| In July 1997 I first heard a whisper
on the grapevine that a new CAD package called "Phoenix" might soon be
available. It was rumored to be low-cost and support a high level of AutoCAD compatibility
including support for ALISP. Like most CAD users I discussed this with I was very
interested, yet at the same time, skeptical of the pre-release hype that we have all come
to know and treat with a hearty laugh. Early
in November I learned that Visio were inviting beta testers to use IntelliCAD as
"Phoenix" had become known. I wasted no time registering as a beta tester on the
Visio website.
I waited well over a month until the preview beta
CD-ROM arrived. Over a cup of coffee I read the accompanying literature and was surprised
by the open and bold comparisons that where made with AutoCAD R14 and LT 97. The system
requirements list was impressive -- these seemed to be less than those required by AutoCAD
R12, a refreshing change as software and hard disks continue to increase in size at
alarming rates. There was only one way to see if there was any substance to the hype -- on
to the installation!
The speed of installation was a pleasant surprise.
Only the few obligatory questions then all done and ready to go inside of 5 minutes. The
program then loaded smoothly and quickly with the initial appearance of a display similar
to a raw AutoCAD screen with lots of icon toolbars except there was no command line
window.
I prefer to maximise the screen area when working
and use fast keys and pull down menus. Right mouse-clicking the toolbars, I was able to
turn off those I didn't require. I was able to turn on the command line window I could not
find a way to turn off the scroll bars which I do not use.
While the command line can be moved and resized,
when docked at the top or bottom it could not be resized if picked accidentally when
drawing. I also find this an annoying problem in other packages.
The Customize command under the Tool menu produced
a dialogue box from which I could customize the pull down menus, toolbars, keyboard
assignments and keyboard aliases on-the-fly. All without knowing anything about the .MNU
and .PGP files or accelerator key commands. Included is the ability to import an existing
AutoCAD menu file, this combined with the ease with which you can create unique toolbars
and assign key commands will allow any user to quickly customize their working environment
to suit their needs. Assigning commands to the pointing device buttons seemed to be the
only area of customization missing that I would find useful.
Most of my work is in structural steel and concrete
and contracting in this discipline in Western Australia requires me to be able to share
documents in DWG format. Easy and reliable support for this AutoCAD file format is a must.
I opened a typical structural detail drawing created with AutoCAD Release 14. It opened
quickly and the drawing was faithfully displayed and editable. I was surprised that the
menu (acad.mnu) associated with that file had automatically loaded with the drawing.
Throughout the editing session that followed I
became more and more impressed with the way IntelliCAD allows me to work as if in AutoCAD,
using normal AutoCAD commands, menus and aliases without even thinking about it. During
this session I called several AutoLISP files which loaded and ran without a glitch. I also
opened another drawing in a separate window and discovered how easy it was to cut and
paste geometry between windows.
With a rapidly approaching festive season I
reluctantly had to end my first look at IntelliCAD at this point. I must say I was very
impressed with my first experience of this product. I look forward to using it in a
production environment during 1998 and reporting further on my experience, which I think
is a typical learning curve for most design drafting professionals.
Steve Manning |
