The product offers 400 new features including a multi-design environment (MDE), quick dimensioning, find-and-replace text and 3DOrbit.

At a demonstration of the new product here on Tuesday, Autodesk sales director for Asia Pacific Chris Bradshaw said it was a solution that would fit a one-man design shop to large corporations. AutoCAD 2000 is also the platform a family of specialised vertical products that will be launched shortly under the AutoCAD Design 2000 umbrella.

With a street price of Rs 85,000 in India, an upgrade to the new software from Autodesk's earlier product AutoCAD Release 14 (R 14) would cost registered users about Rs 12,500, according to a company official. There are presently around 15,000 registered users of various Autodesk software solutions in India.

The product has been acclaimedby the Autodesk User Group International (AUGI) as being faster while offering improved features such as the ones that provide speed, ease and consistency while plotting. Bradshaw said new users unfamiliar with CAD (computer-aided design) would find AutoCAD 2000 simple to handle with its Windows-style operation that offers almost complete functionality with the `intellimouse' without use of the keyboard.