Whats new in General CADD Pro v11

Updated: 4/01/2013

1. DWG 2013 file format fully supported

Load and save Auto CAD 2013 DWG files

2. Hi-Def Image Drag for Component Place, Bitmap Images, and Edit Commands
Use the HD command to control the setting. Turning HDDrag ON will give you a true drag image. Turning it OFF will give you the old dithered image. Also, to control the transparency of the drag image, you can set the HDDragDensity value from 1-10 where 1=Solid and 10=Transparent (very faint). Setting this value greater than 1 allows you to see what is underneath the objects being placed. Component place preview should now show a full drawing of the component instead of a monochromatic dot pattern. Component Preview Image with HDDrag OFF

Component Preview Image with HDDrag ON

The following commands also use HDDrag when a preview image is generated. Object Move (OM) Window Move (WM) Selection Move (MV) Window Copy (WC) Selection Copy (CO) Paste (KP), Component Place (CP,CQ), Multi-Copy (MC), Matrix Move (MM) Note: HD is a nestable command. When HD is active the Ctrl+Scroll action will increase or decrease the drag density. In a Move command, Ctrl+Scroll will change the drag density.

3. Image Entity Selection Improvement

Original Unselected Image

Previous Image Selection

New Image Selection

4. Printing large format images not a problem in V11

In previous versions of GCP, it was easy for GCP to run out of memory when printing images. V11 has solved this problem. The image is broken up into tiles and printed seamlessly. The test file we used would not print in GCP10. The image when printed 24x36 600dpi required 600MB. Now it prints beautifully.

5. Viewport enhancement: changing the Zoom Scale of a viewport will correctly scale the border as well
The following example uses VQ to set the Zoom scale from 2.0 to 1.0. Scale border is checked. Pressing OK sets the zoom scale to 1.0 and correctly scales the border.

6. Profile Command Enhancement (PE) Surveyor 3D Command

The Profile Command now supports 3D polylines and lines in addition to surfaces (TIN triangles).

7. Aerial Map Command (AM) Geo-referenced Images

Choose between Google or Bing to preview the best looking map or aerial image for your location of interest.

Use the above option to select the type of map.

When the above is checked, when the image is placed it will automatically be place at it exact coordinates in UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator projection system). If unchecked, you will be prompted on where to place the image. In either case, the image will have its correct real world size (Geo-size image).

Enter a keyword, phrase, street address, lat/lon location and the map will do its best to find that location using either the Google or Bing search engine.

Note: Images brought in from the Aerial Map (AM) and Geo-Referenced GM commands are automatically set to Draw First.

8. Text Table enhancements

The Text Table (TT) command is evolving. A brief review, the TT command has 2 modes. It can either create a component count table, or display a CSV (comma separated value) file. The output from these modes is a text table object placed in the drawing. Double click on the text table object to edit it. New to V11 1. Cell formatting for Left/Center/Right justification 2. Column widths are stored in the CSV when saved from TT 3. Create width templates and apply them to existing tables or new ones 4. Change grid line color 5. Edit Text Tables and turn on previously hidden components in the table.

Select column header and edit width or change text justification

Options button for Loading and Saving column width templates.

Hide unchecked items to clean up the list. Unchecked items will not be place in the drawing.

9. Boundary Fill/Hatch (BF/BH) can how handle the picking of objects as well as points

The command works as before accepting points, but if you press B for object you will be prompted to pick and Object. Each segment of the boundary will highlight after selected. Once the selected objects or points reach the starting object, or you use NP or click near the starting point, the command will complete and create the fill/hatch.

10. Images - Draw First flag

Images can be set with a Draw First flag. When set the Image will be drawn first and then the rest of the drawing drawn after. This works even with BR on. If the image is moved or edited, it will still be drawn first. To set the flag, shift+rclick or Double click on the image to show its menu. Select Draw First to toggle the state. Can also be set from OM command (P option)

More Image Fade values.

11. Text Blotout now sets a Draw Last flag

Blotout on text has always been a little tricky and difficult to manage when objects were moved on top of the text. Now text that has the blotout option set will draw last no matter what. Similar to the Image Draw First scheme, the text will wait until all the objects are drawn before drawing itself. You can set Blotout from TE or TG, or use the BO (Blotout) command to select and set. Dimensions and Components will be hooked up soon.

12. MP Relative Direct Distance option

This allows you to enter a relative direct distance to extend or shorten a line. Enter a positive or negative number to change the relative length of a line. Only works with single lines for now. See MP prompt to set during command. When ON, the entered value will lengthen or shorten by that amount. When Off it will change the length to that amount, as before. The R state is reset to OFF at the start of MP. Press R to toggle state.

13. Batch Print Layouts new apply button (DP,B)

When printing drawings with layout tabs, its difficult to make a change and apply it to all the tabs without getting unwanted settings. Now when you change the Fit, Scale, LWM (line width multiplier), Rotate90, Center, and Stamp, you can chose which of those settings get applied to what tabs. This Apply button will launch a dialog with checkboxes for picking which ones to accept. If you selected Rotate90 before pressing Apply, for example, Rotate90 will be preselected in the apply dialog.

14. Dimensions display inches if less than specified length

This works only if using Feet/Inches. The setting is in DQ>Units/Format/Text tab. When checked the 0 portion of the dimension will not display. Only the inches will display for dimensions less than the specified length, up to 3

15. Change Command Line Prompt Font (DI,F)

You get more control over the font and the prompt area. You can increase the prompt area to accommodate a large.

Prompt Font: Change font to several different choices Text Height: Increase/decrease the size of the font Text Y Offset: Adjust the text vertically to center it. Different fonts have different alignments. You need this control to get it just right Cell Ht: With a bigger font size you will need a bigger cell height to accommodate the font Cell Width: Increase the size boxes on the right side of the prompt lines. The right side of the dialog controls the side menu. To launch the dialog, press Ctrl+Plus key on the numpad, or right click in the prompt area and select Change Prompt Font from the menu, or DI,F.

16. Component Find in CQ (Component List) Dialog

The Find button at the bottom of the CQ dialog will ungray once a component is selected from list. Click the Find button to zoom in on the first component found. The Find button will then turn into a Next (1 of n) button. Each click on the Next button will find the next component in the drawing. Hold the shift key down while pressing Next to get the previous component.

17. Snap boxes shown on Edit commands

In this image, WM shows 9 snap points (corners, mids, center) when it asks for the starting point. As the cursor gets near a box it will turn red and expand. Click the left button to snap to the center of the box. Copy, Move,Rotate, Scale, Mirror, and Component Create commands show snap box points. Turn on/off from AS command.

18. Sticky Snaps

Press the TAB key when the cursor is over an object and it will turn on snap points. Holding the Shift key down while pressing the left mouse button will also create sticky snaps

19. Snap inside Dimensions, Text, Hatches

The AS Auto Snaps dialog contains new checkboxes for controlling snaps inside complex entities such as Dimensions and Text.

Only the NP snap can be used on Text, Dimensions, Images, Hatches & Fills. Components, Viewports, and XRefs can use the full set of Snaps. New checkbox [x] Allow TAB when Nested. When this is checked, the TAB key will create sticky snaps only if you are not in a command. Some users use the TAB key for the placement point instead of Enter key. Uncheck if you want TAB to place points in a command.

20. Load Points (L3)

A very simple way to load survey point files.

Setting: Launches the point label settings. Open: Open dialog for selecting point files Place: Place all, or just the selected points. Very simple.

21. Copy along a Path (PH)

This new selection command allows you to copy a selected set of objects along a single object. All target objects are accepted.

In this example 16 copies were made at a specified gap distance. You can create a macro to bypass the dialog. Ex: PH,W,@,@,!,@,@,CO,10,DI,1.5,!; CO = number of copies DI = distance between objects. The distance is the distance along the path, not the linear distance The ending ! bypasses the dialog.

22. Edit Viewport Batch file

When the ED command is performed on a Viewport object, the data inside the viewport is exposed in the model tab for you to edit. This command has been in there for a few versions. The addition of a Batch file to be run when you ED a Viewport was added to V11.

Click the Pencil button to edit the data in this viewport, or type ED and pick inside the viewport box. The Batch file specified will launch automatically. There are 2 new macro variables that are set before the lauch. $VPSCALE and $VPLAYER. These will be set by the current viewport before the batch file is launched. $VPSCALE = Zoom Val. Use it to set a text height, etc.

23. VB Notes and Color

The VB (Viewport Borders) command turns on the viewports and color codes them so they stand out better on a busy drawing. Now in VQ you can click the VB Note: button to toggle this mode. VB Note is a way to customize the message that is displayed at the lower left corner of the viewport when in this mode. Colors are assigned randomly and saved with the viewport object

In the above example the default message has an appended note.

24. Selection Hatch Origin added to HG

A new Origin option has been added to Hatch Change (HG). After selecting multiple Hatches, select the O option to give them all the same origin.

In the example above, the hatches were selected and given a common origin at the lower left. End result, the 9 Board hatches were perfectly lined up!

25. Viewport Mgr ED Batch file

The viewport mgr (VQ) has a new option called EDit Batch. ED is the command to edit a Viewport, or you can select the viewport from the list and press the pencil icon at the bottom right. When you edit a viewport, you are sent to the model tab zoomed to the viewport extents, and also layers set to the viewport layers. If you have an ED batch file defined, it will be executed. This is very handy tool for setting up text and dimension settings based on the viewport scale (Zoom val).

Heres an example:
/VST,1,$VPLAYER; /VRL,1,$VPSCALE; /VRL,2,$R(1)*48; /VIN,2,$R(2); /VST,2,$I(2); TS,F,DESIGN,Z,$R(1)*4,A,.9,P,C,40,P,++,!,!; US,A,T,F,A,15,L,$R(1)*3,!,F,DESIGN,!; CZ,$R(1),$R(1); /IF,$R(1)[EQ]1,/Set,StatusBarString, SCALE 1/4" - 48 ,DQ,LO,$S(2),!; /IF,$R(1)[EQ]2,/Set,StatusBarString, SCALE 1/8" - 96 ,DQ,LO,96,!; /FNDSTR,$S(1),WALLS,LC,104; /FNDSTR,$S(1),HVAC,LC,11,FP,C,$GCPPATH\GXC\HVAC\,!;

26. Leader Arrow Dim Part

Leaders allow you to set Arrow color independent of regular dimension parts.

27. OP Object Properties

Description

28. Hide layers inside components, bounded xres, and groups

AQ/ComponentDefLayer when ON will make components obey the layer display states. In previous versions you could only control whether a component was displayed or hidden. Now you can turn off an individual layer(s) by setting this variable True. You can also set this variable from the Main Menu>Layers, or rclick menu inside LM or YD/YH/YC.

29. TQ/DQ dialogs have Load Env / Save Env buttons

Load and Save text cfg files directly into the dialog. Very handy for quickly changing all the settings at once. Can be used for setting the global text and dimension settings, or during the editing of text and dimensions.

You will get the open dialog pointing to CFG\Text or CFG\Dims folders.

30. Ordinate Dimension (OD)

Ordinate dimensions measure the perpendicular distance from an origin point called the datum to an element. In GCP the Ordinate Dimension (OD) is actually a style of Linear Dimensions. You can measure the horizontal or vertical dimensions. The U option Use Shoulder will create a Leader type of dimension line.

Spacing In line Ordinate Dimensions can have Aligned or Horizontal aligned text Gap between point and start of dim line controlled by Extension Offset Gap between end of line and beginning of text controlled by Text Offset Above

31. Radial and Diameter dimension options

1) Suppress center line for Radial dimensions 2) Add symbology (R, ) to rad/diam dimensions Options in DQ setting dialog : Leader/Radial/Diameter Tab

32. Lock Text Block Width (TE/QE)

In the TE dialog you can check the Lock Width setting to lock the slider at the current location so the text block width will remain the same no matter if extra text added or completely removed. Lock Width works only when Word Wrap is on.

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