On March 5 1999, IMSI unveiled the latest version of TurboCAD and TurboCAD Pro to a roomful of journalists in a full-day event at their headquarters in Novato CA. IMSI was gracious enough to invite CADinfo.NET to the lengthy presentation where we were shown the products’ new features by IMSI bigwigs that included Roopinder Tara, General Manager for IMSI’s CAD division, Ramsay Hoguet, Product Manager for TurboCAD, and Rob Berry, Senior Marketing Director. The company has adapted quickly to its new corporate headquarters and now looks the part of a slick, Northern California software company. One of the first things you notice in talking to IMSI’s employees is that it is indeed an international company, with accents so diverse you might think you were a guest at a function of the United Nations. In other words, don’t even try to guess where the person you are talking to is from. I twice mistook South African accents for Australian accents, and was told the only relationship between the two countries was a rivalry at cricket.
New Features for Standard and Professional Versions
TurboCAD, in both of its new incarnations, hosts a bundle of new productivity tools to make using the products easier and bring them in line with higher-end competitive products in the CAD market.
Compatibility with AutoCAD has been improved, but how well it will work with A2K is anybody’s guess. Any member of the OpenDWG Alliance, including IMSI, will tell you that DWG is a moving target. IMSI and the other members of the Alliance, however, are constantly in contact, sharing information to try to hit the new target as soon as it is placed. Compatibility with MicroStation’s DGN file format has also been improved. TurboCAD’s solid modeling and rendering now sport the long-awaited integration of ACIS (at this stage, version 4.3) and the addition of the Lightworks engine for adding realistic lighting to presentation models.
One of the most impressive additions to TurboCAD is the new Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) interface, which drew a few ooohs and ahhhs from the more technically inclined journalists in the crowd. This kind of customization tool is truly a necessity in this Windows-centric (like it or not) day and age. It can be addressed with any object-oriented programming language, such as C++. Though the interface’s ease of use is certainly helpful for individuals wanting to customize TurboCAD, the true benefit is the fact that the application can now be customized by professional programmers, which could lead to commercial add-on programs for specific markets of TurboCAD users—from hobbyists to professional engineers—as well as allowing them to hire programmers to come in to their office and customize the product to their specific needs. TurboCAD v6 is also Microsoft Office compatible.
Other features include a self-healing wall tool, multiline support, associative blocks, and geometric alignment aids. An integrated web browser is also touted as a chief new feature, and is intended to give users access to updated information about the product, tips and tricks, and product updates on IMSI’s TurboCAD web site. Both versions of the application allow you to use voice commands to get your work done and are a terrific addition for users who have special needs or physical handicaps.
Pros Only: TurboCAD Professional
TurboCAD Professional v6 has a few more bells and whistles than its standard-issue sibling—hence the price of $295 for TurboCAD Pro and the $99 price for standard TurboCAD. TurboCAD Pro now supports the Microsoft IntelliMouse (wheel mouse) and allows customization of the device to fit the user’s needs. Keyboard commands are also customizable, but the most interesting and probably most useful tool is that the user interface can be customized—even to mimic the interfaces of AutoCAD and MicroStation. This capability should make the product especially attractive as a capable companion to these CAD products, which appears to be another market that IMSI is now addressing (more on this later).
TurboCAD Pro also adds raster-to-vector conversion, which can be really handy for scanning legacy paper drawings and converting them to TurboCAD files (or if you have the paper version and have lost the electronic version of a file). It also contains integrated database features that take advantage of MS Office compatibility by letting you export CAD data to MS Excel or Access (to create a bill of materials for example).
Solid modeling and rendering have also been improved with tools such as automatic face selection, compound blending, rounding and filleting commands, and engineering properties. You can even interactively render in different windows simultaneously and add textures and materials to your presentations using an integrated materials editor.
Jockeying for Position
OK, we’ve checked out the laundry list of features in TurboCAD and TurboCAD Pro v6. Remember that this is a preview and not a review. Everything seemed to work just fine at the demonstration, which is no small feat if you’re familiar with the episode where Bill Gates unveiled Windows 98 (crash!). Now let me tell you what’s got me scratching my head about IMSI’s positioning of its CAD line.
First off, it’s great to say that your products do more for a lower price, but it’s difficult to get away from the public’s ingrained perception that higher priced products are more capable. This is a tough hurdle for IMSI to get over. Even as it offers competitive upgrades for those using the higher-priced CAD products, it’s hard not to see these offers as a desperate grab for market share. We’re talking about perception here, not capabilities. TurboCAD has some 300,000 installed seats. Even before reviewing this latest version, it wouldn’t have numbers like that if it couldn’t perform.
Is TurboCAD a full-fledged professional CAD product or is it a companion product to AutoCAD, MicroStation, and the rest? It seems that IMSI is saying that it is both, and that market confusion may keep the company from gaining share in a market it really could be getting into: users who are making the move from 2D drafting to 3D CAD. Also, where do potential users go to decide which IMSI product to use? Do they need TurboCAD, TurboCAD Professional, TurboCAD Solid Modeler, TurboCAD Designer, TurboCAD 3D Modeler, TotalCAD, Visual CADD, or a combination of solutions? Since the products are sold either directly by IMSI or by retail software stores, differentiating between even IMSI’s own products can be challenging at best—let alone deciding between figuring out what each of these products do versus just buying a product that is aimed at the vertical market you are involved in, such as engineering or architecture.
Hopefully, IMSI will figure out its positioning and stop being “a well-kept secret.” As IMSI’s TurboCAD web site grows, they could easily add things such as a “decision tree” that helps users pick the right product based on their needs or maybe even a table that lists all of its products’ capabilities side by side. The secret to the company’s increased success in the CAD market will be letting the users know exactly what they offer and giving those users the information they need to make decisions based on price and performance. If the company is selling directly to consumers or via retail stores, that’s the only way to compete with the higher-priced CAD products and their value-added resellers (VARs) who work directly with individuals and companies to help them make decisions. The truth will set you free. So far, the truth looks pretty good.
