Articles and Press Releases

During the last year IntelliCAD has been releasing new ways to customize and save user interface settings that make CAD life a whole lot easier. Here are some highlights we saw at the IntelliCAD World Conference:

• Workspaces — Quickly switch between different setups to provide different user experiences.
• New Customize dialog — Drag-and-drop your settings.
• Contextual ribbon tabs  — For versions that include a ribbon, customize the options that appear when working with certain objects, including your own custom objects.
• Toolbar docking and locking — Toolbars are still helping users maximize their drawing space and provide one-click access to commands.

Of course the user interface has always been customizable, it's just a whole lot easier now with new and better tools. During the demos, ITC members were interested to see how much easier it was to customize the user interface of their products, especially using workspaces. As with other presentations throughout the conference, it was exciting to hear people generating ideas that built from one to the next.

Another plus was hearing that when end-users tailor their own user interfaces to match how they work, it's now easier to re-load those settings during program upgrades.

And don't forget to run the new IntelliCAD on a 4K monitor. IntelliCAD looks good there and drawings do too.

IntelliCAD comes with so many APIs that it was a good idea to review them at the 2017 conference in Auckland. 

In addition to the APIs that most ITC members already know about (scripts, LISP, SDS/ADS, .NET, .NET Classic, IRX), there's also:

• DGN API 
• Architecture API 
• Civil API 
• Mechanical API 
• Facet Modeler API 
• RVT/RFA BIM API (BIM special interest group) 
• IFC BIM API (ITC BIM special interest group) 

We saw live demos of IntelliCAD sample apps to see what you can do with some of these APIs. The Architecture API has an interface that allows you to extend IntelliCAD quickly to create windows, walls, stairs, and doors without complex coding. And the Mechanical API, which will be available in IntelliCAD 9, also lets you extend IntelliCAD but to create mechanical objects while instantly providing support for viewing and printing them.

• BIM APIs were discussed here
• DGN API was discussed here

The ITC has been careful to avoid using any APIs to create custom objects so we don’t compete with our member’s vertical solutions." – At the API demo session

Coming into the IntelliCAD World Conference, it wasn’t clear what the ITC was doing with DGN and why. “Native DGN Editing” was on the schedule, but why would .dwg users want to edit .dgn files side-by-side? Intriguing idea in theory, but practically speaking aren’t most CAD folks either .dgn or .dwg users?

Now we see: take your existing code that runs and customizes IntelliCAD for .dwg files and have that same code work for .dgn files. Here is what we learned that's already working natively with .dgn files directly in IntelliCAD:

• Drawing lines, plines, circles, arcs, rectangles, text, blocks, leaders, revclouds, and more
• Zooming, grips, snapping
• Colors, layers, xrefs
• Copy, move, explode, erase, and more
• Array, offset, boundary, trim, fillet, and more

It will be only the second .dgn editor in the marketplace, but the same IntelliCAD will also work at the same time with open .dwg files. So will we eventually see more CAD users working in both .dwg and .dgn? As for ITC members, will they mix and match the top features of .dwg and .dgn to create a best-in-class blended solution? Why. Not.

It's surprising the different modules you can pick and choose from in the IntelliCAD platform to either drop into your own products or use to build your own features and programs on top of. There's core IntelliCAD of course, then there are extras like:

• Ribbon user interface
• ARTISAN Renderer
• ACIS
• C3D Labs (new)
• APIs for DGN files (new), BIM files (new), VBA

We saw live demos of several add-ons at IntelliCAD World 2017 in Auckland:

• C3D Toolkit lets you construct and edit geometric models for CAD, CAM, and CAE. You can get the whole toolkit or just the parts you need: modeler, solver, viewer, etc. Special guests from C3D Labs presented the solution. Learn more at the C3D website. 
• ARTISAN Renderer creates photorealistic renderings with just a few clicks. It has network rendering support, global illumination for ambient light, raytracing of mirrors and reflections, and HDR lighting and materials. Learn more at the ARTISAN website.
• The ribbon in the user interface is not new news to ITC members, but we got a quick demo of the new capabilities. One of the most important in the latest IntelliCAD release is creating your own contextual ribbon tabs, which can display specifically when you're working with your own custom objects.
• BIM files are a hot topic for a lot of CAD users. Here's a short write-up of what we heard earlier at the conference: BIM and dwg Start Talking.
• DGN files have been supported in IntelliCAD for years: open, save, import, export. But there's a special interest group that's working on editing them directly in IntelliCAD. More news on that coming soon.

Sprinkled throughout the days at IntelliCAD World were a few presentations about internal systems used by the ITC. The point was not to show off how things work internally — under the hood — but to show ITC members what is available for porting to their own in-house processes.

It's a perk of ITC membership. Looking to grow into a large-scale automated testing system with scripts, regression analysis, visualization tests, and tens of thousands of drawings? ITC members can just re-use theirs. How to collect crash data and feedback from users? Grab their code. What is a state machine and how can it help me develop code that isn't spaghetti code? See how they do it and get their examples. How to translate your UI to different languages? See how they use RC files and get ideas about other methods.

One of the other demos showed us where the ITC gathers all of these data points into an overall health index. The health index has visual dials that evaluates all of the testing data — you're either in the green or the red so you can easily see how the latest build is performing. This helps for day-to-day work but is even more critical leading up to a release. Dave Lorenzo, ITC President stood at the back of the room and added, “We only release if the health index is high enough.”

You can learn more at the website:

• Automated testing
• Crash reporting 

It didn't take long to get talking about BIM at IntelliCAD World here in Auckland, New Zealand. First we heard from the lead developer at the ODA about the Teigha BIM libraries. Then we heard from the head of development at the ITC about what you can do now with BIM files in IntelliCAD.

There are two Special Interest Groups at the ITC charged with developing technology for BIM files. One is for .rvt/.rfa files and the other is for .ifc files. 

We saw a live demo of attaching an .ifc BIM file as an underlay to a .dwg file. You can change the visibility of layers in the underlay, and you can even explode it among other things. Coming soon in IntelliCAD 9 is the ability to attach an .rvt/.rfa BIM file as an underlay. 

Then someone in the audience asked, "Wait. Can AutoCAD do that?" A pause. "Have dwg and Revit talk to one another?"

The answer: No. It can't do that. 

Today at IntelliCAD World we heard about the advancements in IntelliCAD for mobile devices. IntelliCAD Mobile is available for Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android with a possibility of Linux in the future. You can view .dwg, .dwt, and .dxf drawing files; .dwf files; .dae COLLADA files; ACIS files; and images (.png, .jpeg, .tiff, etc.). Also, coming soon is support for .dgn drawing files.

We saw a demo of viewing and navigating complex models and learned that an ITC member is already shipping a viewer based on IntelliCAD’s mobile platform with over 100,000 downloads. What will CAD users want to do on mobile devices besides viewing? Markup? Augmented reality?

Mobile users will decide, and IntelliCAD is positioned to provide solutions. Future plans include support for printing, voice record annotations, .rtv/.rfa BIM files, and more.

Day 2 of IntelliCAD World 2017 opened with remarks from David Lorenzo, ITC President. He explained that at its core, the ITC works for its members and does not compete with them. Ever.

Indeed it's a unique position: a competitive no-compete company.

So when CAD companies look for a CAD platform on which to base their development, IntelliCAD is competitive in the CAD platform arena. And when those same CAD companies look for a CAD partner on which to base their businesses, the ITC is the partner that can't be beat — it doesn't compete with member companies or products. So the ITC moves forward with its members, who are the people and companies who define that future.

As Dave put it towards the end of his keynote this morning, “We are very different. And that’s a good thing.”

Welcome to Auckland, New Zealand, home to IntelliCAD World 2017 and our hosts FRAMECAD. It's Day 1, and ITC and member developers met one-on-one to discuss questions, exchange ideas, and solve issues. There was a buzz coming from small groups where you could catch words like rendering, mobile, BIM, regression testing, customize, source control, and of course a lot more.

In the afternoon we traveled to the FRAMECAD offices and factory for a demo of their rapid steel framing system. Entering the building, we were greeted by an overhead photograph of New Zealand's own Edmund Hillary and inspiring words.

With IntelliCAD, ITC members are accomplishing extraordinary things. And we're about to find out more in the next two days. Stay tuned.

It's just one week away: IntelliCAD World Conference 2017 in Auckland, New Zealand, November 6-8, 2017. Designed with ITC members in mind, the conference is designed for exploring new possibilities, exchanging ideas, finding solutions to technical issues, and providing direction for future development.

What can I do with IntelliCAD? We'll be showing IntelliCAD's latest advancements in BIM technology, mobile platforms, DGN markup within IntelliCAD, IntelliCAD APIs, advanced rendering, the ribbon and other user interface advancements, and much more. 

How and why do members use IntelliCAD? ITC members will be highlighting their custom solutions built with IntelliCAD, and the ITC will be discussing internationalization, internal systems, etc. A whole day is also dedicated to one-on-one technical meetings with ITC developers. 

We'll be reporting from Auckland, so stay tuned!