Spatial Business Systems (SBS) announces the release of Automated Utility Design™ (AUD) 7.1 available 1 June 2017.

AUD 7.1 is a plug-in available for both the AutoCAD Map 3D 2017 and AutoCAD Map 3D 2018 platforms.
AUD now has a new naming convention. Previous releases were based on calendar years. But starting with AUD 7.1, new releases of AUD will provide customers more flexibility as upgrades will no longer have a strict dependency on the underlying AutoCAD Map 3D platform version. New upgrades of AUD will be available for multiple versions of AutoCAD Map 3D, allowing customers to benefit from improvements to AUD without requiring company-wide changes to their existing installed base of AutoCAD or AutoCAD Map 3D.

AUD 7.1 Summary

  • New simplified model selection filters
  • New schematic offset rules
  • Performance improvements to selection, feature info, rules, and configuration
  • Over 30 new customer-requested enhancements
  • Improved stability with over 40 resolved issues

AUD 7.1 Other New Enhancements

  • Improved Material List editing
  • Create new contained features directly in Feature Info
  • Read-only feature attribute support
  • Hide unused feature classes
  • Major rule editing improvements and new functions
  • Improved Material Rule capabilities and commands
  • Improved Industry Model Configuration load and display performance
  • Improved 3D editing for Pole and Pole Heads
  • Support for analysis of manually added Guys
  • Command line access to set AUD Variables

Feature Info

  • Model Filtering – Models can now be filtered by configurable attributes. Also, model selection is now more easily accessible from a new button on the feature’s toolbar.

  • Add Features to Container button now enables you to add newly created contained features directly in Feature Info.

  • Read Only attributes are now grayed out to indicate the read only state.

  • The Work location can now be unassigned and cleared from Feature Info.

Elevation and Rotation Grips

  • New elevation grip now allows you to specify the Position Z of a feature graphically on a pole in 3D view.

  • New rotation grip now allows you to easily specify the orientation of a feature graphically with a rotation grip.

Schematic

  • New Schematic rules allow AUDEXPAND to automatically offset based on specific design standards for offset interval distance, priority ordering, and included types of features.

Layout

  • New AUDROTATE command has been added for rotating a set of multiple selected and contained objects.
  • New AUDELEVATION command has been added for setting elevation on multiple selected objects.
  • The AUDCALLOUTINSERT command has been enhanced to support double click selection and auto selection if only one callout is defined.
  • Can now use all ribbon feature creation commands to convert AutoCAD objects by specifying new conversion keyword options during digitizing.

Material List

  • Material list now supports pasting domain values.
  • Material list now supports pasting to multiple items.
  • Material list now supports material sub-items to be added and removed.

Materials

  • The command AUDMATERIALITEM, has been added which allows material items to be added from the command line or by pre-defined ribbon menu picks.
  • Material Catalog now supports importing a material catalog directly from a CSV file.
    Configuration Management
  • A new “Show Grips” option has been added to the General Layout setting. NOTE: For existing drawings, it will default to false and the new grips will not be shown.
  • Wait cursors have been added for many lengthy operations in the product to indicate that background work is processing.

Guying

  • New Add Guy rule function allows Guy features to be added with General Validation rules, even if Guying analysis is disabled.
  • Guying analysis will now include manually added guys in the results for the corresponding level.
    Industry Model Configuration
  • Feature Classes that are unused can now be marked Inactive and hidden throughout the product.
  • Feature Class Attributes can now be defined as Read Only to disallow editing of GIS or calculated values.
  • Feature Class Attributes can now be defined as a Model Filter for use with the new model selection feature.
  • Commonly encountered delays when displaying a feature class are now avoided through improved image caching. Can now directly refresh preview images.

Table Editor

  • Table names are now sorted alphabetically
  • When importing table data, the user may now choose whether to append or replace the table data.

Rules

  • The Rule Editor now supports Select, Copy, and Paste for individual rule expressions and values which greatly simplifies expression editing.
  • Improved rule display with backgrounds and borders for easier selection, editing, and legibility. Rule expressions now highlight all enclosed expressions helping to determine the order of operations.

  • Can now Save and Load XAML files directly to and from the Rule Editor. Provides much easier updating of rule files for use with the SMART Template Builder.

  • New Title and Sentence Case rule functions have been added for string formatting.
  • New “string at split index” function has been added which allows a substring to be extracted from a delimited string.
  • New Connect, Disconnect, Tap and Auto Connect rule functions have been introduced to allow modification of connectivity from rule automation.
  • New AUDSETVAR command has been added to provide command macro automation for setting predefined or custom variables which can then be used in rules.