Join
The new Join command allows you to piece back together objects of similar kind into a single object. The objects must be inline of each other in order for it to work. So if you are working on a drawing that has two different lines that are touching and going in the same direction you can create them into a single line. This command works on Lines, Arcs, Polylines, Splines and Elliptical Arcs. Along with joining two objects together it is also possible to convert an Arc or Elliptical Arc to a Circle or Ellipse.

Command: join
Select source object:
Select arcs to join to source or [cLose]:
Select arcs to join to source: 1 found
1 arc joined to source



Offset
The Offset command is a very powerful modify tool in AutoCAD for reading things like Walls, Parallel lines and even threads on a bolt. The command just got a little more muscle with the additions of two new command options. The first command option is the ability to Erase the original object after the new object has been created. The second option is the ability to assign the newly created object to either the Source objects layer or the Current layer. There are also options to Undo the last Offset and a Multiple option to keep offsetting to either side.

Layer Manager
AutoCAD 2005 introduced a new Layer Manager and a different way to work with Layer Filters. With these changes also came a new column in the Layer Manager to see if a Layer is currently being used in a drawing. This property caused some performance issues with how fast the Layer Manager would open and Autodesk listened by allowing it to be your choice as to if the Status of a Layer would be checked or not in this release. There is a new option located in the lower-left corner of the Layer Manager to control this feature. The option is entitled “Indicate layers in use”.



Along with the ability to control whether AutoCAD now scans for the Layers that are in use when opening the Layer Manager, there has been a slight change with Layer Filters. There is a new system variable that gives you some control over how Layer Filters are affected when opening the Layer Manager. This system variable is called LAYERFILTERALERT. It has 4 potential settings and they are as follows.

Value	Description
0	Layer Filters are loaded like they were in AutoCAD 2005.
1	All Layer Filters are deleted when opening the Layer Manager and no warning message is provided.
2	A message box is displayed when the Layer Manager is being loaded and allows you to choose to delete all the filters before they are loaded into the Layer Manager which can slow it down a little bit to a lot based on the number of Layer Filters in the drawing.
3	A message box is displayed upon the opening of the drawing and gives you the chance to remove all Layer Filters at that time.

Copy
The Copy command now has an Undo command option that can be used to undo the last copied object(s).

Command: copy
Select objects: 1 found
Select objects:
Specify base point or [Displacement] <Displacement>: Specify second point or
<use first point as displacement>:
Specify second point or [Exit/Undo] <Exit>: u

Chamfer and Fillet
Both the Chamfer and Fillet commands have been updated to include a new Undo command option. The Multiple option for both commands has been altered in the command prompt. Before it was the letter "u" that activated the Multiple option and that has been changed in AutoCAD 2006 to be "M" now. This change also affected the Method command option of the Chamfer command. The letter "M" no longer can be used to run the command option Method, but rather the letter "e" must be specified.

Command: fillet
Current settings: Mode = TRIM, Radius = 0.0000
Select first object or [Undo/Polyline/Radius/Trim/Multiple]:

Command: chamfer
(TRIM mode) Current chamfer Dist1 = 0.0000, Dist2 = 0.0000
Select first line or [Undo/Polyline/Distance/Angle/Trim/mEthod/Multiple]:

Trim and Extend
The two commands Trim and Extend are opposites of each other, but they share similar command options. Both of these commands have been enhanced to include Fence and Crossing command options. The Fence selection has been supported for some time now, but the ability to use a Crossing selection is new in this release.

Unlike previous releases the Fence selection wasn't all that obvious, so I would imagine that by adding it to the prompt is to help new and existing users that might not be aware of how powerful that this selection method can be with these two commands. If you didn’t know about it, now you do. These two selection methods can help to reduce the number of individual objects that you have to pick on screen, and in turn speeding up the process.

Another change to these two commands is at the initial object selection prompt. Instead of selecting the objects that you want to use at cutting edges or boundary edges you can simply press the Enter key and AutoCAD will use an object in the drawing for this option. It doesn’t seem to degrade performance from what I can tell on the drawings that I have been testing it on either.

Another little enhancement that makes these two commands faster and more natural to use is the ability to use noun/verb selection.  You can not select the objects you want to use for the cutting or boundary edge before starting the command.  The last change that I can see is that there is an Erase command option for the Trim command. It just allows you to remove objects from the drawing without exiting the command.

Command: trim
Current settings: Projection=UCS, Edge=None
Select cutting edges ...
Select objects or <select all>:
Select object to trim or shift-select to extend or [Fence/Crossing/Project/Edge/eRase/Undo]:

Command: extend
Current settings: Projection=UCS, Edge=None
Select boundary edges ...
Select objects or <select all>:
Select object to extend or shift-select to trim or [Fence/Crossing/Project/Edge/Undo]:

Rotate and Scale
The two commands Rotate and Scale both have a new command option called Copy. This command option is available after the base point has been specified. This allows you to create a copy of the objects that you have selected to rotate or scale instead of altering the original objects.

Command: rotate
Current positive angle in UCS: ANGDIR=counterclockwise ANGBASE=0
Select objects: Specify opposite corner: 6 found
Select objects:
Specify base point:
Specify rotation angle or [Copy/Reference] <0>:

Command: scale
Select objects: Specify opposite corner: 3 found
Select objects:
Specify base point:
Specify scale factor or [Copy/Reference] <1.0000>:

Stretch
The Stretch command has been enhanced to allow for multiple crossing windows to select objects.

Find
The Find feature has found a new trick in this release. It is now possible to use wild characters in search strings. This means you can use an Asterick (*) to represent any number of characters, a Question Mark (?) to represent a single character or a Pound (#) symbol to represent a digit 0 – 9.

ImageFrame
The ImageFrame command has a new option in this release. In AutoCAD 2005 you had the option of turning the frame On or Off. When the frame was displayed it would be plotted as well, which wasn’t always a desirable side effect of this behavior. AutoCAD 2006 has the same two options that AutoCAD 2005 had, but has a new option that allows the frame to be displayed on screen and ignored when plotting.

Rectang(le)
The Rectangle command has a couple new command options to help the creation process of a rectangle. These new options are called Area and Rotation. Area is great if you are creating rooms in a building and need them to be of a specific area. Rotation allows you to specify a new angle to create the Rectangle at. So instead of creating the Rectangle and then rotating it into position, you can now rotate the Rectangle in-place during the creation process.

Command: rectang
Specify first corner point or [Chamfer/Elevation/Fillet/Thickness/Width]:
Specify other corner point or [Area/Dimensions/Rotation]: r
Specify rotation angle or [Pick points] <0>:
Specify other corner point or [Area/Dimensions/Rotation]:

Multiline Edit
The Multiline Edit command has been updated to have a much cleaner and easier to understand dialog box interface. The following two images shows what the dialog box from AutoCAD 2005 looks like and the new dialog box that is in AutoCAD 2006 proceeding it.



Multiline Style
Just like the Multiline Edit dialog box got a new face lift, so did the Multiline Style dialog box. It has been changed up to improve functionality and work flow. I am glad to see that Autodesk has been taking a look at improving Multilines a little bit in this release and hope there will be more to come in the future. The following two images shows what the dialog box from AutoCAD 2005 looks like and the new dialog box that is in AutoCAD 2006 proceeding it.



Modifying Multilines
I’m sure you’re wondering what’s next; I have already covered the new layout of the Multiline Edit dialog box and the Multiline Style dialog box. Well those crafty folks at Autodesk decided it would be a good idea to include the ability to Trim and Extend Multilines after all these years. Could it be possible after all these years and since AutoCAD R13 that Multilines are becoming more useful? Truly time will tell and maybe we will see the ability to use curves in a Multiline in the next release.

Properties Palette
There have been some changes and additions to the Properties Palette because of new objects being introduced to AutoCAD in this release. Two of the big changes is the ability to obtain the value for the Area of a Hatch object and that the properties for a Dynamic Block are exposed in a roll-up called Custom when a Dynamic Block is selected.

Ignore Z value
AutoCAD 2005 introduced an option that allowed for ignoring hatch objects when using Object Snaps. AutoCAD 2006 continues these small tweaks with an option to ignore Z values when using Object Snaps. This can be a very slick way to make the current command use the current value of the system variable ELEVATION for the Z value. The setting can be found on the Drafting tab of the Options dialog box or controlled with the system variable named OSNAPZ. This behavior only affects picked points and not typed in coordinate values.