Cadalyst - February 2008 - (Page 22)

cadlabsreview or vector format and to a large number of graphics formats. Batch conversion is supported, as is batch exporting and batch printing of all supported file formats, including PDF. Additionally, you can use Slick! PdfPlus as a front end to AutoCAD for opening and inserting drawings. The product displays AutoCAD block attributes and can export them to comma-delimited CCSV files that can be opened by Microsoft Excel. Slick! PdfPlus presents a simple interface that features a directory navigation tree on the left of the screen with a listing of the supported files in a window above the directory structure. A simple double-click quickly loads the file into the viewing window, where you can zoom in or out on selected parts of the drawing. The Zoom window is always active — just drag a window with your mouse and release the button to zoom in. A single click of the right mouse button zooms to extend. If you happen to have installed viewers available from SolidWorks (SLDPRT, SLDDRW, and SLDASM), MicroStation (DGN), or Spatial Technologies ACIS (SAT), you can use Slick! PdfPlus to launch these viewers from the file window. Similarly, PDF files can be quickly opened with the free Adobe Reader software. Slick! PdfPlus is priced at $99 for a single-user license and $295 for a three-user concurrent license ($75 per additional user). You can download a time-limited demo version of Slick! PdfPlus v1.1 from the CAD Systems Unlimited Web site. As a multipurpose application, ABViewer has advanced functions for dragging, zooming, and centering images and for marking up, printing, converting, and copying to the clipboard. ABViewer v6.2 Soft Gold, the parent company +7 (4872) 34 82 95 of CADSoftTools, www.cadsofttools.com is a software Price: 49€–398€ development company located in Tula, Russia, that offers CAD-related products and services. Among the products are tools for reading DXF, DWG, and HPGL (PLT) files as well as DLL libraries for a number of popular programming languages. The plug-ins for IrfanView, XNView, and Konvertor provide an inexpensive and speedy solution for viewing and managing files. For this roundup review, I’ve examined ABViewer v6.2, the latest version of the company’s CAD viewer software. ABViewer is unique in its support for 32 different languages, a trait it shares with other products from Soft Gold. ABViewer is now available in three versions: Enterprise, Professional, and Standard. The Standard version does not support editing, redlining, batch conversion or batch printing; the Professional version has no support for either batch conversion or printing; and the Enterprise version supports all functions. CADSoftTools Version 6.2 offers numerous new features and enhancements, among them support for older DWG file formats and improvements in the display of a number of entities such as Leader, LWPolyline, and Mtext. File sizes are as much as 10 times smaller when converting to PDF, and converting to DXF files is three times faster. Display speed for TIFF and other raster formats is increased, and HPGL quality is greatly improved. Support for Unicode is now available for DXF export as well. As with previous versions of ABViewer, the interface is clean and easy to understand, and you have many options about what is displayed and how it is displayed. You can, for example, toggle ABViewer between three modes — Viewer, Editor, or Redline. File support includes DWG (including 2008), DXF, PLT (HPGL), SVG, CGM, and WMF. You can export supported files to HPGL format and save as DXF. Additionally, ABViewer converts all supported files to PDF, BMP, EMF, JPEG, GIF, and TIFF formats. With ABViewer v6.2, file sizes are as much as 10 times smaller when converting to PDF, and converting to DXF files is three times faster. ABViewer has mark-up and conversion capabilities, as well as several printing options, including the ability to print large images as tiles that can be assembled into a larger print. The Editor properties of ABView allow you to create a new CAD file or edit an existing one. From the Draw submenu, you can add new entities such as text, line, polyline, arc, and others. You can save the changes as a DXF file. 22 February 2008 | cadalyst | www.cadalyst.com http://www.cadsofttools.com http://www.cadalyst.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cadalyst - February 2008

Cadalyst - February 2008 Contents Editor's Window CAD Central Tech Trends More than Meets the Eye — A Look at Today's CAD Viewers IronCAD v10 — 3D Modeling Software AcceliArch with AcceliCAD — Add-In Architectural Drawing and Modeling Software CAD Manager MCAD Modeling AEC Insight CAD Cartoon Issue Indexes Hot Tip Harry

Cadalyst - February 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.