Autodesk's fiscal year runs from February 1 through January 31. So right now, we're working in FY18 since it ends on January 31, 2018. As a result, the AutoCAD team has been working on AutoCAD 2018 even though today is March 21, 2017. The team is ready to share what's new. You should see lots of blog posts on this topic.

Here's a concise (perhaps oversimplified?) list of what's new that's shipping in AutoCAD 2018 as compared to what shipped with AutoCAD 2017:

• The File navigation dialog box remembers the sort order (e.g., alphabetical, file size, date modified) and displays in that order.
• The Draft Settings dialog box can be resized.
• The Select Color dialog supports direct entry of RGB values.
• The Layer Control option is part of the Quick Access Toolbar menu.
• The Status bar displays when system variables deviate from their preferred values.
• A rubber-band line temporarily stretches dynamically as the cursor moves between two points in the drawing area.
• Selection is maintained when panning and zooming to other parts of a drawing that cause the selected objects to go off-screen.
• Linetype gap behavior supports complex and DGN linetypes.
• SHX text from PDF files can be converted from geometry to text.
• PDF import and PDF attach tools display thumbnail previews in the Select File dialog.
• Rotated TrueType text in imported PDF files no longer creates upside-down text.
• Geometry imported from a PDF is scaled to real-world size in model space if all of the viewports are of the same scale.
• Form data support has improved when importing PDFs.
• The Combine Text tool combines many individual text objects into one multi-line text object.
• When attaching XREFs, the default is relative path instead of full path.
• Saving a drawing to a different location that includes relative path XREFs prompts the user to update the relative paths.
• Find and replace can update all occurrences of an XREF path with a new path.
• Nested (child) XREFs that are not found display as "Orphaned" instead of "Unreferenced."
• Unloaded XREFs can be opened from the External References palette.
• Unloaded XREFs that are renamed are not automatically loaded.
• The External Reference palette recognizes renamed XREFs that weer renamed using other commands, e.g., CLASSICXREF command.
• Share Design View publishes to A360 to facilitate sharing with stakeholders (for whom A360 accounts are not required).
• The DWG format was optimized to open and save more quickly when many annotations or viewports are present.
• For 3D solids and surfaces, the DWG format uses the newest geometric modeler which has improved security and stability.
• Save DWG performance is improved — particularly blocks with annotative scaling; Mtext with columns; and attributes and attribute definitions with multilines.
• DWG saves are most often performed incrementally instead of performing full saves.
• High resolution (4K) monitors are supported.
• The REGEN3 command regenerates views to repair anomalies in the display of 3D solids and surfaces.
• High-quality geometry appears even when the smooth line display option is turned off.
• Zoom, pan, and 3D orbit operations are less likely to degrade as very large models are navigated.
• Bing Maps v8.0 is supported.
• Add-ons that support the new DWG format are easily identified in the Autodesk App Store.
• BIMobject content (formerly Autodesk Seek) is directly accessible.
• Support for iDrop was removed for security reasons.
• The BIM 360 ribbon tab was removed but can be restored by downloading it from the BIM 360 Glue page.
• A subscription to AutoCAD includes the AutoCAD mobile app.

The AutoCAD team has put together some videos that demonstrate the new features:

• AutoCAD 2018: User Interface Enhancements

• AutoCAD 2018: Object Selection

• AutoCAD 2018: PDF Enhancements

• AutoCAD 2018: Combine Text

• AutoCAD 2018: External Reference Enhancements

• AutoCAD 2018: Technology and Performance Updates

Thanks to the AutoCAD team who provided me with the information and allowed me to see the fruits of AutoCAD labor at Silver Oak Winery in Napa.

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