In mid 2000 I reviewed CADopia's free version of IntelliCAD 2000
in CADinfo.NET (IntelliCAD 2000 for Free)
. This version has been replaced with a low cost ‘Standard
Edition’ (US$129 or $149 with printed manual), which is still excellent value.
There are special deals for educational and government buyers.
The ‘full’ version is now called ‘Professional Edition’
and is the subject of this review. It includes the licensed third party modules
omitted from the Standard Edition, namely, Microsoft VBA (Visual Basic for
Applications), LightWorks photorealistic rendering, and Hitachi raster Image
Enabler. Both versions retain the LISP compatibility of earlier versions, but
the addition of VBA is new for 2001 and in the pro version only. The Pro version
is, even so, not much more costly – US$199 or US$249 with printed manual
(recommended).
The new features added with the 2001 version of both Standard
and Pro are Complex Linetypes, display of ACIS 3D solids, XCLIP, Fly-over
snapping, and as mentioned above, VBA programming capability in Pro only.
Complex Linetypes follows the AutoCAD implementation of that
facility closely. You can make linetypes that include regularly-spaced shape and
text objects along with the normal line and dot marks.
ACIS Solids display – Although IntelliCAD does not
incorporate 3D solids modelling tools, this version has added enough of the ACIS
solids sub-system to allow it to display and print ACIS solids that may already
be in DWG files that were created using AutoCAD. This allows better interchange
of data with AutoCAD users. Previously any ACIS solids data in a DWG file was
not displayed at all, which could be very confusing. You cannot alter or add to
any Solids data. This is very similar to the way AutoCAD LT handles solids data
created with ‘full’ AutoCAD.
ACIS objects shown in IntelliCAD 2001 (and rendered with the Lightworks
photorealistic rendering facility).
XCLIP – Previous versions supported X-refs
(Externally-referenced drawing files) but, like AutoCAD LT, could not clip the
area to be inserted as could be done in the ‘full’ AutoCAD. Now the X-ref
clipping facility is available in IntelliCAD. X-ref XCLIP is very powerful and
useful.
Fly-over Snapping is very similar to AutoCAD 2000’s
Auto-snap. It displays a snap-mode marker symbol at a snap point whenever the
cursor is moved within range while seeking to pick a point for the end of a line
or similar. At the same time, a Tooltip ‘balloon’ can pop up to even more
explicitly declare the type of snap available there. The ‘Tracking’ features
of AutoCAD 2000 have not been added to IntelliCAD yet.
Fly-over-snapping can be toggled on or off and displays a context-sensitive
object snap mode as you move you cursor across existing geometry.
I am disappointed that a Lineweight property has not been added.
As more AutoCAD 2000 users adopt control of plotted line-widths by the
Lineweight property, this will limit the inter-workability of IntelliCAD. Any
Lineweight properties that are present in a DWG file will be preserved in the
file after saving in IntelliCAD 2001, but cannot be used in plotting from
IntelliCAD, and any new or edited objects cannot have a Lineweight property.
This will however not concern those using IntelliCAD on its own.
IntelliCAD has always had a ‘Multiple Document Environment’
– that is, you can open more than one drawing file at the same time. It has
also always had PaperSpace, and it has been implemented the same as in AutoCAD
R14. AutoCAD 2000 introduced multiple PaperSpaces, renamed ‘Layouts’.
IntelliCAD 2001 does not support multiple Layouts. If you open an AutoCAD 2000
DWG file that uses more than one Layout tab, only the first tab’s layout will
be accessible as IntelliCAD’s PaperSpace. The others will be preserved in the
file after saving. This may require you to reorganise the plotting arrangements,
such as creating additional sheet areas in the one PaperSpace. Again, this will
be of no concern to those working entirely in IntelliCAD.
The plotting arrangements in IntelliCAD 2001 are the same as in
previous versions. It has not implemented any equivalent of AutoCAD 2000’s
Plot Style Tables. Those who have never seen them will not miss them.
In summary, IntelliCAD 2001 offers a very good solution to a
very large number of CAD requirements. The differences from AutoCAD mentioned
above will be of no importance to those wanting to use it independently of
AutoCAD users. You can use DWG files created by AutoCAD users with no problems
at all as long as you don’t want to be able to return the edited files to the
AutoCAD user. Even then, in many cases all would be fine. IntelliCAD 98 and
AutoCAD R14 were almost 100% interchangeable. IntelliCAD 2001 has a few
differences that affect back-and-forth inter-workability. But as a CAD system
for use on its own, or to import AutoCAD data, or export the final result to
AutoCAD users, it is entirely satisfactory.
The built-in Lightworks rendering system is quite powerful as
can be seen from the example here. For more advanced rendering and animation,
and for versatile 3D model creation, Cadopia also sell ‘Caligari trueSpace for
IntelliCAD’, which will be the subject of a separate review in the near
future.
The obvious question a prospective buyer might ask is ‘How do
I choose between IntelliCAD 2001 Professional Edition and AutoCAD LT2000? Apart
from the fact that IntelliCAD Pro is much cheaper, there are several factor to
consider: LT has identical features to AutoCAD in Multiple PaperSpaces,
Lineweights and Plot Styles, so would be preferred if complete equivalence in
those are important. LT does not have XCLIP, Raster image support,
rendering or any Lisp or VBA programmability, whereas those features are
found in IntelliCAD 2001. Some or all of those may be vital for many users.
Neither LT nor IntelliCAD have full 3D and solid modelling facilities.
IntelliCAD has fairly good surface modelling 3D facilities. Many add-on Lisp and
ADS programs designed for AutoCAD will work in IntelliCAD, or can be made to
work. Each person will need to weigh up the above factors in making the choice,
as it depends on their particular type of work.
IntelliCAD 2001 Professional Edition is excellent value. It is a
fully featured system for any professional 2D drafting work, with much more
AutoCAD data compatibility than any other non-Autodesk product.
Columbus Data Management System
A surprise inclusion with IntelliCAD 2001 Professional Edition,
is Ove Arup’s ‘Columbus’ data management system. This is an entirely
separate application. Ove Arup are a very big and long-established firm of
consulting engineers in London. They gave up on finding the ideal data
management system for their design office and wrote their own. It has been well
proven within their network of world-wide offices, and they have released it for
general use.
They describe Columbus, which uses a roughly sketched Sextant as
its logo, as: "a combined navigator and viewer that allows you to organise
data the way you perceive it, rather than by the location on the file server. So
you can gather all the files for a project under one heading even though they
may be spread across multiple servers or disk drives around the office or
globe." The files may have to be accessed by different methods such as
normal computer direct file access, remote file servers, FTP over the internet,
and may be located on differing systems such as Windows FAT, NTFS, Unix, Novell,
or Macintosh. It can also automatically call up the appropriate software to
view, mark-up, print, or transmit any type of document – drawing, spreadsheet,
database or text, and keep track of all that is done and make archive copies of
old versions. In this context, ‘document’ includes drawing files.
The users define the logical structure of the file indexing
system, which can differ radically from its physical storage arrangement. The
display of this logical scheme in Columbus is very much like the familiar
Windows Explorer ‘Folder-tree’ and ‘File-list’ display, and its
manipulation techniques are just the same. The system can be set up with a lot
of template or ‘boiler-plate’ files that can be used for creating new items,
and there is a dialog-based system for creating new files. This can be used to
control the correct placement of new files, and the correct distribution of
amendments and prints. The system can also be arranged to automatically name
files, to avoid the haphazardness that is so often seen in file-naming.
Unlike the normal operating system file management facilities,
Columbus keeps track of changes to files and preserves previous versions to
provide archives and an audit trail. It also controls and records issuing and
transmittal of copies, and relationships between documents.
Columbus uses its own database system to store the details of
the logical arrangement of files and to map that to the physical storage
arrangement so that the system can access the actual files. Unlike some data
management systems, it does not hide the real files in any secret ‘vault’.
Vault-based systems are the most secure from unauthorised access but they make
implementation, and recovery from a system crash, major headaches.
After installing Columbus and doing some system-wide option
settings, each project is set up separately as needed, using an easy ‘wizard’
system to guide you through the steps. This is ideal for an organization that
has several projects running, and project teams working on them.
The operational user interface looks like Windows Explorer, but
has extra items below the familiar two-pane display. This lower area is a tabbed
dialog box. They call each tab display a ‘frame’. The initial ‘Properties’
frame shows a reasonably-sized preview of the highlighted file, and panes that
show the text data that can be associated with each file. The layout of the
preview and associated data varies with each file type. Hence for AutoCAD DWG
files, there are displays for details of layers and blocks in the file. Other
tabs show the document history and another shows related documents, which can be
linked if desired.
In short, Columbus provides a very good compromise between the
insufficient organization of files provided by standard system tools, and the
over complex controls provided by some of the big document management systems.
Those big systems are also extremely expensive, while Columbus is essentially
free! But that should not be taken to mean it is ineffective or too limited. It
is used on some very big projects around the world, and is a most valuable extra
with IntelliCAD 2001.
