DoubleCAD XT, free commercial use 2D detailing app.
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Thanks William
Not to get you to expose trade secrets or anything, but for instance in Renditioner, is the Mac market share high enough to have warranted the development time you put into it?
I know now it is easy for mac users to run one of the windows enabling programs, so that is an option. We Mac types are just so "Macentric"
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Dale, we have enough Mac people here that doing it simply helps our sanity.
The Mac product has done well too (we released it first, but it took us longer to get the kinks out). Frankly I prefer rendering on the Mac because it handles bigger, more complex models better -- it uses RAM more effectively than 32-bit Windows, and the Mac Pro with 8 cores is a dream. Although the Mac market is smaller, there is also less software developed for it, so we can take a bigger share of the market. In fact, there wasn't much choice for rendering inside SketchUp on the Mac until recently when LightUp and Podium joined the party. They were welcome additions because I don't see us competing too much: I see us each expanding the size of the rendering market which is good for all of us.With this product though, there would be several orders of magnitude difference in the amount of work. We'd like to, but we need to be sure it makes sense for the business.
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Yes considering that in native operating systems AutoCad isn't available for the Mac platform, I guess it would be a little foolish to spend a great deal of time and money developing.
At work I have both PC and Mac, although most of the rest of the office works on PC's, Unfortunately, my PC is rather antiquated, and most of the comments I make about the video card contain #@** style expletives. Why I would love to have this product is the gentleman I work for works in AutoCad, and frankly is not very good at it. Since I usually end up doing his models for him, if he could have a program like you are developing, which still had the AutoCad feel to it, then our workflow path would most likely be way less time consuming. I also have the feeling I am not alone here, so you may have really found a great market niche.
I'll do some work with your program on the PC and see if it applies to us.
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Any idea when we'll receive our emails for the download instructions?
This is exactly what we've been looking for when the summer interns show up, although with the economy it may not be a issue.
No work> no interns > no software needed.
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Fossa, i got mine pretty much straight away. Might be worth checking your spam folder.
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The emails are automated, so should go in seconds.
Warning: for the first people that downloaded, the email had an incorrect activation code. All that has been corrected, but if you get an error you can use the app by pressing "Activate later" then send me a PM and I'll get you a new number.
William
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Got it. Our ISP wasn't letting it thru.
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I got the email in a couple of minutes though just downloading now as it was at work (and now I'm at home). Hopefully the activation codes will work and I wasn't among those "early ones"
Edit:
@unknownuser said:
Hopefully the activation codes will work and I wasn't among those "early ones"
Hm... It seems that I'll need to send you an email, William (again)
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Goodbye Autodesk, I'd like to say it's been fun, but in reality..........
Thanks, looks great wmanning, what we have all been waiting for!!!
Interestingly this is produced by IMSI? So what happens to Turbocad, Designcad, etc?
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I was also an early one who got a wrong activation code
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Gaieus, PeterCharles, good activation codes are in your inboxes. Thanks for jumping on this, and sorry again about the bumpy start.
Linea, thanks for the good feedback. TurboCAD and DesignCAD really get to continue on in their own way. DesignCAD is a great value 3D application for general CAD that has its own strong following. TurboCAD will actually benefit quite a bit from DoubleCAD. They both share a code base, but are designed for different audiences and purposes. A lot of the improvements we've been making in 2D will find their way into TurboCAD making it stronger and more stable, but it will have its own UI, no command line, and be a 3D general purpose CAD application.
DoubleCAD has really been designed for 2D drafting and detailing, and we feel there is a lot more we can do with that before we need to have it go head to head with TurboCAD, AutoCAD or other 3D apps. It should make a good secondary seat as a companion to SketchUp or AutoCAD. With the Pro version, a good companion to a wide variety of MCAD apps too.
It seems that a lot of the market had focused on 3D, and 2D improvements tended to be found only in expensive, more complex BIM oriented applications. So a professional 2D space seemed neglected.
William
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I've now got a good activation code thank you.
Have tried it with some standard DWG's, so far so good. -
Wow, I'm a third year student and was about to finally and unwillingly get to grips with autodesk autocad 08 - this appears to be the perfect alternative however + it's free. On first impressions I must say that the documentation provided looks fantastic and I might just be able to become a 2d drafting master sooner than I thought. The interface, though similar to autocad, is also much more user friendly and far more clutter-free. The startup styles are also a nice addition. I am carrying out a measured drawing of a difficult palladian style building at the moment and intend to wholly use Doublecad for the project now. Thank you wmanning!
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@wmanning said:
Gaieus, PeterCharles, good activation codes are in your inboxes. Thanks for jumping on this, and sorry again about the bumpy start.
Thanks William, as I wrote in the PM, it works just fine now!
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This is exactly what I've been looking for for sooooo long! Thank you for this great release. The only thing I'm missing is perpendicular snapping. But that must be because I haven't found out how to activate it yet, right???
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Hi wmanning
Like Gaius and PeterCharles, I've encounter some difficulties during the activation.I downloaded the program as far as the thread was published.
Thanks you for help (to get a working activation code)MALAISE
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Dear wmanning,
I am a long time user of Autocad and ArchiCAD, and I decided to give doublecad a go. Imagine my wonder when I saw all the tools from autocad, paired with the edit functions of archiCAD!!Yesterday I was like... OMG OMG OMG this is too good to be true.
This program is truly something, and I am going to use it a lot for my 2D drafting.
A piece of advice would be to localize it in Italian... you would have an enourmous return on investment for an Italian version: you just can't imagine how much a free (or even a pro) tool like this is needed in a lot of design firms!
Nice Job, really!
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Theres a glowing review if i've ever heard one.
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@2kemen, have you tried the perpendicular line tool? You don't even need a snap. I don't have the product in front of me now, but if you go ask on the forums.doublecad.com I'm sure somebody there could help you with specifics.
@Broomstick: grazie! Vorrei fare una versione italiano. I believe we probably will have localized versions, but it may not be for 2-3 quarters. Really glad to hear you're liking it.
The app is still far from perfect, so when you find things, let us know what we need to work on!
William
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Hi William, firstly I just want to say....
I am so stoked that there is finally a real free alternative to the "Autocrash" monopoly. I use autocad at work and have, until now, not found a viable alternative to use at home. I do however have 1 issue that I have come across.
A 6mb floor plan (.dwg) that I opened on DoubleCAD runs a fair bit slower on my machine at home compared to my machine at work. The specs are virtually identical btw. The problem is that panning and zooming is very "choppy" and not smooth as it is on ACAD. Is there any way that I can rectify this? Is it a opengl issue or/and is there and opengl display setting to tweak etc?FYI the machine specs are basically as follows:
Intel Dual Core 3ghz
2GB Ram
Nvidia Geforce 7600 256mb ram
WinXP 32bitThanks for any help you can offer.
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