Layers

Layer order determines the order that entities are drawn in.

Deleting a layer deletes all objects on that layer.

Layers are merely a property of an object.

Hatches / Fills

Albion uses a simple method of specifying object fills. The only fillable objects are Circles and Polygons, and they can either be filled with a vector hatch pattern, a bitmap pattern, or a solid color fill.

AutoCAD uses hatch objects to explicitly fill regions.

Text

Albion supports simple unformatted single or multi-line text. There is no support for the AutoCAD MText object.

AutoCAD has two text types: Simple text and complex MText.

Line Types

Albion linetypes are scaled by the line's thickness. The thicker the line, the longer the dashes become.

AutoCAD linetypes are specified in world units and do not scale with line thickness.

2D / 3D

Albion is primarily a 2D package, with emphasis placed on mapping and civil engineering scenarios. All co-ordinates however, are stored in 3D. There are 3D viewing capabilities, but there is no 3D modelling capability.

AutoCAD has comprehensive 2D and 3D facilities.

File Formats

Albion uses a proprietary file format ".abd". It can load and save DWG and DXF files, although certain elements are unsupported.

AutoCAD supports several file formats, but most notably DWG and DXF.