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

Bricscad News Recap - Tools Palette / Price Revision / India Roadshow

Bangalore, India

Here is a recap and roundup of some important events in Bricscad-sphere happening now.

Briskets new Tool Palette

Bricscad Version 12.2 which releases today comes with a new Tool Palette that allows you to add blocks, hatches and commands through a tabbed interface that can be drag/dropped into the drawing. Every-time you select a tool, you can edit its properties via the Tool Properties Dialog Box.

More info is available here.

Bricscad Price Revision:

While Bricscad has evolved with time and quite progressively, its effect on the pocket has not seen any significant change. With the release of Bricscad V12.2, and after a long time, prices will see a nominal revision - between 5-6% across Bricscad Classic, Pro and Platinum versions. In fact there is going to be a 2-step revision of approx. 6% each time, once now and again later in the year when V13 will be released.

Which means the list price of Bricsys e-Store for India now looks like this:

Bricscad Classic without subscription: INR 20580
Bricscad Classic with subscription: INR 28420

Bricscad Pro without subscription: INR 26215
Bricscad Pro with subscription: INR 34055

Bricscad Platinum without subscription: INR 34790
Bricscad Platinum with subscription: INR 42630

If you are looking for a cheap, also-ran DWG-based  CAD, there are many other alternatives. But, if you are looking for a really solid .DWG CAD platform, complete with all API's and support, and a value for money product, Bricscad is the answer.

With FREE CADPower, DocTabs, BcadTools, ExtTools and other accompaniments to super-charge your .dwg CAD, this is still the best CAD deal in the world. Ask us for more details!!!

Bricscad Demos in India

A little reminder about Process Plant/Piping Layout Design demo that will be conducted across the country by V.K.Design Techniques Pvt. Ltd. who is Bricscad's Authorized Training Center in Bangalore.
Today is Day 2 of the seminar in Chennai. The demo/seminars will also take place in Mumbai, New Delhi and Kolkatta. More info...

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MAC-Address Based and Disk-Based AppKeys of GeoTools/CADPower

Bangalore, India

Fixed-seats licensing of GeoTools/CADPower is made based on two types of computer identification methods - either a disk based appkey or MAC-address based appkeys. The appkeys are short for application keys and are nothing but a series of numbers that represent a unique code to identify your computer.

In the case of a disk-based appkey, the serial number of the primary hard disk is used while in the other case, the Media Access Control (MAC) address is used. Both methods are quite reliable and have been in use for the past many years. However, there are certain situations when either one may not work correctly.

For instance, in the case of disk-based appkeys, we noticed that computers which did not have a primary hard disk as the fixed hard disk, or those which were configured as pure virtual disk drives did not produce a valid disk-based appkey. In such a case, it is required to use MAC-address based appkeys.

Even MAC-address based appkeys can sometimes fail. This can happen under some conditions where the MAC-address is composed of only one token of address. Normally, the MAC-address returns a number containing 2 or 4 tokens of addresses, each containing 6 codes, making a total of 12 or 24 codes respectively. Depending on the network status, whether connected or not, the MAC-address varies. Our software requires a match of atleast 2 tokens for the license test to pass. We noticed that there are some instances where the MAC-address produces only 1 token. Although the software licensing mechanism can be programmed to accept the match of only 1 token, we have set it to require a match of atleast 2 tokens for the license match to succeed. This is because of security reasons. If your MAC-address produces only 1 token of address code, you cannot use MAC-address licensing and must switch to disk-based appkeys.

Here is an illustration of what a 4 token, 2 token and 1 token MAC-address appkey will look like:

• 4-token appkey: 0C:60:76:91:A1:79:00:26:B9:08:B5:B0:00:24:D6:25:48:E2:08:00:27:00:24:BD (acceptable, contains 24 address codes)
• 2-token appkey: 00:26:B9:08:B5:B0:00:24:D6:25:48:E2:08:00:27:00:24:BD (acceptable, contains 12 address codes) 

• Single token appkkey: 00:0C:29:D1:3C:56  (not acceptable, contains 6 address codes)

We cannot predict what kind of MAC-address code your computer may produce. This post helps you identify what to interpret out of the appkeys your computer has produced when your run the CP_APPKEY or GT_APPKEY command in CADPower and GeoTools.

In fact, the appkey dialog box (shown above) shows both disk-based and MAC-address based appkeys. You can send both to us and we can decide which of it to use for a successful licensing of our software on your computer.

I hope this post will enlighten our GeoTools/CADPower users about some licensing mechanisms, their strengths and limitations. As you can see, along with the floating network license, we have vastly improved the licensing technologies used in GeoTools and CADpower now.

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GeoTools/CADPower now supports Floating Licenses

Bangalore, India

One of the new features in the V 12.21+ release of GeoTools and CADPower is the support for a floating license which is served over the network.

How does the floating license work?

This post explains how it all works.

Until now, the regular licensing mechanism was based either of computer-based appkeys or the CAD serial numbers. This method ties the license to the computer or the copy of AutoCAD that is running.

In a floating license mechanism, the license file is placed in a pre-specified location on the network which must be a folder which is visible (with read, write, create and delete permissions) to all GeoTools/CADPower users on the network. The master license file stores encrypted information about the number of users that can use the software simultaneously. It also stores the location on the network where the file must be placed. These two pieces of information are encrypted and pre-stored in the file by us.

 For example, on my computer, I have the master license file located in my F drive at this folder:

f:/projects/licenses/floating

All users in our office read up the license from this folder. My computer name is RAKESHRAO-LAPTO. Therefore, the network path and address which will be identified by GeoTools/CADPower users from every computer will be:

//RAKESHRAO-LAPTO/F/PROJECTS/LICENSES/FLOATING

You must use a similar syntax shown above to specify to us your floating license master file location.

In some networks, the network administrator may map a specific location with a drive name. For example, I could also map my F drive as a special letter drive (say N: drive) in which case, the network mapping would mean:

N drive = //RAKESHRAO-LAPTO/F

If you have done such drive mapping, you can then specify the network license path as:

N:/Projects/Licenses/Floating

But, as you would rightly have guessed, the N drive must be mapped thus in all the individual computers.

What information do you need to give us?

Our floating license is based on a very simple mechanism which is entirely Lisp-based. Once you decide you want to use a floating license of GeoTools/CADPower, simply tell us the exact location of the folder on your network where you will store your master license file. We will create a license file for you with the folder name and the number of users written into the license file.

You copy the license file to the specified folder, and, additionally, also keep a copy of the same file on your local computer in the folder where you have installed GeoTools/CADPower.

The license check-in / check-out

When GeoTools/CADPower starts, it reads your local license file first, determines the location of the master license file and reads it. The number of allowed simultaneous use of GeoTools/CADPower is now known and this is kept track of internally in a license transaction file. Each time, a user logs in to use GeoTools/CADPower, a new license is issued (check-in) from the available licenses. When they log out of GeoTools/CADPower, the license is returned (check-out) and can be used by another user.

What happens during a crash of your CAD software?

When AutoCAD or Bricsad crashes, the license is not returned and will still be reported as "in-use" by the crashed computer. Such licenses can be returned or reset by simply starting GeoTools/CADPower again on that computer and exiting. As long as there is a normal exit of your CAD software at any time, the license will always correctly check in and out.

How is a user determined?

The floating license mechanism uses the computer name as the key to determine that a new user is requesting a license. Therefore, you cannot have two computers on your network with the same name. It will cause a conflict. Even Windows networking does not work correctly if there are two computers sharing the same name on the network.

How do I know what kind of licensing I have?

You can go to the More Options sub-menu in your GeoTools/CADPower menu and click on License Info.

 

This is how the license information screen looks like (see above).

Network license pricing

We have not yet announced a network license pricing, but we intend to do that in the future soon, and the cost of a network license of GeoTools/CADPower will be more than a regular stand-alone license. As of now, the network license costs the same as the regular stand-alone licenses.

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How to Use GeoTools and CADPower on The Same Computer - For AutoCAD

Bangalore, India

In my last post, I explained the procedure to be followed to ensure that GeoTools and CADPower run side by side on the same computer on Bricscad. In this post, I will explain how it is to be done in AutoCAD. The procedure is almost similar, only a few file names change.

First, install GeoTools for AutoCAD and CADPower for AutoCAD in the usual way into their own respective folders. At the end of the installation, you see a dialog box that pops up and asks you to do a small configuration step.

Follow the instructions and do as it says.

You will need to add both the CADPower folder as well as GeoTools folder in the Support file search path under the Options command -> Files section. Earlier, you were advised to move the folder to the top of the list. You must still do that and you will end up with GeoTools and CADPower folders as the top/first two folders in the list. Now, comes the catch. The starter file which fires CADPower or GeoTools is called acad.lsp and resides in the respective folder of each software.

For example, the acad.lsp file for CADPower looks like this:

;; | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
;; | ACAD.LSP
;; | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
;; | Function : Sample startup file for CADPower
;; | Argument : None
;; | Return   : None
;; | Updated  : December 28, 2011
;; | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

(load "CP_Load")

;; | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
;; | Remove the comment from the line below if you want CADPower to load
;; | automatically upon startup in CAD.
;; | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

(CP_Load_EN)

 And the acad.lsp file for GeoTools looks like this:

;; | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
;; | ACAD.LSP
;; | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
;; | Function : Sample startup file for GeoTools
;; | Argument : None
;; | Return   : None
;; | Updated  : June 11, 1999
;; | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

(load "GT_Load")

;; | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
;; | Remove the comment from the line below if you want GeoTools to load
;; | automatically upon startup in AutoCAD.
;; | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

(GT_Load_EN)

To give you a little background, these statements are just function calls to load the GeoTools or CADPower executable which is a .VLX file. These functiona reside in a file called GT_LOAD.LSP (for GeoTools) and CP_Load.LSP (for CADPower).

Now, the problem is that your AutoCAD can see only one acad.lsp per session and load it. Obviously, it "sees" and "reads" only the first acad.lsp file from the list, which is the top/first item in the folders list. And that could be the acad.lsp from the CADPower folder or the GeoTools folder, depending on which is at the top of the list. So, the second acad.lsp in the list never gets loaded and therefore only one of either CADPower or GeoTools is loaded.

The solution is very simple - simply copy the contents of both the files into one single acad.lsp file and that file must reside in the folder which is mentioned first on the list.

In other words, your new acad.lsp must look something like this:

;; | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
;; | ACAD.LSP
;; | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
;; | Function : Sample startup file for CADPower
;; | Argument : None
;; | Return   : None
;; | Updated  : December 28, 2011
;; | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

(load "CP_Load")

;; | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
;; | Remove the comment from the line below if you want CADPower to load
;; | automatically upon startup in CAD.
;; | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

(CP_Load_EN)

;; | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
;; | ACAD.LSP
;; | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
;; | Function : Sample startup file for GeoTools
;; | Argument : None
;; | Return   : None
;; | Updated  : June 11, 1999
;; | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

(load "GT_Load")

;; | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
;; | Remove the comment from the line below if you want GeoTools to load
;; | automatically upon startup in AutoCAD.
;; | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

(GT_Load_EN)

This ensures that both the software get loaded and can be used alongside each other.

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How to use GeoTools and CADPower Together on The Same Computer - For Bricscad

Bangalore, India

With the old GeoTools splitting and giving birth to the new GeoTools and CADPower, there is one question that every one is asking - How to use GeoTools and CADPower on the same computer together?

In this post, we will explain how to do it in Bricscad.

First, install GeoTools for Bricscad and CADPower for Bricscad in the usual way into their own respective folders. At the end of the installation, you see a dialog box that pops up and asks you to do a small configuration step.

 Follow the instructions and do as it says. If you want to know more about this step, you can also read one of my old blog posts titled How to Configure GeoTools For Bricscad?. Although it is an old post explaining about GeoTools, the process is exactly similar and valid for CADPower also.

You will need to add both the CADPower folder as well as GeoTools folder in the Support file search path under the Settings command -> Files section. Earlier, you were advised to move the folder to the top of the list. You must still do that and you will end up with GeoTools and CADPower folders as the top/first two folders in the list. Now, comes the catch. The starter file which fires CADPower or GeoTools is called on_doc_load.lsp and resides in the respective folder of each software.

For example, the on_doc_load.lsp file for CADPower looks like this:

(setvar "FILEDIA" 0)
(load "CADPower_EN_BC.des")

And the on_doc_load.lsp file for GeoTools looks like this:

(setvar "FILEDIA" 0)
(load "GeoTools_EN_BC.des")

To give you a little background, these statements are just a call to load the GeoTools or CADPower executable which is a .DES file as you can see.

Now, the problem is that your Bricscad can see only one on_doc_load.lsp per session and load it. Obviously, it "sees" and "reads" only the first on_doc_load.lsp file from the list, which is the top/first item in the folders list. And that could be the on_doc_load.lsp from the CADPower folder or the GeoTools folder, depending on which is at the top of the list. So, the second in the list on_doc_load.lsp never gets loaded and therefore only one of either CADPower or GeoTools is loaded.

The solution is very simple - simply copy the contents of both the files into one single on_doc_load.lsp and that file must reside in the folder which is mentioned first on the list.

In other words, your new on_doc_load.lsp must look something like this:

(setvar "FILEDIA" 0)
(load "GeoTools_EN_BC.des")

(setvar "FILEDIA" 0)
(load "CADPower_EN_BC.des")

This ensures that both the software get loaded and can be used alongside each other.

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CAD Products Split - New CADPower and New GeoTools Released

Bangalore, India

 

               

Four Dimension Technologies and Coordinate Systems are pleased to announce the release of CADPower - our new general purpose productivity tool for AutoCAD and Bricscad.

Today, we also re-launch GeoTools in its new avatar, containing tools which are required only for the geographic, mapping and civil/survey CAD users.

The latest builds of these software have been given version number 12.21, which is the next update after 12.20, which was the last released version of unsplit GeoTools.

The purpose of this split and the re-branding exercise has been to make the two products address their target markets in a clear manner without causing confusion.

During this process, we are also re-designing our web-sites to make it simpler and easier to use and navigate.

It has taken us this long to get all the ducks in a row and ensure that the products are stable enough for a release.

There may be still be some areas in the product code-base and on our web-site/documentation that needs polishing. We will be working on this tirelessly to ensure that you have a pleasant experience using these products. Your feedback and constructive criticism are most welcome, as always.

For those of you who are reading about our products for the first time, here is the background info.

GeoTools has been in existence since 1999 and contained over 275+ tools for general CAD productivity and many specifically for geographic CAD data users. It ran on both AutoCAD and Bricscad platforms, and enjoyed a user-base of over 1000+ distinct customers in about 35 countries. Now, we have split the tool collection into a pure-GeoTools software and the rest into CADPower - for the general CAD users.

Here is a quick summary of some important points to note about the two products:

• GeoTools contains mainly only those CAD tools that typically surveyors, mapping professionals, GIS-CAD data users and other geo-data users would find useful. For instance, you will not find tools to do CAD file management, multiple DWG formats, batch processing and so on.
• Pure CAD productivity tools that are of interest to ALL CAD users have been shifted to CADPower. For instance, you will not find Civil, AutoCAD Map and Drawing Cleanup tools in CADPower.
• There are some common tools which are available and repeated in both GeoTools and CADPpower.
• All GeoTools commands will be prefixed with GT_ and all CADPower commands will be prefixed with CP_
• Many GeoTools users may find CADPower also very useful, because general CAD management tools are required for everyone. In such cases, you are advised to purchase both GeoTools and CADPower.

What's new in GeoTools and CADPower?

• Support for network/floating licensing in case of a multi-user license environment, in addition to the existing methods (long standing user request).
• Long pull-down menus have been further classified and bunched into sub-categories. This will make it easier for you to locate your favorite commands and remember their locations as well. In short, we have taken one big step to remove the clutter of commands that hits the eye, especially when you are dealing with Polyline, Blocks, AutoCAD Map and Miscellaneous Tools (again a long standing user request).
• Support for online license verification through internet (makes license management easier).
• We hope that the single biggest feature of these software is that it is going to be easier to use than before.
• Full support for MAC-address based appkeys. The MAC-address based appkeys have been now tested thoroughly under various network conditions and is more reliable than ever. Although disk-based appkeys are still available, users are encouraged to provide us with MAC-address based appkeys.


Pricing Structure:

• A single user license of GeoTools will now be USD 129.
• A single user license of CADPower will now be USD 109.
• If you require both CADPower and GeoTools, a combo price of USD 219 is possible.
• These are promotion prices, and expected to be in place atleast until May 2012, when the next release, V13 will be out.
• Bricscad users in India will now get a license of CADPower free with every purchase of Bricscad from us. GeoTools will no longer be available free for Bricscad purchases in India (except if provided by special arrangement).

What are your advantage now?

• With the 275+ tools split up into two products, each with is own focus, you now can expect better value for your money depending on what exactly you want.
• You now have to choose to purchase either GeoTools or CADPower or both because you now know what exactly you will get in either of them.
• For the general CAD user, CADPower offers better brand recall and understanding of what it provides, rather than a GeoTools which seems to suggest only geo-related tools.

Supported platforms and versions:

• GeoTools 12.21 / CADPower 12.21 and later will be supported on AutoCAD versions 2007 onwards until 2012. Support for AutoCAD 2004, 2005 and 2006 has been dropped.
• Under Bricscad, GeoTools/CADPower 12.21 and later will be supported on Bricscad V 12.1.15.1 and later only. The software may not work correctly on earlier builds of Bricscad v12 because of some new floating licensing API functions that have been specifically created for GeoTools/CADPower and available only in 12.1.15.1.

Licensing for new users:

• GeoTools and CADPower generate the same appkey for the computer where it is used but the license file for each of these will be different. The file naming convention is same like before - GeoToolsUser12_EN_AC.rgs is the name of the license file for GeoTools V12, English version for AutoCAD. CADPowerUser12_EN_AC.rgs is the name of the license file for CADPowers V12, English version for AutoCAD.

Licensing for existing users:

• Existing users of GeoTools V12 will receive a free license of CADPower V12 for the same appkey to which the GeoTools license is issued. If we have not yet been able to reach you by email/phone, please drop us an email and request your CADPower V12 license.
• Existing users of GeoTools v12 can continue to use their existing GeoTools V12 license file with no change.
• Existing users of GeoTools v12 can continue to use the old unsplit GeoTools product if they like but there will be no further updates to that product.
• All new commands, enhancements and bug fixes will now appear on the new product only.

What to expect in the future?

• We have lots of ideas and plans for the future. The first and foremost immediate task is to ensure that the two products run smoothly and deliver on their promise.
• Next, we will start adding new features to these products, some of which we already did in this build or is work-in-progress.
• In particular, we plan to add many new features in CADPower for general CAD productivity for the Bricscad user, with a goal to make Bricscad an even more attractive platform to use.
• We will also strive to fully support all the new object types in AutoCAD like dynamic blocks, sheet sets etc and make our products comfortable with these data types.
• We will continue to provide tools for the CAD user to work smarter and not harder in the chosen CAD environment - AutoCAD or Bricscad.

Foreign language versions of CADPower and GeoTools

• The software is available in all three operating languages - English, Spanish and German.
• While English and Spanish have been fully translated and complete, the German version still has some areas of user-interface in English. This will be fixed shortly.


Lastly:

We have a lot more to tell and show you about these products. All of it is not possible in this post. Stay tuned for more info and activity on our blog and through the newsletter.

Disclaimer:

GeoTools and CADPower are released-products but the commands available in each software are subject to small changes. In other words, we have bunched about 150 commands each in these products based on a preliminary sort and we may shuffle a few of them across the two products in the coming weekes/months, based on user feedback or design change. The number, order and occurence of commands within CADPower and GeoTools may change without prior notice. We expect the contents of the two software to stabilize in a few weeks/months.

Direct download URLs:

GeoTools for AutoCAD:

 ** English: http://www.4d-technologies.com/geotools/download/geotools_en.exe
 ** German: http://www.4d-technologies.com/de/geotools/download/geotools_de.exe
 ** Spanish: http://www.4d-technologies.com/es/geotools/download/geotools_es.exe

CADPower for AutoCAD:

 ** English: http://www.4d-technologies.com/cadpower/download/cadpower_en.exe
 ** German: http://www.4d-technologies.com/de/cadpower/download/cadpower_de.exe
 ** Spanish: http://www.4d-technologies.com/es/cadpower/download/cadpower_es.exe

GeoTools for Bricscad:

 ** English: http://www.coordsys.com/geotools/download/geotools_bricscad_en.exe
 ** German: http://www.coordsys.com/geotools/download/geotools_bricscad_de.exe
 ** Spanish: http://www.coordsys.com/geotools/download/geotools_bricscad_es.exe

CADPower for Bricscad:

 ** English: http://www.coordsys.com/cadpower/download/cadpower_bricscad_en.exe
 ** German: http://www.coordsys.com/cadpower/download/cadpower_bricscad_de.exe
 ** Spanish: http://www.coordsys.com/cadpower/download/cadpower_bricscad_es.exe

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GeoTools/CADPower for AutoCAD and Bricscad are DIFFERENT

Bangalore, India

As the title of this post indicates, GeoTools for Bricscad and GeoTools for AutoCAD are two different softwares from two different CAD companies, Four Dimension Technologies and Coordinate Systems respectively. The same is going to be true even for CADPower, when it will be lauched and released next month.

The purpose of writing this post is to clarify, explain and reiterate this point again.

GeoTools is available on both AutoCAD and Bricscad, but the executable files, support files and the download installer are completely independent of each other and separately downloaded and installed.

This is obvious to most users, even then, we are innundated with support emails and calls as to why GeoTools is not loaded in either AutoCAD or Bricscad. The reason is that you may have installed it for the wrong platform.

The next time you find GeoTools not working - please check if you have installed it for the correct platform.

GeoTools for AutoCAD is downloaded from www.4d-technologies.com and GeoTools for Bricscad from www.coordsys.com only. The other clue is to look in your c:/Program Files/ folder. If you have not changed the default folder location, your GeoTools for AutoCAD would be installed in "C:\Program Files\Four Dimension Technologies\GeoTools12_EN" and your GeoTools for Bricscad would be installed in "C:\Program files\CoordinateSystems\GeoTools12_Bricscad_EN".

If you do have it installed correctly, and still do not see the GeoTools menus, you will probably need to run through the GeoTools configuration process once again. We have written a couple of articles to show you how to configure and use GeoTools with various flavors of AutoCAD. See links below:

Using GeoTools with AutoCAD 2012

Configuring GeoTools on 64-bit OS

GeoTools Menu visibility in AutoCAD 2010

If you are a Bricscad user, you may want to read the article below to know more about the configuration process.

How to Configure GeoTools For Bricscad?

Let us know if this helped you. 

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Bricscad-GeoTools e-Newsletters - Who, Why and How You Receive it

Bangalore, India

A small note about who, why and how you receive Bricscad-GeoTools e-Newsletter email from us.

When we receive an enquiry from users who have downloaded Bricscad from our site, we get back to them via email directly. We believe that you would like to be informed about all that happens in the Bricscad space subsequent to your first download. To ensure that, we add your name to the Bricscad-GeoTools mailing list.

Many of our earlier subscirbers are on the "geotools-bricscad" google newsgroup. This is a moderated newsgroup where you will receive messages from us or from users only after verifying that it is relevant to the subject and purpose of the newsgroup. In recent months, Google changed newsgroup settings and now you can join the newsgroup only via an invitation, email-verification and acceptance procedure. This option and procedure is still available from us but we have observed that most of the download users seldom manage to complete this process successfully and do not end up joining the newsgroup. As a result, they miss the subsequent announcements, updates and other valuable support information that is useful to any serious user. This was clearly evident in the lack of knowledge about Bricscad and GeoTools updates when we talked to trial users as well as existing clients at different times. To overcome this problem, we shifted to the mailing list. This is emailed manually to each one of you.

If you are on google newsgroup, you can un-subscribe at any time by visiting the group. If you are on the mailing list and want to stop receiving these newsletters, just send me an email saying so and I will remove your name.

I hope this clarifies the mechanism by which our newsletters are delivered.

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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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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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