Different BricsCAD version for an office.
Hi Brics-users, I would like to hear from you, how do you often use Bricscad in the office: if everyone has the same version and if so is necessary. My point is that I use a BricsCAD BIM version while we need other staff members working on Brics as well, but I guess that for a junior architect, at this moment of our office, we can not afford BIM license for everyone. What do you suggest? Which other Brics version should I go for (Classic-Pro-Platinum)? Pro or Platinum for modeling? I would really appreciate your considerations. Thank you very much.
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BricsCAD's price has certainly grown a lot, as its features and compatibility has increased. I wish they would offered a lower cost version with some of the features disabled. There are a few free and very lost cost alternatives out there, that say they read/write native DWG files.
I have not used BIM, but suspect that all the entities will be native DWG entities, with the specialized BIM items having proxy objects. Your user may not be able to edit any of BIM related stuff, but the objects will be there.
Concerning cheaper alternatives to BricsCAD, a lot depends on your needs. Personally, I need something with very close approximation of the AutoCAD interface. Also I need LISP compatibility.
My own list of DWG editor alternatives is:
nanoCAD https://nanocad.com Native DWG editor. Raster Images, Lisp programs. Has upgrade path.
QCAD https://www.qcad.org/, Free is DXF format only. Pro version (33 Euros) does DWG.
LibreCAD, https://librecad.org DXF file format. Raster Images, No programming language.
Others have listed:
IntelliCAD clone should be cheap enough and read-write DWG file. (I think this has LISP-Joe)
CMS IntelliCAD
QCAD is another cheap alternative 2D CAD.
-Joe
DoubleCAD XT is free and feature rich 2D CAD, compatible with DWG.
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Sorry for the bad formatting. It looks like it even changed the order of some things. The Markdown stuff tends to do stuff like that. I wish I could turn it off.
-Joe
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Thank you Joe, very informative regarding new platforms, but I would like to continue in Brics. Do you have any idea how it would behave a wall with a composition created in BricsCAD Bim when it is read in BricsCAD Pro, for instance? These features, such as BIM Section or BIM Composition, how they behave in a "lower" Brics version?
Thanks for your contribution.0 -
AFAIK Bricscad Shape warns that all this BIM data will be lost if you save the file.
I would prefer it just ignores it
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@Maurilio:
You can test 'lower' BricsCAD versions by changing the RUNASLEVEL setting (and perhaps also the USEBIM setting) and then restart.
If you are thinking of using BricsCAD Shape, be advised that saving a file in Shape will mean losing BIM data.@Joe Dunfee:
If you test all the tools available above the forum text input field, you will know most Markdown characters and can perhaps avoid them. And you can always verify the formatting of your message by clicking the Preview button.0 -
Thank you Roy,
yes, I've tried (runned as Pro and Classic) and I could see that it doesn't read the composition, but it considers as a generic hatch, which is ok because when re-opened in the BIM version it didn't mess. What I wonder is how reliable is this test, when I set the level for Platinum version, Brics goes straight to the BIM version. My point is if even running as a lower version, wouldn't the lower version be reading features and tools from the BIM version? However, thank you for your point.0 -
Since BIM requires Platinum your findings are not surprising. Please also look at the USEBIM variable.
But for the final word on this you will need to get in touch with Bricsys.0
