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

Discover Bricscad, discover GeoTools-AutoCAD , GeoTools-Bricscad, CADPower-AutoCAD, CADPower-Bricscad, discover TechCenter. Brand new ways to work smarter in CAD!!