CADPower / GeoTools :: Work Smarter, Not Harder!!

Learn Bricscad V12 in a day - A New e-Book from Ralph Grabowski

Bangalore, India

Ralph Grabowski, of upFront.Ezine, has released a new e-Book, titled "Learn Bricscad V12 in a Day".

It includes two chapters specific to the new features of Bricscad V12:

• 3D Direct Modeling and Editing
• 2D Dimensional and Geometric Constraints

and new categories like:

• Units: metric & imperial
• OSes: Linux & Windows

The e-Book is available as a PDF file and costs only USD 20.

Make your PayPal purchase through eBooks.onLine: www.upfrontezine.com/lb8

Note for Bricscad users in India: If you have problems making online payments and would like to buy a copy of the book, let me know and I will provide you with assistance.

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On a Sunday Morning, my Son Blogs into the The Times of India

Bangalore,India

My son, Sanjith, has been blogging as the Little Mairpady since the last two years and today his blog found a mention in the Times of India National Edition, Life Section today.

For those of you who are interested, here is the link to his blog:

http://littlemairpady.blogspot.com

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Using GeoTools with Non-Western Locales and Character Sets

Bangalore, India

We have had issues with GeoTools for Bricscad users using the the Chinese language Windows versions. Read this post to learn how to solve the problem.

If your Windows System Locale is set to use Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Hebrew, Arabic, Cyrilic or similar non-latin character sets, GeoTools for Bricscad will not function correctly unless System Locale is reset to English. Here is how you can do this.

Setting Windows System Locale:

To check and/or change your 'System Locale' to evaluate Geoida

1. Click Start -> Control Panel -> Clock, Language and Region -> Region and Language

2. Click on the Administrative tab and click the Change system locale button:



3. Change Current system locale to any of the category which says English.

 


4. Click the Restart now button to restart the computer



5. You should now be able to run GeoTools without encountering any errors.

6. When you are not using GeoTools, you can reset the System Locale to your local setting for normal use.

Credits: Some images and some text in this blog post has been borrowed from a similar support article that appeared in www.geoida.com

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Three New Additions to the GeoTools FREEWARE section

Bangalore, India

Good news for Bricscad & GeoTools users:

Three existing GeoTools commands : GT_EASY3DPOLY, GT_EASY3DFACE and GT_EASY3DPOINT from the GeoTools Draw menu will be made part of the GeoTools FREEWARE-for-Bricscad collection from V 12.19 of GeoTools, expected to release early next week.

All these three commands are enhanced forms of the 3dpoly, 3dface and the Point commands with an easy way to enter the Z value.

These three commands will also be available under the Draw menu in the new Bricscad skin that we introduced via GeoTools V 12.18.

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GeoTools V 12.18 Update

Bangalore, India

GeoTools V 12.18 for AutoCAD and Bricscad, released today is a very significant update, especially for Bricscad users. This version includes a new, optimized user-interface for Bricscad that will make working with Bricscad more easier than ever.

The new skin for Bricscad has been designed taking in account feedback from CAD users in India. Therefore, we call it an optimized-for-India skin.

The new GeoTools/CADPower-enabled skin for Bricscad:

• adds a new 'Format' menu
• enhances the look and feel of the Tools, Draw and Modify menus
• integrates all the FREEWARE commands of GeoTools in the Bricscad pull-down menu user interface
• mimics the way most drafters are used to accessing and using commands
• will evolve and grow with time
• is open to user-feedback and discussion
• is only available in English language Bricscad

You can read the details in my latest blog post:

http://rakeshrao.typepad.com/work_smarter_geotools/2011/11/a-new-skin-for-bricscad-v12.html

The new Bricscad skin is available in the GeoTools main menu under the option called Change Skin. Or you can type GT_NEWBCSKIN on the command line.

In addition, V12.18 adds a number of other fixes and enhancements:

** Enhanced command: GT_TXTSLIDE : (GeoTools -> Text Tools -> Slide text relative to its rotation angle) : A new option called 'Interactive' has been added in this command. With the interactive option, you can pick individial text objects and move them along and in a direction perpendicular to its rotation angle. The existing, old method is now called 'Automatic' and works on multiple text objects and you can slide them by proividing a fixed slide distance and rotation angle.

** Enhanced command: GT_CHCASE : (GeoTools -> Text Tools -> Change Case): The GT_CHCASE command now works on text which are contained within the dimensions also.

** Bug Fix: CH_ANNOGRID : (GeoTools -> Civil Tools -> Create Map Grid): The GT_ANNOGRID command would produce unexpected snapping of tick marks if there were pre-existing OSNAP modes. This has now been fixed.

** Upcoming command: GT_SLOPEDISPLAY : (GeoTools -> Civil Tools-> Display color-coded slopes of TIN triangles): Watch out this space for more info. Look at a preview of the work-in-progress of this command in this version.

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A New Skin for Bricscad V12 - enabled by GeoTools/CADPower

Bangalore, India

Bricscad V12 is shipping since the past 3 weeks and we have been busy demonstrating the new version to prospects, existing clients and CAD afficionados in several cities in India. And the results so far have been very encouraging. However, we see one interesting observation.

Every drafter we spoke to stressed the need to have quick and easy access to commands in logically grouped clusters. There is a unique style in which most professional drafters in India go about their CAD tasks. The main Bricscad user-interface needed to be tweaked to meet the requirements of CAD drafters to help them find their favorite tools easily and in predictable locations. So, we decided to create a new, optimized-for-India skin for Bricscad that will replace the existing pull-down menus with CADPower-enabled UI that will make it easier for you to locate your tools. You can see, feel and use this new skin in GeoTools V 12.18, which was released today. To change to a new skin, use the GT_NEWBCSKIN command in Bricscad. This command is accessible once GeoTools is installed. At any point, if you want to revert back to the original Bricscad user-interface, there is a GT_REVERTBC command as well.

The new Bricscad skin provided by GeoTools/CADPower introduces a whole bunch of new items in the menus, reorganizes others and also adds a completely new pull-down menu called Format.

Let us now take a look at the new items in the enhanced Bricscad user-interface.

The new Format menu:

The Format menu is no stranger to CAD users. It provides access to some common drawing functions like Layer, Linetype, Lineweight, Color, PointStyle, TextStyle and DimensionStyle management, all under one umbrella in one single pull-down menu. This is how CAD drafters have gotten used to managing the style of the different drawing elements, and now you can do the same in Bricscad.

Changes in the Draw Menu:

 

Draw -> Block -> Create Block / Define Attributes / Base Point

In the Draw menu, under the Block item, three new items were added in a cascading sub-menu to bring the functions of blocks and attributes under one single menu.

Draw -> Point -> Single Point / Mulitple Point / Divide / Measure

In the Draw menu, under the Point command, three new items were added in a cascading sub-menu to bring the functions of point creation, Divide and Measure commands under one single menu. 

Draw -> Helix

The GT_HELIX command from GeoTools-CADPower was added to the Draw menu.

Draw -> Circle

The Tan-Tan-Tan option of the Circle command is a new addition and the DONUT command has been moved in here from the main pull-down of the Draw menu.

Draw -> Text -> Text Orient / Change Case

Two new options have been added to the Text menu. The GT_TORIENT (Text Orient, Make Readable) and the GT_CHCASEQUICK (Change Text Case) command from GeoTools/CADPower have been provided here for convenience. This is a GeoTools-CADPower FREEWARE command.

An addition to the Modify Menu:

Modify -> Polylines -> Light-Weight-to-Heavy-Weight  / Heavy-Weight-to-Light-Weight

The GT_CONVERTPOLY  command which is used to convert Heavy-Weight-to-Light-Weight and Light-Weight-to-Heavy-Weight polylines is now part of Bricscad menu and is available under the Modify->Polylines menu. This is a GeoTools-CADPower FREEWARE command.

An addition to the Tools Menu:

 
 

The GT_FILTER command (Object Selection Filter) command from GeoTools/CADPower has been added to the Tools menu. This is a GeoTools-CADPower FREEWARE command.

An addition to the Dimensions Menu: 

Two new additions have been made here. The 'Change Dimension Precision'  is used to change the dimension precision without having to go through several dialox boxes and command options. The 'Update Dimension' command runs the Dim;Update; command so that dimensions can be updated with new style settings with a single click of the mouse.

The new Bricscad skin will evolve and grow. We hope to add/modify/reorganize items based on user-feedback directly received from existing clients and trial users. Our goal is to provide a customized user-interface that will offer the highest level of comfort and productivity while using Bricscad.

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