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MacCAD - reView: Hot Door's CADtools 2.1 with CADgate
CADgate for Autocad Compatibility in Adobe Illustrator AppliCraft CADgate is the first plugin to bring both CAD import and export to Adobe Illustrator 8 for Macintosh or Windows. This program is distributed (sold) by Hot Door but was developed by AppliCraft Co. Ltd. (in Japan). The program can work independently of CADtools and installs as a plugin into the Plugin folder in the Adobe Illustrator folder. Combined with CADtools 2.1, CADgate supports the transfer of CADtools dimensions to the Autocad DWG or DXF file formats. If you use another CAD program -- and any Mac CAD pro does -- now you have a way in which to import your CAD files into Adobe Illustrator, other than methods such as EPS export out of your CAD program. We successfully imported Autocad DWG files and CAD DXF files generated from Diehl Graphsoft's VectorWorks. CADgate supports up to version 14.
To import an Autocad file directly into Adobe Illustrator 8.0 you simply go to File / Open and select a DWG or DXF file in the open dialog box. Selecting it generates this dialog where you need to determine the scale and units for the new document being created. Because Autocad uses 'real word' scale and your AEC documents most often do not (such as 1/4" = 1 foot) you need to have the scale setting correctly established or you may lose your data (actually the data does not appear but is safe on the original file). A simple choice is to select Fitting (see above) which lets CADgate automatically fit the data to the page size. Once the data is in Illustrator your layers from the DWG/DXF file shall be intact. Colors will likely shift and text may move around on you. One problem we found was that including text objects within a global Select All and then editing the selection (such as turning the lines to black) cause the text elements to fill completely into blobs of color, losing the ability to use the text. However, you can select text elements out and change them first. This particular item may have just been our file and users' experiences may vary with this. Another issue about the import process is that you essentially open up a new file, hence your Page Setup settings may be preset to a sheet size that is much smaller than the one you intend on using. This is typically an 8 1/2 x 11 inch page in portrait position. It would be nice if you can setup the document first, thus simplifying scaling issues. One issue we did not test is the importing of Blocks in Autocad DWG format. We have no idea how CADgate handles Blocks from Autocad. Exporting to Autocad File Formats Exporting to DWG or DXF typically goes smoother than importing. The images below illustrate the steps involved. From the Save As dialog box select DWG(CADgate) from the popup menu.
Next the dialog box shown below will ask you for version settings and number of colors. You can also choose to export CADtools 2 dimensions or not. Notice, you can select individual artwork and export it individually.
The final stage is setting the scale for the exported file and the units. Once this is done your file should be ready.
CADtools 2.1 and CADgate Conclusions CADtools and CADgate together offer a comprehensive suite of tools for Adobe Illustrator users who do measured and dimensioned technical illustrations (for medical and dental engineering, cabinetry and furniture, piping and mechanical design and other disciplines or trades). They also offer much to architects, engineers and construction professionals. In particular, they complement more standardized CAD packages for AEC more than they represent replacements for them. For some technical professionals CADtools may offer them all they need to do home building/renovation and design detailing and plan making -- and to produce trade-specific shop drawings for construction. Yet, a more likely candidate would be an industrial designer or design student. Another valuable area for both of these programs is getting CAD to the Web or to PDF-based publishing. Thanks to Adobe Illustrator's native abilities, CADtools, in particular, offers much for this effort. In fact, we think there is so much here in terms of how CADtools fits a workflow for generating animated, Vector-based CAD for the Web that we will be spending some more time with this program in an attempt to do this. Architects and urban designers, in particular, can export their multi-layered CAD files (via DWG/DXF) and import them into Illustrator (via CADgate). From here they can enhance them, simplify them and prep them for Adobe Photoshop 5.5 and ImageReady 2.0 animation and effects. It would also be possible to produce Javascript-enabled animated CAD files for the Web as well. Since Macromedia's Freehand 9 and FireWorks also support Illustrator and PDF file formats, Macromedia's applications could be used to do more Web-directed work on CADtools CAD files, including getting CAD files into Macromedia Flash 4.0. In short, CADtools 2.1 and CADgate can serve as valuable conduit to these more Web oriented authoring programs. Areas that we would like to see improved concern both Hot Door, Inc. and Adobe. First off, Adobe Illustrator redraws slowly compared to many CAD programs. Zooming in and out is very typical of AEC CAD work. Our file was very little yet the program wasn't as quick as we would have liked to see -- and this on a G4/350. Another improvement would be a way to understand how to do a duplicate array easier. You can duplicate things by dimension a few different ways but finding this out requires thorough investigation of the menus, palettes and good-ole trail and error. Lastly, the wall tool could be more refined. We like how you have the option of drawing walls (all elements really) by dimension as well as click and dragging. Recommendations Here are some basic recommendations. Other scenarios would apply as well. And naturally, this program may seem neat to you but may have no value for your work.
To learn more about CADtools 2.1 and CADgate (including their price) visit Hot door Inc., by clicking on their ad banner above or clicking here.
Other Architosh News and Special Reports Architosh Seybold Report: Mac products for CAD/AEC - Part 1 solidThinking 3D app coming to Mac OS 9 and OS X VersaCAD returning to the Macintosh! iDisk to be powerful tool for AEC and "design pros"
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