Cadward, Remus is right in that DoubleCAD XT is free. The Pro version is $695, but in light of AutoCAD LT 2010 being released we thought we would take price out of the equation for upgraders. Through the May 23rd, 2009 (60 days) we are matching the LT 2010 upgrade price of $575, but we're making that price available to anyone.

@linea said:

...BUT when I came to save as a dwg, DoubleCAD just hung and I lost about half a days work...

Linea, this is terrible. There's a good chance that you didn't lose the work though. There are two elements. By default the system does a backup every 10 minutes, and separately, when the system has a crash in instances where we can there is also a separate autosave.

To find where your backups are located, open DoubleCAD and in the menu select Options - File Locations. Click on Backups and click on the Modify button to see the full path to the directory. Do the same for AutoSave Files. Then either use the File - Open to look for the files there, or use Windows Explorer to find any backup files. You may also want to check the folder of your primary drawing files and look for the file with *.bak extension.

You can use the Options - General to set the frequency of backups as well. The default is every 10 minutes (done in background so you may not have noticed).

-- William

Hi Frenchy,

The DXF does stay a 3D file. The best version to save may have a lot to do with how well the other application opens the DXF. So depending on where you want to open the file later either the DXF 2009 or DXF 2000 may be better. A lot of users have been using DXF 2000 to take the file into Blender for example, and many use Blender to export to other formats like .3ds, .obj, etc.

With our Pro version there are many, many other formats supported, but if you use it only to translate, then the DoubleCAD XT - DXF 2000 - Blender is a good free route to take.

-- William

Been so busy I forgot we were going to create a video or two on the workflow for this thread. Dropped the ball, sorry... I'll get on this, as the one we have on our web site doesn't go into too much depth. But you can see that one here if you like: http://downloads.imsidesign.com/Flash/DoubleCADFlash/Import-From-Sketchup-800-600/Import-From-Sketchup-800-600.htm

William

Gai, the double-cut can be done with a single dynamic component. This hole in the wall came from Scott Lininger... It isn't a "proper" window, but is designed to apply a hole in the center of the wall segment. You can scale the wall thicker, thinner, wider, taller and it always cuts properly! It's a good example for a nested dynamic component. (Rendered with IDX Renditioner.)

William

Hole2.skp

Thanks for the feedback guys. We are working on a video for SketchUp to DoubleCAD and hope to show a bit of the workflow.

With the free product just released we have a few plusses and minuses. The negatives are that when we bring in the views we didn't respect hidden line or Parallel Projection view styles, so for each viewport they need to be converted (and we'll fix this asap -- as to whether it is fixed in the Pro v1.0 release coming up I don't yet know). The positives are that we create a view and a paperspace with a view for each scene and we do respect the layer visibility by scene (as opposed to the DWG or DXF exports I bring into AutoCAD).

With the Pro version we will be adding the ability to Xref a .skp file, and we have additional features that create associative standard views, hatched sectional views, and more. What we don't have today is an integration of the two methods, so that an individual scene could be updated in SU and updated in DoubleCAD, and our Xrefs could still be made much more robust.

The Pro version is not currently a public beta. It is nearing release (for the v1.0 at least), but if you are interested in beta participation, not just evaluation, let me know and I can talk to the product manager. (wmanning @ imsidesign.com)

Now, back to the video...

-- William

Hi Solo,

In the 2D CAD world I've seen a number of requests for good sets of top views coming from landscape architects. I don't know the details of their use cases and requirements, but pretty comprehensive sets by geography, and views based on sizes at different stages of growth are two things I've heard. This way you can show the garden at 3 years, and at a fully mature 15 years or something.

It's a funny thing about content, but there always seems to be a need for more.

-- William

I love threads like this. It's good to see how people work, but more importantly it would be great to hear how you want it to work, and how best we can streamline your workflow. Things like section support, partial load Xrefs for scenes, and other items are on our radar screen already.

Thanks,
William

Dave if you can't find the email in your spam filter than it's been intercepted somewhere along the way... The email is automated, so should be sent in "nanoseconds" -- then again it is a Windows server... Let me know if you can't find it and I'll try to get it pushed to you again (or you could try again with a different email).

-- William

Dazza, that isn't a good a Saturday night at all! But I can relate. Regarding the panning I'm still waiting to hear from colleagues. Regarding plot styles, I think we're somewhat weak there, but here I have to confess my ignorance. I'm not the expert on this product that my colleagues are. I'll pass ono your question, or try forums.doublecad.com.

@ Malaise and PeterCharles, I apologize for delays. I thought I'd sent you codes but hadn't seen the message in my sent box. I saw you're up and running Peter, so Malaise, if you still didn't get anything email me at wmanning @ imsidesign.com

-- William

Dazza, glad you're stoked! It's nice to get the positive feedback after almost a year in the labs...

Your problem is a bit of a mystery to me. If both machines are similar specs, my guesses would be that one has had different updates, a different configuration, or is competing with a different set of open applications. You might want to check for a video driver update.

I'll ask some of the guys at work that know the app better than me... Mauritz, our CTO sometimes visits SCF, he might have a good suggestion.

@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

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

@nomeradona said:

william those close shots are excellent. and i cant beleive that there such type of trees with that size. huge man. what kind of trees are they? what happen to the fence? was it because of storm or what? amazing i love yur photos.

Those are Redwood trees. Fewer and fewer of them along the coast. That one is one of the biggest.

The fence is designed that way, and continues quite artistically around the corner. Not a great picture to showcase their artistry, but I always thing of SketchUp when I drive by.

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

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.

Dale, we talk about a Mac version a lot. It would be a major undertaking though, so we're not ready to commit to it yet. We need to see how the market takes to the PC products first. I should have mentioned in the post above that we are PC only at this time.

Another way in Renditioner is to simply set the image size how you would like it. Open image controls and make the render 4000 x 800 pixels, for example, and it uses those dimensions calculating from the center of the viewport.

@gaieus said:

May I also "promote" it in the Hungarian subforum?

Absolutely! We'd appreciate any word-of-mouth, posts, you name it. I'm just sorry we don't have a localized version for you -- maybe later.

@ecuadorian said:

Is this program related in any way to the IntelliCAD project?

No relation to IntelliCAD. They've been working on a clone for some time, we went a different route: a work-alike... it should feel familiar so that it's easy to use, but it is different code. It should be quite .dwg compatible, but nothing is perfect between different systems. We've had about 20+ years in the CAD world, so we had a lot of experience and a lot of code at our disposal. We've been working on this for about a year already and area really focused on making this a solid professional product line.

Let us know what you think, want, need. We'll be responsive.

-- William