IMSI Targets AutoCAD With Release of TurboCAD Version Seven
January 4 – IMSI, owner of TurboCAD.com, ArtToday.com, Design.NET and developer of visual content, design, and graphics software, announced a major upgrade of their flagship product, TurboCAD.
With more than 75 improvements and new features, TurboCAD v7 is the single largest upgrade to the software in its history and brings TurboCAD to the forefront of integrated 2D and 3D desktop CAD. The new TurboCAD v7 is completely customizable and Microsoft Office compatible.
With more than a million copies of the TurboCAD product line sold to date, IMSI expects this upgrade to delight existing users and increase its market share among new users in the mechanical, architectural and design communities.
TurboCAD v7 and TurboCAD v7 Professional's comprehensive feature list rivals AutoCAD 2000 and surpasses AutoCAD 2000LT in depth and power.
TurboCAD v7 Professional's 3D Modeling and Rendering engine incorporates Spatial Technology's ACIS 5.3 solid modeling kernel. The new Shelling tool will allow the creation of shells to the inside or outside of ACIS based 3D models, while the sophisticated new Lofting tool allows multiple profiles to create complex 3D objects using NURBS.
Both TurboCAD v7 and TurboCAD v7 Professional deliver additional rendering improvements including Hidden Line Rendering in Perspective (HLRP). This rendering capability can clip objects behind the camera and light objects with properties such as ambient, point, directional and spot light that can be part of groups or blocks of light objects requiring changes in one quick step.
TurboCAD v7 provides users LightWorks photo-realistic technology for superb visualization of 3D objects and includes support for acceleration cards.
New dimensioning features include dual units in one dimension, geometric tolerancing and surface roughness options from pull-down menus, multiple dimension units on one drawing and user-defined text strings.
Additional enhancements include support for Multiple Paper Space, allowing for multiple independent pages per drawing, Regions for creating "island'' profiles, Floating and Shaped Viewports with shape changes and editing on-the-fly, and a host of new Snap tools, Drawing Construction tools, and single-click Property Palettes.
Another new development in TurboCAD v7 is the new FloorPlan Bridge which allows users to create a house or other complex floor plan in FloorPlan3D, then import it directly into TurboCAD and automatically create dimensioned plan and elevation views with hidden lines, door and window schedules, roofs, foundations and more.
TurboCAD v7 continues to integrate Web browsing technology, linking users to dynamic content via the Internet. TurboCAD users are very active in their participation in the TurboCAD user group on the TurboCAD.com Web site.
In addition, TurboCAD v7 allows users to access millions of drawings available on the Internet, create symbol libraries, and share drawings with other CAD products by utilizing the new AutoCAD 2000i DWG/DXF File Sharing feature using the OpenDWG Alliance toolkit.
IMSI is one of the founding members of the OpenDWG Alliance, an alliance of vendors and users committed to the promotion of the DWG drawing file format as an open industry standard for the exchange of CAD drawings.
As with previous versions, TurboCADv7 Professional's programming and development tools include a comprehensive Software Development Kit (SDK) and full support for Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).
The company is drawing on its graphics software development experience and technology gained over the last 15 years while developing the company's award-winning TurboCAD and FloorPlan3D home design software.
I was recently given a demonstration by Rob Berry, director of CAD development at IMSI. As an experienced AutoCAD user, I was very impressed with the new product's comprehensive feature set. Unlike many CAD products, TurboCAD v7 embraces many of AutoCAD's better qualities, and even appears to offer some substantial improvements.
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