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New AutoCAD Freestyle Creates High-Quality Drawings, Layouts and Plans for Specialty Contractors and Do-It-Yourself Projects
Autodesk, Inc., a world leader in 2D and 3D design, engineering and entertainment software, announced the availability of AutoCAD Freestyle software, a new, easy-to-use application for 2D drawing and sketching that specialty contractors and do-it-yourselfers can use to create professional-looking drawings, layouts and plans.
"Many people–from do-it-yourselfers to home contractors to landscape designers–still use pen and paper or software that does not enable accuracy and is hard to use," said Amar Hanspal, senior vice president, Autodesk Platform Solutions and Emerging Business. "AutoCAD Freestyle has been created to meet the needs of these users and anybody else who needs to generate quick, accurate and professional-looking designs without the need for or learning curve of industrial-strength CAD software."
Designed for any task that requires the creation of accurate plans, such as home renovations, gardening or landscape design, AutoCAD Freestyle is simple enough for use by home owners and do-it-yourselfers as well as specialty contractors such as plumbers, electricians and carpenters to create plans and construction documentation. AutoCAD Freestyle is also intended for non-CAD employees who work with architects and engineers, enabling markup and annotation of designs created in AutoCAD software that can be sent back for incorporation into the AutoCAD file with complete DWG compatibility, which helps reduce rework.
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BERKELEY —When visiting Sherman Island in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, it is easy to forget the region’s ever-present threat of catastrophic floods and instead revel in the West Coast’s largest estuary, which supports farmers, anglers, and more than 700 native species of plants and animals, including some that are endangered.
(Credit: Video produced by Roxanne Makasdjian, UC Berkeley Media Relations)
"You drive out there and you see that cows are grazing, birds are chirping; but it’s deceptive," said Robert Bea, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. "As you start to dig in, you find out how incredibly complex and vulnerable we’ve made this place."
At least 220 government agencies have jurisdiction in the Delta, which is home to half a million residents in 25 villages, towns and cities, including Sacramento, Stockton and Pittsburg. The region is under continual threat from floods, prevented only by a vast — and fragile — network of earthen levees.
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