The Unofficial Bricscad V14 Wishlist

Jason Bourhill

Hi All,

looking at preparing an Unofficial BricsCAD Wishlist in the lead up to the Bricsys conference next month, and the expected release of V14. Anyone got some ideas of things they would like to vote on? If so post back here,  and I'll aim to get something up for next week.

My main wish actually would be an improvement to this Forums interface.

Regards,

Jason Bourhill

CAD Concepts

Avi Miller

 Hi there are a Number of things I would like to have on the Wishlist.

1)In the Help files have video Tutorials.

   a)Have the tutorials give an introduction to BricsCad-A crashcourse if you will.
   b)An explanation in BricsCad how to use the program, to Plan Roads, Earth-works, Machine-parts, and machine design, Design Buildings, plan cities.
       Things that our Customers use BricsCad to do.
   c) A link in BricsCad help to Bricsys Tutorials on the website.
   d)A link in BricsCad help to their local Technical Support Representative if they have a problem, as well as BricsCad support Forums.
   e)  The ability to change the World Coordinate Systems to a number of Differnt Coordinate Systems including UTM,WGS84, or the local coordinate systems used            in the host country-I have had customers ask for this.
   f)The ability to change North, rather than have it always be 90 Degrees, The ability to define North for themselves, I have had a customer ask for this.
   g) Include in the program possibly in Help, an ability for the customer to directly message a representative of the programs Improvments they wish to see in it.


Sincerly,
Shmuel Rose,
BricsCad Customer Support Israel 
    

martin@enco.us

Things I deal with frequently:

1.  Add an "Export Layout to Model" command.

2.  Add the ability to lock toolbars in place.

3.  Add the equivalent of Owen Wengerd's QuikPik for toolbar buttons, where non-flyout toolbar buttons activate on mouse button press instead being treated as a drag-and-drop operation and activating the button on mouse button release. 

4.  Speed up toolbar button redraw.  I have several flyout buttons which change the button icon on the base toolbar to show the current state of a setting.  In Autocad it looks like just that one icon gets redrawn.  In Bricscad the entire toolbar gets erased then redrawn.

5.  Add a true Single Document Interface mode.

6.  Expose the CANNOSCALE variable.  Bricscad respects the value if a value was set in Autocad but gives no way to access the value or change it. 

Anthony Apostolaros

This may be too difficult to implement, but I would very much like to have an option to exclude Erase and Undo from the "repeat last command" function. After 25 years of .dwg cad it still seems natural to me to repeat the last command I used before correcting a mistake or deleting construction lines. I'm constantly deleting things that I had intended to move, copy, offset, etc., and 90% of my use of the Undo command is to correct those unintended deletions.

Mathew Kirkland

I've only now seen this thread, so at the risk of being somewhat redundant....

As briefly described in this post, I'd very much be interested in seeing Bricsys implement a mechanism similar to Autodesk's Autoloader, which makes it easy for plug-in/app developers to support multiple products, and platforms in one, simple .bundle package deployment.

Since this mechanism uses a basic XML schema (implemented in each app .bundle's PackageContents.xml file), this wouldn't be hard to replicate, cull, or tailor for BCAD presuming there's no legal conflict, and would make it simpler to get Bricsys Authorized Developer tools in the hands of BCAD users. 

There are some implied tasks not described here, of course, but I'd be willing to help out with the .NET/ARX/BRX code-behind should any BCAD developers be interested, because there are also some 'gotchas', and/or workarounds that may need to be considered as well.

Cheers

martin@enco.us

Locked layer fading.  After becoming accustomed to this in Autocad I really miss in in Bricscad.

Damian Harkin

Annotation scaling (well I believe it is coming)
Helix.  Sweep.  Keep 2D parametric sketch during Extrude.  Link 2D and 3D parameters?  Animation (flying camera, flying target, block moves along polyline, layers switch on and off, parameters change (eg crank rotates)).  Clash detection in Platinum (cam follower).

Roy Klein Gebbinck

@ Shmuel Rose:
#f: How about the ANGBASE variable?

David Waight

My two pennies worth,

1. Activate all available constraints in LGS 2D, including Linear & Circular patterns.

2. Ability to snap a specified distance along a line or arc.

3. Mirror entities about a line as well as 2 points.

4. User created Parameters in the properties section or an always accessible table.

5. Proper Copy Rotate & Move Rotate, rather than being part of other commands, especially Copy Rotate as the present command doesn't give you the option of putting the copy in a different position other than about the original picked base point.

6. Accumulative lengths to include arcs, circles & ellipses as well as lines.

7. Quick Select/Filter, that you can actually name and save for later use.

8. Overall size of selection in X, Y & Z.

9. Array command that you can just specify the gap between the selected entities as opposed to working out what the accumulative distance of the selection and your gap is.

10. True PDF import.

I think that's enough for now, fingers crossed!

Roy Klein Gebbinck

@ David Waight:
#2: If you don't mind using an add-on, you can try my BKG_AdditionalSnaps. It is free.

Scott McKenzie

I'll throw my change into the pot as well...

A beefed up Mtext editor:

 - the ability to create numbered lists and add tab stops.

 - A button or drop down menu that will insert symbols such as hole depth, counter sink and others from the GDT font.

Support for multi-leaders

A bit of additional functionality for the flatshot and xquickdraw commands - they work great, but adding to the layers created would be handy.  Easiest to explain with an example: Two solids, one on layer A and one on layer B, with this option enabled the commands would generate entities on four layers: A, A_hid, B, B_hid.  The object lines of solids drawn on layer A are placed on layer A, hidden lines for that object are placed on layer A_hid.  With this if you were to model a new part off of an existing item, you can place your new part on the NEW layer and your reference item on the REF layer and the generated output would already be sorted and cleaned up.

Donald Broussard

Better support for graphically manipulating dynamic blocks.

I don't think we need the ability to create dynamic blocks. However we do work with drawings that were created in AutoCAD.

The property dialog works well for visibility states and flip parameters. However move, rotate, and perhaps others need to be handled in the graphic window.

Brian Oberdorf

I would like:

1. Sheet Sets - Support for bulk editing in a table format (spreadsheet)
2. Spirals - support for different types used in different fields of engineering (eg rail), or perhaps the ability to code it

I vote for the improved MTEXT editor also

Tim Neumann

My wish list would be:

Being able to break dimension lines

Wipe out or clear an area of a hatch - I know it does this for text

Detail command - for scaling up portions of a drawing

Being to extrude to a surface or another solid

Make quickdraw more "idiot proof"

STEVEN SANDHORST

 I vote for just making the existing features truly AutoCad compliant.  My primary concern is with MTEXT and TABLES.  Make it so that when formatted MTEXT from an AutoCad drawing is loaded into BricsCad, the text doesn't reformat randomly.  For some reason, the tabbed text gets all screwed up.  Also, please implement all controls for TABLES similar to AutoCad.  Right now, BricsCad has a toolbar button for formatting BORDERS, but it is inactive.

Lastly, fully implement the dynamic block features, including the ability to create dynamic blocks.

Robt Deans

Express Tools.

They've been freely available for AutoCAD for over a decade.

Kudos & warm appreciation to Cadwiesel for their Express Tools & Torsten Moses for BcadTools (these are tools I use with virtually every BricsCAD session), but wish these tools were made available in the core product.

Michael Rock

 Dynamic Blocks

Would be great to create dynamic blocks in Bricscad. I will not buy Autocad just for this reason. 

I use Sketchup for 3D, they have a great interface for dynamic components. Fantastic for creating smart libraries of elements that can me adjusted easily.

Juraj Matel

@Michael Rock: Create/Edit Dynamic Blocks +1

Select multiple Layout tabs to delete.

Dan Wiseman

Spline editing ("splinedit").  Particularly the ability to convert to polylines.

(+1 for beefed up mtext editor).

Rodney Estep

If not to late and possible to implement.  I would like to see the \ functionality added to the Mouse buttons.

[button 2][shift+click] 'DIST _NEAR \_PERP  

The code above will invoke the distance command, snap nearest to the current pointer location.  Then temporary Perpindicular snap and user can pick a point to complete the distance command.  I have been using this for 15+ years with autocad.  Tough to break the habit when using BricsCad.

I would also like to see Stepin funtion, but i assume this would be a major add.  I realize that Step model Might be to complex for the ACIS kernal but 99% of the time for me they are not.  I have several routines that i run to insert step files, organize them and process them for further work downstream.

Roy Klein Gebbinck

@ Rodney, regarding your mouse button request:
A similar request was posted here:
http://forum.bricsys.com/discussion/18702

If you modify the .cui file and use this as the command:
[code]^c^c_dist;(SnapHelper "_near");_perp[/code]
you would have the functionality you wish for (assigned to MMB-Shift-Click).

Notes:
Use the last version of Snaphelper.zip.
CTRLMOUSE must be OFF.
MBUTTONPAN can be ON.

David Waight

Probably too much of a stretch and definitely not Autocad compatible, but possibly for the future, what about multiple page documents?

I know this would completely go against what .dwg and .dxf can presently do (unless you consider Sheet Sets) but I frequently create designs which would benefit being on a different page of the same file.

I appreciate this is more like Graphics Software such as Illustrator or Corel Draw, but it could be something to aim at in future releases.

Am I being daft, or does it have any merits?

Roy Klein Gebbinck

@ David: This sounds a lot like layouts... Which are already available... But perhaps I have misunderstood.

Mustafa Kocatürk

Hi, My wish is the same like last year for V13. l would like to have supporting of transparence entities (Hatches, Layers…) like AutoCAD does it since several releases. Regards, Mustafa Kocatürk below software GmbH