Most years after the major AutoCAD version has been released in March/April another update of the software was released mid-year. They were called R version eg R1 and R2.  This year Autodesk has released dot versions for instance AutoCAD 2018.1.

Usually each release contains service packs and a couple of new features. One of these new features caught my eye and that was of the Named View and Viewport creation feature. Some parts of the feature were always inside AutoCAD but now has been packaged better.

Remember that any software updates are downloadable via the Autodesk Desktop App.

Getting back to the feature: it basically assists the user to create Model Space Views and then place them on a Layout as a Viewport. I’ll explain the process briefly.

The first step is the set up the view called a Named View. A new button has been added in the View Tab called ‘New View’.

Clicking this button AutoCAD opens a dialogue box that is minimized and allows you to name and select an area of the view.

Once you click the Window button you need to indicate an area in your model space as below. This is basically the size of the View and later the Viewport.

Once a couple of view are set up the first part is done.

Now go to your Layout the the Layout Tab. Click the ‘Place Views’ button to expand the available views.

Placing them is easy.

This process could be accomplished in previous versions of AutoCAD but you needed to first create the Named views. Very similar to the new process and then create the Viewports in the Layout, thereafter accessing the Named View inside the viewport. This new feature increases productivity and packages the whole process better, I think.