AutoCAD Version 2.6	2.6	8	1987, April	DWG R2.6 file format introduced. Last version to run without a math co-processor.
AutoCAD Release 9	9.0	9	1987, September	DWG R9 file format introduced.
AutoCAD Release 10	10.0	10	1988, October	DWG R10 file format introduced.
AutoCAD Release 11	11.0	11	1990, October	DWG R11 file format introduced.
AutoCAD Release 12	12.0	12	1992, June	DWG R11/R12 file format introduced. Last release for Apple Macintosh till 2010.
AutoCAD Release 13	13.0	13	1994, November	DWG R13 file format introduced. Last release for Unix, MS-DOS and Windows 3.11.
AutoCAD Release 14	14.0	14	1997, February	DWG R14 file format introduced.
AutoCAD 2000	15.0	15	1999, March	DWG 2000 file format introduced.
AutoCAD 2000i	15.1	16	2000, July
AutoCAD 2002	15.6	17	2001, June
AutoCAD 2004	16.0	18	2003, March	DWG 2004 file format introduced.
AutoCAD 2005	16.1	19	2004, March
AutoCAD 2006	16.2	20	2005, March	Dynamic Block introduced.
AutoCAD 2007	17.0	21	2006, March	DWG 2007 file format introduced.
AutoCAD 2008	17.1	22	2007, March	Annotative Objects introduced. AutoCAD 2008 and higher (including AutoCAD LT) can directly import and underlayDGN V8 files.
AutoCAD 2009	17.2	23	2008, March	Revisions to the user interface including the option of a Microsoft Office 2007-like tabbed ribbon.
AutoCAD 2010	18.0	24	2009, March 24	DWG 2010 file format introduced. Parametrics introduced. Mesh 3D solid modeling introduced. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of AutoCAD 2010 and AutoCAD LT 2010 are compatible with and supported under Microsoft Windows 7.
AutoCAD 2011	18.1	25	2010, March 25	Surface Modeling, Surface Analysis and Object Transparency introduced. October 15, 2010[9] AutoCAD 2011 for Mac was released. Are compatible with and supported under Microsoft Windows 7
AutoCAD 2012	18.2	26	2011, March 22	Associative Array, Model Documentation. Support for complex line types in DGN files is improved in AutoCAD 2012. DGN editing.
AutoCAD 2013	19.0	27	2012, March 27	DWG 2013 file format introduced.
AutoCAD 2014	19.1	28	2013, March 26	File Tabs, Design Feed, Reality Capture, Autodesk Live Maps
AutoCAD 2015	20.0	29	2014, March 27	Line smoothing (anti-aliasing), Windows 8.1 support added, dropped Windows XP support (incl. compatibility mode)

Languages

AutoCAD 2014 and AutoCAD-LT 2014 are available for English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional and Brazilian Portuguese. Russian, Czech, Polish, Hungarian will be available later on. The extent of localization varies from full translation of the product to documentation only. The AutoCAD command set is localized as a part of the software localization.

Extensions

AutoCAD supports a number of APIs for customization and automation. These include Auto-LISP, Visual LISP, VBA, .NET and Object-ARX. Object-ARX is a C++ class library, which was also the base for:

 (a) Products extending AutoCAD functionality to specific fields;

(b) Creating products such as AutoCAD Architecture, AutoCAD Electrical, AutoCAD Civil 3D;

 (c) third-party AutoCAD-based application. There are a large number of AutoCAD plugins (add-on applications) available on the application store Autodesk Exchange Apps.

Vertical integration

Autodesk has also developed a few vertical programs (AutoCAD Architecture, AutoCAD Civil 3D, AutoCAD Electrical, AutoCAD-ecscad, AutoCAD Map 3D, AutoCAD Mechanical, AutoCAD MEP, AutoCAD Structural Detailing, AutoCAD Utility Design, AutoCAD P&ID and AutoCAD Plant 3D) for discipline-specific enhancements. For example, AutoCAD Architecture  permits architectural designers to draw 3D objects, such as walls, doors and windows, with more intelligent data associated with them rather than simple objects, such as lines and circles. The data can be programmed to represent specific architectural products sold in the construction industry, or extracted into a data file for pricing, materials estimation, and other values related to the objects represented. Additional tools generate standard 2D drawings, such as elevations and sections, from a 3D architectural model. Similarly, Civil Design, Civil Design 3D, and Civil Design Professional support data-specific objects, facilitating easy standard civil engineering calculations and representations. Civil 3D was originally developed as an AutoCAD add-on by a company in New Hampshire called Soft-desk (originally DCA). Soft-desk was acquired by Autodesk, and Civil- 3D was further evolved.

Student versions

AutoCAD is licensed, for free, to qualifying students and teachers, with an 18-month renewable license available. The student version of AutoCAD is functionally identical to the full commercial version, with one exception: DWG files created or edited by a student version have an internal bit-flag set (the "educational flag"). When such a DWG file is printed by any version of AutoCAD (commercial or student) older than AutoCAD 2014 SP1, the output includes a plot stamp / banner on all four sides. Objects created in the Student Version cannot be used for commercial use. Student Version objects "infect" a commercial version DWG file if it is imported in older versions than AutoCAD 2015.

The Autodesk Education Community provides registered students and faculty with free access to different Autodesk applications.