IMSI's flagship software product, TurboCAD, provides advanced CAD capabilities for 2D sketching, precision drawing or basic 3D modelling. The new version adds a new and improved set of design tools that includes a solid modelling engine, constraint engine, region extrude, gradient fills, transparency, as well as a rendering engine from LightWork Design (LightWorks 7.4). However, the upgrade is more evolutionary than revolutionary and the biggest changes are on the mechanical design side and in publishing architectural and mechanical work. TurboCAD Professional 11 is a good CAD tool and an inexpensive alternative to AutoCAD, but even with the introduction of 2D constraints, it still is not a true MCAD modeller.

Pros: Fast; good value; improved design capabilities
Cons: Tad overwhelming; few quirks


Building on TurboCAD Professional 10, version 11 adds the latest DXF and DWG support, as well as the latest modelling, rendering and design technologies and still keeps the price under £1000. Very impressive! There's also the ability to import SAT and IGES files, create threaded bodies, deform models in a more intuitive and predictable manner, as well as improved interoperability with STEP and IGES filters.

If you're not a professional designer, but want to play around with designing your own mechanical parts or draft floor plans, the Deluxe version of the software can be purchased for as little as £54.95 (ex. VAT). Although severely cut down, TurboCAD Deluxe 11 still offers a lot of design power for minimal outlay.

TurboCAD Professional 11 features LightWorks 7.4 Rendering Engine with High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDRI) support. This useful application lets you match lighting with real-world backgrounds, allowing you to create computer-designed images with a more realistic appearance.

Its dynamic range lets you compensate for extreme contrasts of lightness and darkness that are more like the human eye, so that your designs can have more realism and clarity. And with the built-in QuickTime VR 'viewer' you can 'walk around' your 3D models.

The new Brush Style Editor comes with bitmap fills so you can put a photo or other graphic element inside your design, and new gradient fills allow you to fade from light to dark along radial, linear, diamond or custom paths from one part of the drawing to another. The addition of the colour transparency tool allows you to screen back the colour or an object in the foreground to display or emphasise hidden details in the background.

Other new features include a SVG filter so you can save files as Scaleable Vector Graphics (SVG), Dimetric views so you can see four new views of your drawing area, and a XREFS path so you can share your drawings electronically.

The software is compatible with most popular industry standard file formats including AutoCAD, Microstation, DesignCAD, and you also have the option to publish your designs as HTML, JPEG, and MTX. IMSI even bundles a full Software Development Kit (SDK) and a new Visual Basic Macro Recorder.

UGS's D-Cubed Dimensional Constraint Manager is a particularly neat tool as it makes modifying your designs for consistency and directional control a cinch. It contains more than 15 constraints for 2D lines, arcs, circles and dimensions, making it much easier to create and manage design dependencies in your drawings.

Plus, you can import and automatically convert existing 2D TurboCAD and AutoCAD designs into fully constrained drawings. We also liked the integrated ScanPro Raster-to-Vector Converter which automatically transforms line art scans, drawings, and other sketches into workable CAD drawings.

Mechanical engineers will appreciate Spatial's ACIS 14 modelling engine (up from version 11), which gives you the ability to create 3D models using NURBS, plus create a solid from a surface or vice versa. The new ACIS engine is supposed to be faster, although for typical components the speedup is minor. The big change is that the models are easier to twist and otherwise deform.

TurboCAD Professional 11 is not without its faults, though. For instance, the Bring to Front and Bring to Back commands in the Format menu don't work if objects are on different layers and the layers have different order values.

Curve control points stay with the objects they define, so using a tool such as Split or Trim on a curve can massively alter its shape, and physical properties of ACIS 3D objects (moment of inertia and so forth) are not listed automatically - you have to find them under the Physical Metrics icon. Hardly deal breaking, but at least you can group toolbars and palettes in any way you want.

BIOS, Jul 27, 05 | Print | Send | Comments (0) | Posted In Graphics