Autodesk® Alias® Automotive 2014
Autodesk® Alias® Design 2014
Autodesk® Alias® Surface 2014

System Requirements

• Some Autodesk products check basic hardware and software configuration settings when installing and running on Windows. If your computer does not meet our minimum system requirements you will be prompted when the product starts. Although in some products you can ignore all warnings, it is not advised to run if warnings are detected. You may experience poor performance and crashes.
• The Alias family of products is tested on specific hardware configurations using workstation class hardware in conjunction with video drivers made available by Nvidia or AMD, depending on make and model of graphics card. For Windows, supported GPU's are restricted to Nvidia Quadro and ATI FirePro level graphics hardware as listed in the Qualification Charts. For Mac, supported GPU's are restricted to Nvidia Quadro and GeForce and ATI Radeon™ level graphics hardware as listed in the Qualification Charts. Intel® Integrated Graphics based cards are not supported and will result in poor performance and incorrect display results.

Modeling

• The Profile tool, with Match Parameterization on, independently builds a section of the resultant surface for each part of the rail curve. Only positional continuity is guaranteed where these surface sections join.
• Improvements have been made to the shell stitch/union/intersection routines to help shells with negative determinants (negative scales) retain consistent normals through shell operations.
• In the Align tool, if partial align is on, and the partial range is small, then the continuity locator may not display. To correct this problem, increase the number of check points in Construction Options > Tolerance > Fitting until the locator displays.
• Improvements have been made to the offset tool to help the consistency of normal flips when offsetting successive sets of surfaces.
• For tools that produce G1 Circular fillets, to get the most accurate circular fillets, the Form Factor value must be set to 1.0, rather than the default of 0.5.
• Modifying draft surfaces with history will cause surface continuity locators on the draft edge to be replaced with a position locator, or to be deleted if Continuity Check is turned off.
• The Mesh Hole fill function does not always select the area to fill if the selection is made using the magnify window. Use the main window to make the selection instead if this is encountered.

UI

• When an invisible layer is made the active construction layer, objects on that layer become visible (as always) but that layer now still retains it's invisible state/flag. You will notice the invisible icon in the object lister and on the layer bar. This is because technically the layer is still marked as invisible and when exporting the file we want the user to readily identify that even though it is the construction layer that when saved/exported, it will be saved as invisible.
• The Check Model tool can create hundreds/thousands of internal, external, visible and/or invisible displayables which can cause severe performance issues when combined with very large files. It is advisable to not run the Check Model tool on entire files nor to make all the displaybles visible after the check completes.
• In the Panel Gap tool, the Gap Distance default value has been changed to a default value of 5.0 from 50.0 
• An issue exists where all requested objects may not be selected when trying to search multiple entities in the Object Lister and also in the Layer Category window. 

Rendering

• A problem where objects would suddenly become transparent while the pick chooser was present has been resolved. Object transparency will no longer be affected by the pick chooser.

Miscellaneous

• There are known issues between Wacom devices and the Alias application which can cause the Alias system to enter bad/unresponsive states. Such states are characterized by an inability to enter pen/mouse commands as though the application no longer has focus. As a workaround, minimizing the application and then alt-tabbing back into it will often resolve the issue.
• The DirectConnect Help is provided in PDF format via Help > DirectConnect Help. You must have a PDF reader installed to view it (for example, Adobe® Reader®, available free from Adobe at www.adobe.com).

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The following is a list of key defects the Alias team has addressed for the 2014 release. This list does NOT represent all the defects addressed during the 2014 development cycle.

• 392222 - Duplicate Curves selects multiple curves and surface edges
• 392415 - Unable to save Trim crosshair size
• 392661 - Session gets locked when using Canvas Layer Editor
• 392729 - Deleting History on Curve will result in COS not trimming
• 393381 - Surface Fillet will not build a 10mm Center radius
• 393393 - Projecting curve on mesh appears results in erratic COS
• 393434 - Unify Normals does not respect surface normal changes
• 393442 - selected shader does not always persist
• 393623 - Shelves positioned on top cannot maintain size
• 393640 - Surface fillet knee ratio - max values changed from 2011 to 2012
• 393740 - Surface fillet CV structure not as desired
• 393741 - Surface fillet not positional to adjoining geometry
• 393879 - Locked (read-only) file is overwritten without any warning message
• 393882 - Control Panel doesn't show picked object when opened
• 393902 - Curve fit to visual sections has difficulties when scan contains breaks.
• 393945 - Extreme slow down of fillet tool when information window is open.
• 394046 - Curvature plot doesn't display when select offset curve
• 394055 - Profile Surface-History prevents modification of the input curve degree.
• 394222 - Construction Plane Editor opacity slider not accessible.
• 394257 - Detach tool doesn't function correctly
• 394735 - Templated objects cannot be picked.
• 394768 - Unable to use Both sides of Arrows of manipulator when continuity check is on.
• 394769 - Catia import: converted to mesh data
• 395063 - Surfaces not trimming correct in 2013 but are ok in 2012
• 395132 - Increase degree align issue
• 395161 - Background Color - White not pickable
• 395309 - Multi-Surface Draft no curve option in Normal mode
• 395587 - Unable to reduce stage editor window as before
• 395632 - Crash during hardware shade with self shadows
• 395735 - Alias Hangs when saving a file and Space mouse Moves
• 395797 - Set Surface Orientation does not work when master light control is set to zero
• 396025 - Profile tool transition and location
• 396072 - Rolled Edge Tube flange curvature display wrong
• 396182 - Unable to Pick vector with Iso-angle tool anymore
• 396182 - Unable to Pick vector with Iso-angle tool anymore
• 396210 - Draft tool will sometimes cause Alias to crash
• 396228 - Alias2014_fillet_issue - G1 fillets don't make circular fillet by default

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Autodesk, Alias, Maya, and Sketchbook are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other Countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product and services offerings, and specifications and pricing at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document. © 2013 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.

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