Deelip – How Does He Do It?

Deelip Menezes has taken the CAD industry by storm. He has scored some major coups. At this year’s SolidWorks World, he sat down product manager Shaun Murphy and got him to admit that SolidWorks’ backward incompatibility and inability to read/write CATIA files were “business issues.” In other words, Dassault had basically conspired... [Read more]

Fun fact: SheetSet command boasts 19 dialog boxes

AutoCAD's SheetSet command displays a deceptively simple palette. Hidden in a multitude of shortcut menus, however, are 19 dialog boxes: Subset Properties Dialog Box Publish Sheets Dialog Box Select Layout as Sheet Template Dialog Box New Sheet Dialog Box Rename & Renumber Sheet Dialog Box Rename & Renumber View Dialog Box ... [Read more]

Here’s how much of Microsoft we can expect in Linux versions of CAD

One of the issue surrounding the porting of Windows-based CAD to Linux is, How much of Windows comes along? — OLE, COM, and VBA, in particular. On the Bricscad Linux forum, Luc De Batselier answers the question, "Which APIs can you expect to be available on our first Linux release?" LISP and DCL are supported. Even though... [Read more]

Running "AutoCAD" on Google Chrome OS

Over on Gizmos Grabowski, I describe how to install Google's Linux- and browser-based Chrome OS operating system on a computer — an ASUS 701 netbook, in this case. Of course, the very next question is, "Does it run CAD?" It does, albeit it's cramped on the netbook's 7" screen. I went to http://butterfly.autodesk.com... [Read more]

ZWCAD (IntelliCAD): we can do multi-touch, too

ZWSOFT yesterday posted a video on YouTube showing its software responding to a touch screen. In it, we see: - Pan and 3D swivel (drag)- Zoom (pinch)- Drawing and copying (touch)- Shortcut menus (long touch) Even though ZWSOFT is located in China, the video seems to be made by the ZWCAD distributor in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. View it here.... [Read more]

Viewing giant drawings on iPhone with Seadragon

Informative Graphics's Net-It Enterprise 7.0 automatic document publishing software converts any size of AutoCAD, MicroStation, or SolidWorks drawing into a Microsoft Deep Zoom image. Once converted, the images can be viewed on the Seadragon iPhone app, as well as through Silverlight and Seadragon AJAX. (Net-It Enterprise automatically detects when... [Read more]

Parallels or VmWare Fusion? The Russians do Windows emmulation better (for games)

Neil Ticktin writes in MacTech of his magazine's testing of two Windows virtualizers for Macintosh computers: Parallels and VmFusion. This class of software lets Apple computers run CAD software that would otherwise be locked to the Windows operating system. (For Linux, the equivalent is known as Wine.) The testing didn't exactly involve CAD... [Read more]

Owen Wengerd explains why memory-wimpy 32-bit AutoCAD must be installed on your 64-bit 64GB fire breathing computer

In Owen Wengerd's Outside The Box blog ("Random thoughts about AutoCAD, ObjectARX, and the meaning of life"), we learn why some users are forced to install 32-bit AutoCAD on 64-bit computers: because some third-party apps are only compatible with the 32-bit version of AutoCAD — even (shock, horror!) some written by Autodesk itself,... [Read more]

Bentley vs Intergraph: still at war with each other

Bob Lowry of The Huntsville Times keeps us up to date on the legal war between Intergraph and Bentley Systems. In 2000, Intergraph sold its civil engineering software to Bentley. "The sale included $13.5 million in cash and a [promisary] note covering one year's value the maintenance contracts." It didn't take long for the former kissing... [Read more]

This week in upFront.eZine: Dances with Elephants

From this week's issue of upFront.eZine: Dances with Elephants, a Guest Editorial by Jim Quanci       - Developer of Simple Utilities        - Developer of Specialized Applications       - Developer of High Volume Applications        - Key,... [Read more]