Architosh Staff (info@architosh.com)

9 Sep 2005

 

CAD News: IntelliCAD 6.1 announced, IMSI TurboCAD 3D for Mac OS X listed on Academic Software Store

IntelliCAD 6.1

The IntelliCAD Technology Consortium has announced the new IntelliCAD 6.1 software, a key update. Version 6.1 boosts performance on redrawing, regenerating, and command line scrolling between 10 and 14 percent, while utilizing the IntelliCAD 6.0 graphics performance enhancements of 400 to 1000 percent. The latest version includes a new rendering solution for both IntelliCAD Standard and IntelliCAD Professional users. An interesting new feature is the ability in version 6.1 to record sound clips and attach them to entities.

For more information visit them online at: www.intellicad.org

Architosh Analysis: For those who are not aware, IntelliCAD is a near native Autocad-compatible product, now in the hands of a major technology consortium. The source code is seen as a "cooperatively developed CAD engine." Companies can develop and market their own version of IntelliCAD based on source code they acquire through membership, not too unlike the Open Design Alliance.

TurboCAD 3D Product Details

IMSI's upcoming TurboCAD 3D for Mac OS X appears to be listed in detail for sale at the Academic Superstore, a software store online dedicated to students and educators. Like the recent announcement of the 2D product, this 3D CAD product may become a popular alternative for Macintosh users who can't run other mechanical 3D CAD programs commonly found only on Windows. TurboCAD 3D for Mac OS X has a student sales price of $219USD, but may sell for as much as $500USD to non-student professionals and end-users.

A description of its 3D drafting capabilities include a comprehensive set of surface and solid modeling and editing tools such as: constant and variable filleting and chamfering, shelling, extrude, sweep, lathe, Booleans, over 17 different surface types and 9 different 3D primatives. Other capabilities listed include: holes, bosses, and lofting between faces and inflate/deflate face.

TurboCAD 3D's import and export capabilities will include support for CATIA v4, as well as SAT, STEP, ProE, Rhino, IGES, Truespace and DXF and DWG, to name just a few.

It will require a G3-class processor or higher and Mac OS X (10.3 or 10.4 - Panther or Tiger).

Architosh Analysis: The word on the street is that the 2D CAD product is doing well. It is currently listed on Apple's online store and is prominently on the shelf at Apple's retail stores. The 2D TurboCAD only sells for $99, a key price point for consumer-level CAD, and competes with Microspot's MacDraft PE at that same price directly on the shelf next to it at the Apple stores as well. It will be interesting to see if IMSI chooses to carry the more expensive -- and more professionally oriented -- 3D TurboCAD at the Apple stores as well.

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