Visual CADD 5

Welcome to version 5 of Visual CADD. This preview describes the new features and includes some links and screenshots to illustrate them.

The Visual CADD interface has been updated to a more modern look. And much of the 10 year old core code has been completely rewritten, so that the program is more stable and bug free, and supports Windows features such as Object Linking and Embedding (OLE).

Click on the thumbnail below to open a larger image that will give you an idea of what v5 looks like.

What's New in v5:

• The Help file has had a major rewrite of several sections, and has been ported to the HTML format, which offers an easier navigation structure.
• New toolbars. You can set and change properties of objects directly from the main toolbar. The side toolbar is now dockable on either the right or left side of the screen. You can also use the "classic" toolbars if desired.
• Set your View Type to Thumbnails in My Computer and Windows Explorer in WinME, 2000, and XP and you'll have a thumbnail view of all your Visual CADD drawings in a folder.
• Export Visual CADD drawings to several raster image formats, including .bmp, .jpg and .tiff.
• Export Visual CADD drawings to PDF (Portable Document Files) directly from within VCADD. No need for an external converter.
• Insert OLE objects such as word processing documents, spreadsheets and bitmaps directly into your Visual CADD drawings. Edit the remote document in the Visual CADD interface.
• Export Visual CADD drawings via OLE into other applications such as Word or WordPerfect.
• Zoom and Pan in a drawing with the mouse scroll wheel.
• New View & Layer Menus.
• Create Groups of objects for quick editing or copying.
• Adding text with the Text Line (TL) and Leader (LE) commands now appears onscreen in real time as you type.
• Select a text block in the drawing and start the Text Line (TL) command and you can edit the text directly onscreen in your drawing.
• Select a leader in the drawing and start the Leader (LE) command and you can edit the text directly onscreen in your drawing.
• Leaders have new vertical alignment options. See a list of all new leader features.
• Changes to text, leader and dimension settings will update in real time onscreen when using the Text Line or Leader commands as well as any of the dimension commands.
• Edit a dimension to append a line below the dimension line. Follow the link for an illustrated example as well as a list of other new dimension features.
• Hatches now have 3 new alignment settings in addition to the default. And a hatch can be "bumped" along the x and y axis to fine tune the alignment with adjacent but separate hatches.
• Draw Order commands to control the placement of objects in front of and in back of other objects.
• Spellchecker for text and leader text, with a customizable dictionary.
• Advanced Settings dialog gives you control over several new settings as well as many previously available only by editing the INI file.
• Enhanced Auto Backup feature where you now can save up to 10 sequential backups of the same drawing file, at the interval you specify.
• Improved DWG conversion for all versions up to and including AutoCAD 2002.
• Improved conversion of Generic CADD files.
• Commands to send an e-mail to our support desk and to open the TriTools website directly from within the Visual CADD environment.
• All of the sounds in Visual CADD are now editable via the Sounds section on Control Panel in Windows.
• Alias.cmd file has been renamed to Alias.def to prevent conflicts with NT based operating systems using the .cmd extension.
• New default file paths. All customizable files are now in a new Systems folder for easier access. Paths for Win2000 Pro and Win XP operating systems support multiple users on the same machine.
• Lots of bug fixes. A major goal of this development cycle was to squash many of the bugs that have survived in earlier versions. We hope that you find Version 5 to be the most stable and consistent release to date.