Autocad LT 2004 and Turbocad 9

Autocad LT 2004, the 'lite' version of Autodesk's premier Cad package, is around a quarter of the price of the full-blown 3D-enabled application, but it's still too pricey for most wallets.

Much cheaper is the Standard version of Turbocad 9 from IMSI. So how do the two compare?

Both applications follow a convention of model space - where you create and lay out the 2D model and paper space - where the finished drawing is laid out in its assorted elevations according to industry standards.

Autocad allows the use of independent viewports in both model and paper space to let you work more easily on individual parts of the drawing.

Turbocad has an advantage over its rival, however, with the added bonus of tools for creating, manipulating and rendering models in 3D space.

Autodesk reserves this power for the full version of Autocad, but leaves the 2D toolset more or less intact in LT.

By contrast, IMSI seems to reserve the lion's share of the more useful new features in both dimensions for the Professional version of Turbocad.

Both the packages we looked at share many features and processes. For example, both install on a single CD and use the mouse wheel to zoom.

They also feature property inspectors, a layer-based workflow and standard tools for creating lines, arcs and curves.

Annotations
Both Autocad LT 2004 and Turbocad 9 have enhanced control over text, commonly used here for annotating drawings.

The latter allows you to enter, edit and format paragraphs with multiple lines of text (multi-text) including some advanced formatting capabilities.

In addition, Turbocad 9 can embed multi-text with dimensions to enhance the display of the measurements of lines and angles.

Dimensioning in Autocad LT 2004 simply involves selecting an object to add dimensions, with virtually all standard dimensioning types available for your use.

Turbocad 9 can also 'explode' any imported or native text into its constituent parts for greater creative control.

Autocad LT 2004 meanwhile now allows you to use the Mtext Editor to create indents and tabs in its version of multiple line text, Mtext.

This helps the onerous task of correctly aligning text in tables and numbered lists. Individual characters in the Mtext can also be selected for formatting styles.

File formats play a big part in Cad and, as well as tcw (the native vector file format), tct, the template format and the Ascii file format tcx, Turbocad 9 can read and export most of the common file format types.

This includes the dwf export file format already mentioned and the import/export for Autocad's native dwg format.

Autocad LT 2004 can, of course, import and export full dwg files as well as other native Autocad formats.

AUTOCAD LT 2004
Autodesk seems to have gone for broke in easing the way for the user with this version of Autocad LT.

Active Assistance provides context-sensitive help for the design task you are working on and, to further help you learn the ropes, Autodesk has included the New Features Workshop, a set of informative screens and tutorials.

The first of these has a few layout mistakes and typos however, which takes the shine off this useful feature.

Another innovation is an auto update function in the shape of the Communication Center icon, which flashes in the status bar tray whenever needed.

Other icons include Manage Xrefs, which shows an alert when an external reference document attached to the drawing needs to be reloaded or resolved.

Xrefs are used when you want to incorporate additional drawings without making their data part of your current drawing (such as landscape info around a house floorplan) and are usually loaded when the master drawing is opened.

The Properties palette gives access to all the elements in your workspace and allows you to change the properties of selected objects from a centralised location. By selecting Auto Hide the palette can be kept on screen in minimised form until needed.

The Tool Palettes window floats over the workspace and snaps to the side of the program window when dragged over it.

It features sets of commonly used symbols (blocks) and hatch patterns that you can insert into your drawing.

Again the auto hide option is available and you have the ability to add blocks of your own or import tool palettes from co-workers.

Another floating window is the Design Center, which is divided into a tree view and a content area. You can use this to browse for content anywhere on your hard disk or network.

From here you can create new Tool palettes and populate them with predesigned examples.

You can also connect with Cad websites to link to manufacturers' catalogues and libraries for new blocks or product information. Content can be searched via keywords and using filtered searches.

Another 'connected' feature is the ability to email groups of drawings in electronic form to colleagues and clients.

The Design Publisher environment uses the Publish tool to select the required plans for sending as a multi-sheet Design Web Format (dwf) file.

This can be viewed in the standalone Autodesk Express Viewer, a free player available from the Autodesk website, or in other design applications.

To cope with the transferring of files, Autodesk has added a new level of security with the implementation of digital signatures. These are embedded within the drawing and are invalidated when any unauthorised change is made.

A status bar icon called the Validate Digital Signatures icon will warn when changes have been made and allow you to revalidate the signature using the correct password.

Price: £962 (£818 ex VAT)

Contact: Autodesk 01252 456 789
www.autodesk.co.uk

System requirements:

• 800MHz Pentium III or later
• 128MB Ram, (256MB recommended)
• Windows XP/2000 Professional/NT4 (SP6a or later)
• 200MB of hard disk space
• 1,024 x 768 resolution VGA monitor with true colour
• Internet Explorer 6

Useful interface; text and security improvements; internet connectivity fully exploited.

Cons:
Expensive; some interface bugs; limited external format support.

Overall:
Slick, well-presented design package targeted squarely at the 2D market. A host of interface enhancements augment the easy workflow of this architectural tool.

TURBOCAD 9
Turbocad 9 also offers quick and easy ways to get into Cad, with tutorials covering basic line objects, simple round objects, editing and move tools.

Many of the basic principles are the same as in the Autodesk package, but Turbocad 9 also offers tutorials on 3D modelling and editing - again concentrating on those features that bump this into the realms of a general design and mechanical engineering tool, not just one restricted to 2D drafting.

Tutorials are hands-off - just simple movies that lead you through some basic techniques. And there's a lot of ground to cover for the beginner here, as is common with any application offering 3D modelling.

To ease the task, a new manual is included, replacing the software-based guide of previous releases. It's of the standard 'weighty tome' reference type, but as we said before, most of the more interesting functions described within seem to be reserved for Turbocad Professional only.

Turbocad 9 does have newly streamlined Copy, Mirror and Transform commands though. The Copy tools can be used on both 2D and 3D objects, and can now be used in any order.

You can also simplify the moving, rotating and scaling processes by transforming multiple entities in one go.

There is also an improved range of snapping modes, both in 2D and 3D, for precisely placing the cursor where you want it. Turbocad 9 also introduces relative display priority, allowing users to change the display priority by multiple levels.

Other drafting and presentation improvements in this version include assignable background colours to distinguish model space and paper space.

There's also Print Styles, which lets you set and apply pen and brush settings. Before sending the drawing to print, the colour, line style and brush of an object can be pre-determined via the Print Style Manager.

Usefully, this doesn't need to affect objects on screen, appearing instead in the finished article.

On the 3D side, Turbocad 9 now simplifies work plane visualisation by enabling you to toggle the display at the points where existing 3D objects intersect with the work plane, which we found useful.

Rendering, of course, is essential to 3D modellers and Turbocad 9 offers OpenGL and Raytrace methods, but seems to have left the high-end improvements in this version to the Professional package.

Nevertheless, Turbocad 9 is a fairly comprehensive modeller in its own right and you'll find it adequate for most basic tasks.

It's always wise to do your modelling on a reasonably fast machine, however, like our 2.66GHz Pentium 4, which included an ATI Radeon 9500 graphics card that was ideal for rendering.

Price: £69.99 (£59.57 ex VAT)

Contact: Mediagold International 020 7221 4600
www.turbocad.co.uk

System requirements:

• 1.6GHz Pentium II, 128MB of Ram
• Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/NT4
• 55MB to 220MB of hard disk space
• 64MB of swap space
• 3D graphics accelerator card
• Net connection

Highly compatible; all-round 2D and 3D design too.

Cons:
Unintuitive interface.

Overall:
This standard edition provides a good grounding for 2D and 3D Cad beginners, with some key text, printing and object editing improvements on past versions.