Whether sharing drawings, databases, or images, web-savvy design companies make their data available over the Internet, letting clients quickly access their most up-to-date information. Autodesk i-drop® technology, with which you can drag and drop AutoCAD®-based content directly from a website into your drawing , makes it simple and easy for them—and you—to do. And now that the i-drop Center has a new home at Point A, you'll be able to more easily access and leverage design content from manufacturers and suppliers, saving design time and improving productivity.

Autodesk's newest update to i-drop technology, the i-drop Enhancer Extension, further enhances i-drop functionality already available in AutoCAD 2002. We'll get to that shortly.

Note: The i-drop Enhancer Extension is available only to members of the Autodesk Subscription Program.

Originally introduced in AutoCAD 2000i, i-drop is not actually an AutoCAD command, but a feature that interprets web-based content and converts it to data that you can import into AutoCAD-based software. Using i-drop technology, you can web-post your Autodesk® Architectural Desktop drawings, along with their Styles, so that other AutoCAD-based users can drag and drop that content into their drawings. The content is inserted as blocks or Styles. If you've been working with ADT, you know that Styles are intelligent design objects that "understand" their relationship to other drawing objects. For example, if you use the "Door to Wall" relationship, when you insert a door into a wall it breaks the wall open, and when you move the wall the door moves with the wall.

Accessing i-drop Content from Point A
Autodesk's goal with the release of the i-drop Enhancer Extension is to not only build new features into i-drop technology, but also to provide quick and easy access for Autodesk software users to vendor and manufacturer websites holding design content (see Figure 1). The i-drop Center on Autodesk Point A allows users to experience the value of i-drop for themselves. And by sharing their products with end users, manufacturers can realize the full potential that i-drop technology offers to their client base and to their businesses.

Figure 1: A manufacturer's i-drop-enabled website.

From the i-drop Center, you can view manufacturer content page where links to manufacturer websites are categorized by CSI (Construction Specification Institute) divisions. For example, to locate Door content, just browse to CSI Division 8, Doors & Windows. Under Division 8, a list of all the manufacturers that provide i-drop-enabled Door content is displayed. Once you find the content you need, follow the link to the manufacturer's website, and then simply drag and drop that content into your drawing.

Autodesk's i-drop Symbol Libraries
In addition to making it easier to find a vendor's i-drop content, Autodesk Point A has now i-drop-enabled all the content in the Symbols Library. You can browse this free design content by category, such as Architectural, Vehicles, and Electronic, or search for specific objects using the Quick Search Tool (see Figure 2) and i-drop the symbols directly into your drawing.

Figure 2: Autodesk Point A i-drop Symbols Library.

Accessing ADT Styles
If you are an Autodesk Architectural Desktop (ADT) Subscription member, you can access a special restricted site that contains ADT Styles. Just open your ADT Style Manager and then browse for generic i-drop-enabled styles, such as door styles, window styles, and so on, and drag and drop them into your drawing window and they will appear in your Style Manager. Even better: Autodesk posts new i-drop content every month.

i-drop Extension Enhancements
While the release of the new i-drop Enhancer Extension ushers in the new home of the i-drop Center on Point A, the extension itself includes new i-drop technology features that you'll find useful.

In the AutoCAD 2002 version of i-drop, you can drag content into a drawing, but you have no control over how it is displayed. With the new extension, you can now click the right mouse button to drag and drop an object into your drawing. And when you drop that object, a shortcut menu displays, presenting a list of available content types. For example, with this right mouse button functionality, you can choose to insert either an ADT style or an AutoCAD block (assuming the manufacturer makes both types of content available through its site.) You see only a single image of the object on the manufacturer's website, from which either the style or the block is accessed.

Content providers can also associate order forms, part numbers, specifications, PDFs, and more with the i-drop object. What this means is that you'll be able to i-drop—and leverage—data created with other software programs like Microsoft Excel, Access, or Word. The i-drop package can contain all of these data types and deliver them to your system. The right mouse button feature not only lets you choose the object type, but also displays all data associated with the object. You can then select the specific data that you want to accept and indicate the folder on your system where you want the data files stored.

With the new Enhancer Extension, i-drop-inserted blocks now automatically include a hyperlink either to the original source location for that block (the manufacturer's URL) or to an alternative location specified by the service provider. For example, the service provider could have the link jump to its catalog as opposed to that specific object's page. The hyperlink will help you identify where a specific block came from and quickly access updated content.

Another new feature included with the Enhancer Extension is the i-drop log, an external text file that captures activity information about each drag-and-drop action. The log includes the web location that the object came from, the name of the drawing that the object was dropped into, the associated data files included with the download, the directory where the additional data files are stored, and the date and time the object was copied. The i-drop Enhancer Extension creates a log file for each drawing, making it easy to track the actions performed on a drawing-by-drawing basis.

Summary
You want to leverage already created design content in your drawings and you want to do it online. Autodesk's i-drop technology delivers those capabilities.