Moving from AutoCAD...but trying to bring the setup with me...

Young_Angus
Young_Angus
in Licensing and installation

I've been searching a lot online for info on this because I thought lots of people would have been through this. Our practice has been working with AutoCAD for years now and has some very good concrete custom lisps and buttons and all sorts of things in place. We now want to move to BricsCAD because it's more affordable and just seems like a really great program, all the usual reasons :)

Anyway, AutoCAD has a really great tool which migrates custom settings from one computer to another. It's a zip file containing lots of stuff. Does BricsCAD have anything like that?

I guess is there anything that I really need to know before trying to move all our computers over to BricsCAD or is there no reason, with a bit of tweaking, that all our custom buttons and lisps shouldn't work just fine with BricsCAD so long as I point it to the correct folders?

Can anyone point me at any in depth documentation on moving across these platforms? I couldn't seem to find anything.

Any help is much appreciated :)

Comments

  • fmhemmer
    fmhemmer

    Hello Young Angus - hope that someone answers this for you because I am in the same situation

  • Don Strimbu
    Don Strimbu

    Young_Angus, fmhemmer:

    This is not a comprehensive document, but a simple start to a migration workflow that I have been experimenting with... feel free to share.
    It will (at least) get you pointed in the right direction.

    Also, Ralph G's book - "BricsCAD V17 for AutoCAD Users" is free here on bricsys.com - https://bricsys.com/en-us/documentation/
    There is solid data about running "dual-CAD" offices in chapter 5 of the free eBook.

    Comments welcomed,

    Don

  • Cyberdyne_T800
    Cyberdyne_T800

    Isn't this topic covered in the BricsCAD for AutoCAD users document?

  • Scullysguy
    Scullysguy
    edited March 2018

    Has there been a consensus on this? This is one of my biggest hesitations. I have a lot of customized button that I use and that I need to use to work quickly and efficiently. It's hard enough going from one version of Autocad to another. I just don't have days to make this work. It seems like there should be simpler and faster way to duplicate a setup from one to the other but I've certainly never been able to find it.
    Bricsys.....is there a way to very quickly and easily export a desktop setup from Autocad and import it to Bricsys? That would be the entire setup (background colors, custom buttons, custom lsp files, pgp file.....everything)? If there is, I'd sure like to know.

  • Jason Bourhill
    Jason Bourhill

    @Scullysguy said:
    Has there been a consensus on this? This is one of my biggest hesitations. I have a lot of customized button that I use and that I need to use to work quickly and efficiently. It's hard enough going from one version of Autocad to another. I just don't have days to make this work. It seems like there should be simpler and faster way to duplicate a setup from one to the other but I've certainly never been able to find it.
    Bricsys.....is there a way to very quickly and easily export a desktop setup from Autocad and import it to Bricsys? That would be the entire setup (background colors, custom buttons, custom lsp files, pgp file.....everything)? If there is, I'd sure like to know.

    If you need help, I can help you with the process. I've transferred many AutoCAD setups across to BricsCAD, and it is generally quite straightforward to do. The task can be broken down to 3 main steps (listed in order of priority).

    1. Transfer your Company's existing CAD Library Setup to BricsCAD.
    2. Install BricsCAD on User Machines.
    3. Configure User machines to use the company CAD setup.

    Step 1 should be done by the CAD Manager, Team Lead... i.e. it needs to be done by an experienced CAD user. Steps 2 & 3 can be done by the IT manager

    CAD Library Setup
    The majority of AutoCAD setup and custom files can be brought across to BricsCAD and used with little to no modification. In fact it is possible to get the two applications to coexist using the same CAD Library. In a company situation it is assumed that you will create a folder for your CAD Library in a network location that all users can access. This folder would have a number of sub folders to group the following types of customisation:

    • Templates
    • Titleblocks
    • Logos
    • Blocks
    • LISP, Scripts, VBA
    • Linetypes
    • Menus
    • Plotstyles
    • Sheetsets
    • Toolpalettes
    • Profiles

    Note this isn't an exhaustive list, just the most typical files. You can use my sample BricsCAD setup if you're looking for a working setup to play with.

    With your structure sorted you would then create a new BricsCAD Profile and set it up to point at your CAD Library. Key SETTINGS are the ones pointing to folders & files, such as SRCHPATH (same as (getenv "ACAD")), BASEFILE (default template) etc..

    Things to be aware of:

    • Use the the User Profile Manager to create a new/import profile outside of BricsCAD. Don't run from inside BricsCAD, as this will lead to confusion. This is because (currently) BricsCAD doesn't save user settings until you close the application, and only for the last session. For this reason I prefer to start BricsCAD from the User Profile Manager, make my setting changes, then close down to save. If you are doing a lot of changes it pays to close BricsCAD down regularly to force it to commit any changes.

    • For end users avoid using a Profile from AutoCAD. This is ok as a starting point to get settings across to BricsCAD, but BricsCAD has lot's of its own settings (QUAD, Drawing explorer folders..) too. To complete control you will want to use a profile generated from BricsCAD for your BricsCAD users.

    • Some files need to be renamed for use in BricsCAD, such as:

      • Acad.lsp -> On_Start.lsp,
      • AcadDoc.lsp -> On_DocLoad.lsp,
      • acad.pgp -> default.pgp,
      • acadiso.lin -> iso.lin,
      • acad.lin -> default.lin
        Note you would only do this for files you've actually customised. If you haven't customised in AutoCAD, then the defaults in BricsCAD will be fine.

    • Menus. BricsCAD converts .cuix to .cui, and uses the loads the .cui. If you have custom icons, then they will be in a .resz of the same name as your .cui. On conversion of an AutoCAD menu to BricsCAD you will likely see a lot of missing icons (replaced by ?), because BricsCAD doesn't have AutoCAD's Icon library. You will need to re-work these tools in BricsCAD to use a different Icon. Because of this you probably want to do this as a one off task.

    • Tool Palettes. BricsCAD uses a different file format to AutoCAD, so you can't use AutoCAD tool palettes directly. However, you can import them from AutoCAD. Again, for the same reason as with menus, you may see a lot of missing icons, which you will need to rework for BricsCAD. In some cases, such as with blocks it may be simpler to just re-create in BricsCAD.

    • Plotters. BricsCAD can use the same .PC3 files as AutoCAD, but there are some that are unique to each application, so to avoid confusion I would keep these separate from each other, and only copy across ones set-up for your physical printers. BricsCAD uses "Print As PDF.pc3" to print to pdf instead of AutoCAD's "DWG to PDF.pc3". For compatibility to drawings coming from AutoCAD you can copy the "Print As PDF.pc3" and rename it to "DWG to PDF.pc3".

    Installing BricsCAD on User Machines
    For Windows, the BricsCAD installer is provided as an .MSI. As it is a simple microsoft installer file, you can use all the typical options available, which most IT admins will be familiar with. The BricsCAD HELP gives some details on how to silently install BricsCAD.

    Configure User machines to BricsCAD
    With BricsCAD installed, the final step is to configure the users machine to the Company CAD library. This can be done by exporting out your BricsCAD Profile using the User Profile Manager to create a .arg file.

    There is a few key things to know about .arg files
    1. .Arg files are text files. It's possible to edit them with a text editor. Of course I would make a backup of the original first!!
    2. With profile settings Less is more. When you open a .arg file you will see lots of settings, but you don't have to use them all. If you delete (or comment out) a line, BricsCAD will simply replace this setting with program defaults when it first runs. This means you don't have to make a decision of every single detail, it also allows you to leave settings up to the user to set.
    3. .Arg files are just registry snippets. This means you can use tools available in windows (such as REG) to push these settings into the registry for each user. Most IT admins will be familiar with working with Windows registry, and have tools to push settings out to users.

    Regards,
    Jason Bourhill
    CAD Concepts

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