Alright, we are back at th Square conference center in Brussels, Belgium, and today is day of announcements, according to the schedule.
First up, a demo of 2D constraints in Bricscad V12 Classic, the low-cost version of Bricscad. The demo is the same one I have seen before from LEDAS, since they provided the code (rather than D-Cubed). Draw a sloppy L-shape bracket, and then use geometric and dimensional constraints to straighten it out. This is also done by AutoCAD -- oops, "The Standard."
Next up, a demo of the new direct modeling operations in Bricscad V12 Pro. The demo jock is showing push pull on faces of solid cubes, as well as interactive fillets and chamfers. AutoCAD also has this.
New to the UI is the Quad Cursor, which appears any time you move the cursor over an object, 3D or 2D. It has five parts: the center is the current or most-recent command. Three others are likely operations for the selected object. The one at the bottom presents a context menu of additional options. See figure. You can toggle the quad cursor at the status bar.
New quad cursor in V12 performs direct modeling of 2D and 3D objects.
For exact modeling, dynamic dimensions are available to enter lengths and angles from the keyboard.
Now on to Bricscad V12 Platinum, which features 3D constraints. AutoCAD doe not have these. For example, keep radii equal applies in 3D to cylinders. Use the Constraint Bar to edit parametric values. Parametric palette keeps track of constraints.
Can apply constraints automatically. If you have been following LEDAS, none of this is new. What is new is the capabilities in a .dwg-compatible CAD package that costs about as much as LT.
Applying 3D constraints to a 3D solid model; to the right is the Parametrics palette.
Now getting a demo of design intent recognition. This is where Bricscad Platinum fixes up a model, by making nearly perpendicular faces perpendicular, make corners right-angles, straighten out holes, make holes coaxial. (Yah, so pretty much Solid Edge for $1000 bucks, so so -- just kidding, Karsten!)
They are now importing a STEP file to show how Bricscad can fix up imported 3D models. See figure.
Now we are seeing how a model with disassociated parts can be assembled into one model. So, assemblies now in Bricscad.
GfxSpeakRSN (Randall Newton) tweets "Seems to me Bricsys now offering FRESH 3D technology, unencumbered of a parametric past. Leapfrog principle."
GfxSpeakRSN: "Imagine 'emerging economy' team starting a mfg co. Why invest in ADSK/PTC/DS when you could do BricsCAD V12 for $Ks less?"
Bricsys Announces It Becomes a New Company
CEO Erik de Keyer: "We think this will make us a new company. It is new start for us. For the first ten years we used the .dwg environment to get our feet on the ground and get an installed base. We was never our goal to be a follower. Our team is so talented it would be a pity to stay followers. Today we take that leap."
The CTO adds, "This is just version one point zero."
They see Bricsys extending this technology to work in AEC and civil design, as well. "I think we can influence substantially vertical markets. We are providers of technology for partners, Bricsys is very useful out of the box.
"But APIs are now made more and more available. There is an API for the new quad cursor. We are strongly convinced that the user interface is the next thing for us. Look what happened with iPads; these things are changing the perception of software. Even though .dwg has a history of 20 or 30 years, we have to make things happen around the cursor. Interaction has to be instantaneous, and we want to lead."
What's New Since Bricscad V11
During the lifetime of a release, Bricsys keeps adding features. During V11, they updated 3D navigation, grids with adaptive density X-Solids history-based modeling and parametic library of parts (in Platinum), tables, fields extended to all entity properties and in attributes, export to SVG, convert splines to plines, and break splines, flatshot, and solprof.
Bricscad is also getting multi-threading, so we are seeing an enourmous 3D model of tubes, and the direct modeling is applied to one tube.
What's New in Bricscad V12
The quad cursor will be extended to all entities. Plus constraints features demo'ed above. Section planes. Tool palettes compatible with the "standard" application. (Notes this was a tough job, since the tools palette also had to work on Linux.)
/T startup switch to specify the default template when starting the program. 2DContext and 3DContext for switching contexts between 2D drafting and 3D modeling. Reorganized menus so that they are not so long.
Under the hood, using ODA's Teigha 3.5, which incorporates hundreds of fixes in the underlaying .dwg engine. Bricsys gave ODA 1,800 improvements and fixes. Adds multi-threading, 2 or 4 cores, but this does not scale linearly due to the amount of overhead. Bricsys handles the vectorization (display) part while ODA does the file access. This means can display drawing while accessing the .dwg file.
Also new: visual styles (plus two new ones: modeling and high quality); page setups; rendered display modes better at emphasizing faces and edges; new SectionPlane for defining section styles in plane, boundary, or volume states; also live sections; demo jock says live sections are faster in Bricscad than in the Standard program. Section plane to block.
New PDF engine replaces the expensive Adobe library; new one from VisualIntegrity, is faster, and comes with support! Snaps to geometry faster, along with faster redraw and regen; more improvements to come. Redaws of complex PDFs is now 20x faster.
The Settings dialog box is massively expanded to handle the settings of many of these new features.
Most requested feature was trimming of hatches, so this is now in V12. Allows custom hatch patterns, as well as hatch to back/front; in addition to sysvars, Bricsys has Preference variables, which are now available as commands; qtext; psltscale now can be applied to all viewports; polyline has the multiple option; Ctrl+R switches viewports; Ctrl+Left to select; ADT object enabler; ins units for measure and block.
New raster image engine is called Imagine. Works with Linux. Uses multi-resolution tech from Vondle; hndles very large raster images; can adjust raster images; reduced memory. Zooms and pans are now instant, instead of taking a second each time. Speed up is due to memory caching and monolithic memory copy.
Future Features in V12 To Come
In upcoming releases, expect multilines and styles, dialog for array, import wmf, zero extenion lines, better layouts, layer filters, improved drawing explorer with drag and drop, plot to file, improved pdf export, sheet sets, and Publish command.
Might not call the next release "V13".
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