The second and third in a series of new feature AutoCAD Subscription Bonus Packs are being released to the Autodesk Subscription website.

If you install all three Subscription Bonus Packs your Subscription toolbar in AutoCAD 2009 will appear like the below.

AutoCAD 2009 Subscription Bonus Pack 1 Released in June 2008

The first AutoCAD 2009 Subscription Bonus Pack provides many useful AUGI (Autodesk User Group International) functionality requests, including:

• You can measure the distance, radius, angle, area, and volume of selected objects or a sequence of points.
• SPLINE to PLINE
• Reverse PLINE edit
• Rotating viewport and have the view rotate with the viewport
• Erase unreferenced unnamed objects including PURGE 0-length objects like blank spaces in text etc.

New AutoCAD Subscription Bonus Packs:

Bonus Pack 2 the PDF Bonus Pack.

 
AutoCAD 2009 Subscription Bonus Pack 2 delivers exciting new PDF enhancements.

PDF Underlays
Now you can import PDF files, attaching them as PDF underlays. Once you attach a PDF underlay, you can use a variety of tools to snap to lines and objects, control the display of layers, move, scale, rotate, and clip the PDF underlay.

PDF Output
Key improvements have been made for publishing PDF files. File sizes have been reduced, making it easier to share designs. TrueType font support has been added, giving you control over precisely how your fonts are displayed.

Bonus Pack 3 the 3D Printing Bonus Pack.

The ability to prepare and print a 3D model to an online service and get back a 3D print of the model. I have produced several of these as have other customers and employees. From 3D architectural plans to mechanical parts.

I even printed the laser scanned model of the infamous Matt Murphy Clay Head Sculpture to preserve it from further damage during its travels around the world including both China and Japan over the past 2 weeks. I hope to retire it at AU in Vegas soon.

Since they were just released after beta testing at http://myfeedback.autodesk.com it may take a few days for them to appear on the Autodesk Subscription website.

AutoCAD 2009 Subscription Bonus Packs can only be applied to following products:

• AutoCAD 2009
• AutoCAD Revit^® Architecture Suite 2009
• AutoCAD Revit Structure Suite 2009

Note for Subscription Customers: My coworker and good friend and former Express Tools developer as well as other AutoCAD programming Tom Stoeckel has a new blog only for Autodesk Subscription customers named “Stoeckel on Subs”. You can get to the Bonus Packs and Tom Stoeckel’s blog from the front page on the Autodesk Subscription website.

Update 20 November 2008>>

Bonus Pack 2 the PDF Bonus Pack has been available to subscription download for about a week.

Bonus Pack 3 the 3D Printing Bonus Pack has just now became available for download.

Cheers,
Shaan