November 2006 Archives

Previous versions of interiorCAD did not only store functional hardware assigned to a unit by ID, but also saved settings like drilling distances and diameters. This behaviour guarantees that interiorCAD documents are as portable as possible with no dependencies on external files.

This behaviour had one disadvantage: If you installed an interiorCAD update or patch to the functional hardware database, running a part layout on existing units did not show the improvements - because it was still using the old technical specifications stored with the unit.

With interiorCAD 3.5, a unit no longer stores technical specifications of functional hardware but refers to the external functional hardware database instead. If settings in the database of functional hardware change, the changes will immediately take effect when running a part layout.

If you want to force an existing unit created with pre interiorCAD 3.5 versions to use the new settings, you need to reassign the hardware first. From the unit designer's main dialog, click on the button »Fittings...« and delete the hardware in question. Then reassign it again and rerun the part layout.

In interiorCAD 3.0 a new Import Resources... menu command was introduced by extragroup. Contents can easily be added by creating a subfolder in ./Libraries/xg/ and placing a VectorWorks drawing in it.

In interiorCAD 3.5 we have introduced a second folder hierarchy. Thus libraries can be organized more conveniently. Instead of having three folders like »Handles Haefele«, »Handles Hettich« and »Handles Wuerth«, it is now possible to create one folder called »Handles« and create subfolders called »Haefele«, »Hettich« and »Wuerth«:

The folder »Handles« then will appear in a popup in the resource browser, and the leftmost list will show the subfolders:

We released interiorCAD 3.5 beta 1 today for limited public beta testing.

Anybody interested should contact us at interiorcad@extragroup.de (Note: You will need to run VW 12.5 on either MacOS or Windows to beta-test interiorCAD 3.5).

In order to have a more transparent custom NC tools configuration, interiorCAD 3.5 requires that every NC template refers to its own, unique NC tools file instead of supplying a default NC tools file - the latter causing quite some grief for both customer & support figuring out what tools file was used.

VectorWOP customers are asked to port their CAM template file as follows:

• Copy your template file from interiorCAD 3.0 to 3.5 (as found in the folder »XG Resources/NC Export/«)
  
• Open the file in a text editor. If it does not yet contain a reference to a tools file (WERKZEUGE:...), copy over the file »XG Resourcen/NC WerkzeugNr.txt« from interiorCAD 3.0 to »XG Resourcen/NC Export/Tools/MyTools.txt« of your interiorCAD 3.5 installation.
• Now referring to this tools file is simple. Just add the line WERKZEUGE:MyTools.txt at the beginning of your template file.
  
• MyTools.txt needs to be located in the folder »XG Resources/NC Export/Tools/«. Other paths are not supported.
  
• If you have any problems, please ask interiorCAD support to help you out with upgrading the template.
  

Starting with VectorWorks 12.5, it is possible to export drawings to the PDF format directly. In the menu »File« point to »Export« and choose »Export PDF...«. The default setting usually will give a high quality result.

For sending PDF files via electronic mail, it can be useful to reduce the resolution of images included in the drawing to get smaller file sizes. Leave the setting »Resolution« untouched, but set »Downsample higher resolution raster images to:« a value between 72dpi (reasonable for viewing the PDF onscreen) and 150dpi (still enough to do simple paper printouts):

interiorCAD 3.5 now creates unit plug-in objects instead of mere symbols. Users are able to edit these unit plug-in objects via the "Object Info" palette or by double-clicking the unit. Plus, unit plug-in objects can be reshaped by using the "3D Reshape" command.

Of course, existing unit symbol libraries can still be edited with interiorCAD 3.5 (and converted to plug-in objects, if needed).