AllyCAD 3.5 Development Log =========================== Version 3.5 (Build 15) - 19/08/2008 =================================== General ------- (Build 1) 1. Initial public release. Please read comments under the Beta section for details of changes and additions. (Build 2) 2. Fixed a crash that occurred when the program was trying to display an error message during shutdown. The error message is always hosted by the main window but that window might have already closed. In such a case the error message is now hosted by the desktop (which is always present). (ID 491) (Build 3) (Build 4) 3. Special Issue: This is the final build of Civil Designer 6.4 and AllyCAD 3.5 that will work using Windows 95, 98 and ME. We have been forced to this step due to the lack of support from Microsoft for those operating systems, and due to the fact that the DWG/DXF library needs to support Unicode (which is not installed on those systems) in order to read and write AutoCAD 2007 files. This build will read and write AutoCAD files up to the 2006 version. (Build 5) 4. Special Issue: This build of Civil Designer 6.4 and AllyCAD 3.5 will only work on Windows 2000 or XP. This is due to the removal of Windows 95, 98 and ME support as detailed in the previous point. This build will read and write AutoCAD files up to the 2007 version. (Build 6) (Build 7) (Build 8) (Build 9) (Build 10) (Build 11) (Build 12) (Build 13) (Build 14) (Build 15) 9. Back-ported relevant fixes from AllyCAD 3.6/Civil Designer 6.5 CAD --- (Build 1) 1. Initial public release. Please read comments under the Beta section for details of changes and additions. (Build 2) 2. Bug fix: The virtual memory path setting in CAD.ini was being ignored and was being set to the Windows temp path. Now functions correctly. (ID 496) 3. Bug fix: Stretching of ellipses. If the ellipse is stretched the transformation is affine, which is similar to projecting a rotated 3D ellipse onto a 2D plane. Previously the ellipse was broken down into a number of elliptical arcs (cf. Readme 34.107) but this caused problems when copying and pasting from one drawing to another where the scales differed which caused the ellipse to "explode". This problem has been fixed by keeping the rotated ellipse as one entity and is accurate transformed after a stretch except for low aspect ratio ellipses, (i.e. where the minor axis is large in relation to the major axis) (ID 525). 4. Bug fix: Plotting, snipping and clipping of bitmaps into one pattern/object caused the program to crash. This has been fixed. It also updates the bitmap without changing it's order in the pattern (ID 528). 5. Bug fix: Ensure that current layer is always visible when loading a drawing (ID 531). (Build 3) 6. Bug fix: Current layer is not set when importing a *.dwg. This caused the bug in point 5 above. The current layer is now set correctly. (ID 597) 7. Bug fix: Fixed a crash on exiting the program that occurred after a failed AutoCAD DWG/DXF import. This was due to the imported file not being closed correctly after an error. 8. Bug fix: Fixed a problem where symbol lines aren't scaled correctly when the drawing is rescaled. This now works correctly (ID 594). 9. Bug fix: The older macros prompt for the newer fill, frame attributes when using the TEXTSTYLEAPPLY macro call. This has been fixed so that default values are supplied and the prompt no longer appears (ID 595). 10. Enhancement: Since AutoCAD doesn't support decimal-aligned text (lorg 0) this is exported with a point at the decimal position for accurate determination of survey points (ID 596). 11. Enhancement: Updated to version 2.02.0 of DWGDirect for AutoCAD import/ export. 12. Enhancement: Support for the import and export of AutoCAD 2007 drawings added. 13. Bug fix: Fixed a bug where the bitmap tile log file "BBMP.dbg" is not created even if BBMP=1 in the "knowbase.ini" file. "BBMP.dbg" is now created. (ID 617). 14. Bug fix: Fixed a bug with Ellipse2Arcs which caused a crash. (ID 621) 15. Bug fix: Symbol lines are now scaled correctly when the drawing is rescaled. Due to data structure/ storage issues all the entities in the block referenced by the symbol are rescaled since there is no unique block insert associated with a symbol line. (ID 622). 16. Bug fix: Fixed a bug with the import of AutoCAD drawings containing bound xrefs(blocks) which had drawing names of greater than the AllyCAD block and layer name length of 30 characters). These were then truncated incorrectly in AllyCAD so that some of the blocks/ layers are not unique. This has been fixed. (ID 623). 17. Bug fix: Exporting point AllyCAD "diamond" point style corrupts the *.dwg since this value is outside the point display mode range(0 to 100) which then crashes AutoCAD. Problem fixed by mapping the AllyCAD "diamond" point style to the AutoCAD "circle and box" point style. (ID 624). 18. Bug fix: When importing multiline text containing a pathname from AutoCAD, AllyCAD only reads up to the first backslash of the pathname string because AllyCAD mistakes this for formatting information. This now works correctly and also maps "\\D" to "\\ D" and "\\O" to "\\ O" so that AllyCAD won't interpret these as formatting characters. (ID 625). 19. Enhancement: Drawing an ellipse in isometric mode now takes the radius of the intended isometric circle instead of the major axis length. (ID 640) 20. Updated MrSID image handler SDK to version 6.0.7.1407. 21. Bug fix: MrSID images sometimes have less magnification available than is needed to fully tile the file. We now check how high the magnification can be and adjust our tiling algorithm accordingly. (ID 642) 22. Enhancement: We now export non-bezier polylines as light weight polylines instead of 2D polylines resulting in a massive reduction in the size of of *.dxf's, especially those drawings containing contours. (ID 652) 23. Bug fix: The drawing insertion point of surveyor drawing exported as a *.dwg/*.dxf has been changed so that it appears in the correct location if it is loaded in AutoCAD as an xref. (ID 645) 24. Bug fix: Fixed a bug with *.dxf export of a survey drawing without the wizard where the active view port was given a negative height and width corrupting the drawing. (ID 634) 25. Bug fix: We now export AutoCAD drawings as kMetric instead of kEnglish. 26. Enhancement: Import Wizard now adjusts the drawing scale based on the selected paper size and units when reading the model space. In the case of cartesian drawings there is an option to centre the drawing on the selected paper, this is done automatically for surveyor drawings.In the case of layouts the scale, paper size and units are obtained from the drawing, so the wizard does not appear. 27. Bug fix: Fixed crash that occurred when importing certain AutoCAD drawings with dimensions. (ID 659) 28. Bug fix: Fixed batch bitmap load function which would only work if the image files had lowercase extensions. (ID 660) 29. Fixed a possible problem with tiled bitmaps. The original problem is only reproducible on a single computer but, for safety's sake, we have to fix it. (Build 4) 30. Bug fix: DWG/DXF imported drawings with non-TrueType fonts would initially display using the incorrect font regardless of the specified mapping. This could only be cured by resetting the font in the Text Defaults dialog. This has been fixed as we now get the correct character set, pitch and family for the font to be displayed. (ID 667) 31. Bug fix: Text pen defaults to black after changing the font if the text pen is not one of the ones in the font pen combo box. Fixed this. Disabled pen in the font dialog since there is no one-one mapping between the font pens(standard pens only) and the colour dialog(all colours). (ID 683) 32. Enhancement: Updated to version 2.10.0 of DWGDirect for AutoCAD import/ export. Fixes problems with 2007 format export and trusted drawings. 33. Bug fix: Drawings with custom hatches which are opened without the hatch.pat file containing the custom hatch cause a crash when exporting to *.dwg and are not displayed in AllyCAD. This has been fixed. These hatches are now drawn as solid hatches with the same colour as the first hatch boundary line entity. (ID 389) 34. Bug fix: Autoperimeter tracking does not ignore dotted lines when the "Dotted" checkbox is unchecked. This has been fixed (ID 689) 35. Bug fix: Data items should be exported as invisible attributes if they are invisible in AllyCAD or if the "Show Data Items" comboBox is set to "None" in the "View Settings" dialog. This has been fixed. (ID 699) 36. Bug fix: Reading *.dwg/*.dxf files with multiple external references caused a stack overflow. This problem has now been fixed. (ID 671) 37. Bug fix: Exporting anonymous blocks (hatches: *X, dimensions *D, blocks: *U, non-uniformly scaled: *E, groups: *A) cause a program crash writing to *.dwg. This has problem has been fixed. (ID 692) 38. Bug fix: Exporting blocks with nested inserts shows "Undefined block #-1" when loading the drawing in AutoCAD. This problem has now been resolved. (ID 716). 39. Bug fix: Fixed "scale by zero" error when importing certain AutoCAD 2006 drawings (ID 484). (Build 5) 40. Special Issue: See point 5 under General (Build 6) 41. Bug fix: The export text function exports text on non-visible layers. This has been fixed so that only text on visible layers is exported. (ID 717) 42. Enhancement: The option to export only selected entities exporting a file as a *.dxf or *.dwg has been reinstated. (ID 742) 43. Bug fix: A change was made to the fix done for anonymous blocks (cf. 37). Now all blocks with a prefix '*' are regarded as anonymous and everything after the first two characters is truncated and renamed by DWGDirect. (ID 692) 44. Bug fix: Clipped, rotated bitmaps now rotate, drag and scale properly using drag handles. (ID 719) 45. Bug fix: Importing of ChoiceCAD drawings containing bitmaps caused a crash. This now converts ChoiceCAD and all pre AllyCAD 34 bitmaps to AllyCAD 35 bitmaps. (ID 741) 46. Enhancement: Added busy cursor (hourglass) while exporting drawings to AutoCAD and made error messages clearer. (ID 743) 47. Enhancement: Updated to version 2.2.00 of DWGDirect for AutoCAD import/ export. 48. Bug fix: Put text effects panel back for bugfix discussed in comment 31 because this removed the text "underline" and "strikeout", but using a custom font dialog which no longer allows colour selection. (ID 683) 49. Bug fix: Fix for custom hatches in comment 33 caused "No Hatch" pattern to be displayed as a solid hatch. This has been fixed. (ID 389) 50. Bug fix: Fixed a bug with the autotracking of continuous bylayer lines and arcs. This only worked if the "dotted" option was checked. This now works correctly. (ID 689) 51. Bug fix: Fixed a bug where the drawing size was to 150kB in demo mode. This has been corrected and is no longer set. (ID 880) 52. Bug fix: Fixed a bug with the import of AutoCAD drawings containing layer names of greater than the AllyCAD layer name length. These are truncated from the right to provide a unique name. (ID 1004) 53. Bug fix: Fixed a bug where the rescaling of symbol lines caused a crash. (ID 1006) 54. Bug fix: Fixed a bug with exporting custom linetypes to *.dwg. If the continuous linetype is named anything else but "CONTINUOUS" this caused an AllyCAD crash. AllyCAD now forces the continuous layer to be named "CONTINUOUS". (ID 1007) 55. Bug fix: Fixed a bug when loading a *.dwg into a southern hemisphere AllyCAD drawing without using the wizard. The arcs appear the wrong way around, this has been corrected. (ID 1009) 56. Bug fix: Fixed a bug where imported *.dwg blocks with a non-zero origin appear in the wrong position. This gives the appearance that the drawing is breaking up. (ID 1011) 57. Bug fix: Fixed a bug where blocks with names "" cause a drawing to crash when exporting to *.dwg. (ID 1014) 58. Bug fix: Fixed a problem with estimate scale function in the dwg import wizard is set to zero, this has been fixed. (ID 1016) (Build 7) 59. Bug fix: Fixed a bug with DWG import of zero length arcs. Since AllyCAD has no way of differentiating between these and circles they are converted to points. (ID 1028) 60. Bug fix: Fixed a bug with imported DWG lineweights not being scaled correctly. (ID 1036) 61. Bug fix: Built in a trap for undefined blocks during a plot. (ID 1040) 62. Bug fix: Loading *.dwg/*.dxf into a southern hemisphere survey drawing with the wizard switched on in AllyCAD caused a coordinate shift. (ID 1044) 63. Bug fix: Fixed a bug with polygon snip where bulged polylines were broken up into a series of lines and polylines. This now works correctly. (ID 1049) (Build 8) 64. Bug fix: Fixed a bug when exporting arcs to *.dwg into a southern hemisphere. The arcs sometimes appear the wrong way around, this has been corrected. (ID 1052) 65. Bug fix: DWG Import: Duplicate block names could result when block names are truncated during DWG import. (ID 1068) 66. Bug fix: DWG Import: Hatches with no perimeter loop (bad DWG file) now handled. 67. Enhancement: Updated to version 2.3.00 of DWGDirect for AutoCAD import/ export. Now supports AutoCAD 2008 format drawings. 68. Bug fix: Dashed lines being exported as continuous, this has been fixed. (ID 1078) 69. Bug fix: Exported dashed lines are now scaled correctly for AutoCAD. Scaling takes places on an individual line level when creating the lines for the AutoCAD linetype table so that they correspond with the acad.lin and acadiso.lin files. It then takes places on a second level when we set the global line scale when we convert current drawing units to mm on paper. (ID 1086) 70. Bug fix: Set the *.dxf or *.dwg drawing units to kMetric if we are using metric units in AllyCAD and kEnglish if we are using imperial units in AllyCAD. (ID 1089) 71. Bug fix: Hatch scale for export and import to AutoCAD and back into AllyCAD should now be correct. (ID 1103) 72. Bug fix: Certain arcs and hatch boundary arcs when exported to AutoCAD appear the wrong way around. This has been fixed. (ID 1111) (Build 9) 73. Bug fix: Bug with importing blocks from *.dwg. Error message "Could not create Block Insert!" appears and later the program crashes. This has been fixed. This bug was introduced in point 65 above (ID 1131). 74. Enhancement: The Clarke 1880 -> WGS84 transformation now stores the entered LO value for the next time the function is used. Previously the initial LO value was always set as 19 (which it still defaults to the first time the function is used). 75. Enhancement: AutoCAD export proxy entities are no longer created by the DWGDirect library when a *.dxf / *.dwg drawing is created. (ID 1088) 76. Bug fix: In the *dwg / *dxf export hatch boundaries arcs were the start and end point was less than one unit were mistaken for a hatch boundary circle. This has been fixed. (ID 1170) (Build 10) 77. Enhancement: Speed up the ellipse redraw for ellipses in blocks where the x and y scales are identical. (ID 1176) 78. Enhancement: Ignore AutoCAD layouts which have not been defined (where the tab for the layout exists in AutoCAD, but nothing else). (ID 1177) 79. Enhancement: The graphical representation of AutoCAD "proxy" objects is now loaded from DWG/DXF files. However the proxy object itself is not preserved. 80. Bug fix: DWG import of polyface meshes updated to handle case where number of vertices and faces not specified. (ID 1188) 81. Bug fix: DWG export of linear dimensions (text placement and rotation was wrong). (ID 1193) 82. Bug fix: DWG northern hemisphere import. Fixed coordinate shift. (ID 1208) 83. Enhancement: Updated to version 2.3.01 of DWGDirect for AutoCAD import/ export. (Build 11) 84. Enhancement: Updated tiled bitmap creation to support MrSID and JPEG2000 files created with non 8-bit data. 85. Bug fix: If bbf (tiled bitmap) files are created that are greater than 2GB in size (typically when the compressed option for bbf creation is turned off) then errors occur when trying to read tiles out of the file. This is a system limitation. In order to bypass this limitation the CAD will now automatically created compressed tiles if the uncompressed size of the original bitmap is 1GB or greater, regardless of the system setting. (ID 1426) 86. MrSID and JPEG2000 files which are not in RGB format are no longer supported as the band data in non-RGB files is not necessarily convertible to RGB equivalency. Also not supported are JPEG2000 files of greater than 24 bit colour depth. 87. Bug fix: If control bar input is active when exiting the program a crash occurs. (ID 1735) (Build 12) 88. Bug fix: Fixed range error bug in snip and polysnip for polylines. (ID 1049) 89 Bug fix: Implemented circle snip for polylines with bulges. (ID 1049) 90 Bug fix: Fixed circle snip (outside) for polylines where the polylines used to disappear. The polylines are now snipped correctly. (ID 1049) 91. Bug fix. Fixed a bug with the bitmap path dialog where the original path was overwritten even if the ignore reference button was selected. Also an enhancement made so that the last successful bitmap path is used to check for other bitmaps. You therefore only have to browse for the first bitmap if all the bitmaps lie in the same directory. The new paths are automatically updated. (ID 1115) (Build 13) 92. Bug fix: DWG Import: Fixed bug in handling case where DWG extents are "invalid" (ID 1866). 93. Bug fix: DWG Import: MText drawn in incorrect font (ID 1867). (Build 14) 94. Fixed occasional crash when exiting the program with open drawings that contain bitmaps. 95. Enhancement: Updated image handler library to version 14.5.0.75. (Build 15) 96. Back-ported relevant fixes from AllyCAD 3.6 Toolkit ------- (Build 1) 1. Initial public release. Please read comments under the Beta section for details of changes and additions. (Build 2) 2. Bug fix: Generate PQ Sheet was not properly calculating the PQ summation when the section list contained part sections. (ID 497) 3. Enhancement: The minus sign added as a delimiter for bearings. (ID 513) (Build 3) 4. Bug fix: Fixed a bug where the symbol path in the Architectural toolkit is not found even if the symbol directory path exists. This is now working correctly. (ID 557) 5. Bug fix: Poorly formatted trig beacon names in the Control Coords dialog could have led to a crash. Generally made more robust. (ID 575) (Build 4) 6. Bug fix: Tracing a many-sided figure for SG diagram or GP outside figure purposes could have led to a crash. (ID 696). 7. Enhancement: Added Sectional Plans option for bearings in the Block Plan sides and direction table to be rounded to 10 seconds. (ID 700) 8. Bug fix: Blind drilled holes were drawn too long (ID 712). (Build 5) 9. Special Issue: See point 5 under General (Build 6) 10. Enhancement: Setting a zero radius for beacon circles will now prevent beacon circles being drawn and lines being snipped. Relevant for SG diagrams, block corners and GP outside figures. (ID 934). (Build 7) (Build 8) 11. Bug fix: Multiple dimensioning could falsely dimension both sides of the same erf line instead of straddling it. Fixed. 12. Bug fix: SG dimensioning and corner circle drawing will now always switch on the visibility of the drawn-to layer. 13. SG Office requirements: Sectional plans Sheet 1 template drawing updated with full Act number. Font of GP titleblock changed to be more readable. 14. Bug fix: Fixed a bug in the architectural toolkit stairs dialog which allowed zero values to be entered, which caused a division by zero error. (ID 1077). (Build 9) 15. Bug fix: Read Excel Table was incorrect positioning text for northern hemisphere drawings (ID 1117) (Build 10) 16. Bug fix: Section manager was not storing the section number when saving and while the display mode was set to 'collapsed'. (ID 1220) 17. Bug fix: Import of text data into "User Table" (Mech Toolkit) when data missing from one or more columns. (Build 11) (Build 12) 18. Bug fix: Program crashes if a gear (Mechanical Toolkit) is drawn on any layer other than layer 0 (ID 1749). (Build 13) 19. Bug fix: PQ Adjustment (Sectional title toolkit) was only working if the affected section was first in the list. (ID 1842) (Build 14) 20. Reworked architectural toolkit to fix possible crash after selecting a symbol. (Build 15) 21. Back-ported relevant fixes from AllyCAD 3.6 Turn ---- (Build 1) 1. Initial public release. Please read comments under the Beta section for details of changes and additions. (Build 2) 2. Bug Fix: Cargo Designer stores the incorrect position when drawing units are mm. (ID 522) (Build 3) 3. Lines drawn after simulation are added to the Track Path group when both Path and vehicle layers are the same. (ID 637) (Build 4) (Build 5) 4. Special Issue: See point 5 under General (Build 6) (Build 7) (Build 8) (Build 9) (Build 10) 5. Bug Fix: Second trailer start angle did not get saved when pressing OK on the Setup dialog. (Build 11) (Build 12) (Build 13) (Build 14) (Build 15) 6. Back-ported relevant fixes from AllyCAD 3.6/Civil Designer 6.5 Version 3.5 Beta (Build 8) ========================== General ------- General ------- (Build 1) 1. Enhancement: Updated crash reporting to a version that can be run on Windows 98 and Me. The new crash report also runs outside the crashed application so should have less problems in actually reporting the error. 2. Enhancement: Updated the Colour toolbar to display pen numbers on the colours. Also extending the toolbar to display the first 31 pens (instead of 15) along with the ByLayer pen, and added an additional button on the toolbar that will open the standard Pen Selection dialog for more choices. 3. Enhancement: Updated the linetype combobox such that, when disabled, the text is greyed out and the line not drawn. (Build 2) (Build 3) 4. Internal use: Fixed a problem with the ending of running functions. (Build 4) 5. New feature: Added tool tips-for all the controls on all the dialogs. 6. New feature: Added an option in Option Settings under General to disable tooltips on dialogs. (Build 5) (Build 6) 7. New feature: Added an option that limits the program to only a single instance. If this option is enabled then attempting to start another instance of the program when it is already running will simply transfer activation to the existing instance. To manage this option enter or edit the following in the KNOWBASE.INI file (located in the Windows directory): [Global] SingleInstance=0/1 Set the value to 1 to enable the option, or to 0 to disable it (operate as was previously the case). The default is to operate in the previous manner. 8. New feature: Added an option that can disable the "Are you sure you want to exit" prompt. To manage this option enter or edit the following in the KNOWBASE.INI file (located in the Windows directory): [Global] PromptForExit=0/1 Set the value to 1 to enable the option (operate as was previously the case) or to 0 to disable it. The default is to operate in the previous manner. 9. Internal use: Fixed a bug in ini file handling. The program reported the incorrect section length for empty sections. (Build 7) 10. Bug fix: A problem was created when implementing item 8 in the CAD section below. In most instances settings would be read and written correctly using an internal list and in some other instances read or written directly from the relevant ini file. The problem was that any settings made directly would be overwritten when the in-memory list was saved to disk. This has now been corrected. 11. Bug fix: The Single Instance feature that was added as item 10 above has a problem when working with Civil Designer. This feature has been restricted to use with AllyCAD only until such time as we can correct the problem. (Build 8) 12. Bug fix: A problem was occurring when querying the existence of a path during certain functions. This query was always returning that the path existed even if it did not. Updated the internal functions to use calls from the Windows Shell API which are more reliable. 13. Updated to the latest version of the image handler library. 14. Enhancement: The window placement settings stored in the KNOWBASE.INI file have been separated for AllyCAD and Civil Designer. This will allow different placements for clients who run both programs on the same PC. CAD --- (Build 1) 1. Enhancement: Updated the Remove Duplicates function to remove entities that are actually duplicates although they were were drawn in opposite directions. Previously only entities that were identical in all respects would be removed. This implied that the entities would have been drawn in the same direction. Now we also check for entities drawn in a reverse direction but which otherwise are still duplicates. 2. Enhancement: Fixed and updated FileBlocks. See FileBlocks menu. 3. Enhancement: New AutoCAD import/export using DWGDirect which supports AutoCAD versions 2004 and 2005. 4. New feature: Added handling of AutoCAD "paperspaces" (layouts). The layouts are saved out to separate drawings, with the modelspace viewports as fileblocks. 5. Enhancement: Implemented BYBLOCK pen. Entities in a block which have their pen colour set to BYBLOCK are drawn in the colour of the block insert. Entities in a block which is used in a symbol line are drawn in the colour of the symbol line. 6. Bug fix: Fixed a bug where a block is inserted even if the escape key is pressed during a block insert. 7. Enhancement: Altered Pen Mapping to encompass the full range of pens rather than just the first 15 that were used previously. 8. Internal use: Adjusted internal handling of the CAD.INI file to allow the file to grow to over 64KB. Files greater than 64KB would be truncated at 64KB in Windows 95, 98 and ME. The new handling method bypasses this restriction. 9. Enhancement: Updated handling of MrSID image files (*.sid) which was painfully slow when using our standard 3rd party image library. We now use the MrSID SDK to process MrSID images for tiling which is much faster. 10. New feature: As a side effect of point 9 above we now have the capability of handling JPEG 2000 (*.jp2) format image files. 11. Enhancement: Replaced the standard Windows Colour dialog with a custom dialog that includes a "From CAD Pen" button. This allows easy selection of a solid colour that exactly matches the colour of an existing pen. 12. Enhancement: Added perpendicular snap functionality to the measure function. Perpendicular distances can now be measured with ease. 13. Enhancement: Changed tiled bitmaps to no longer hold a cache of bitmap tiles in memory. The result of this change is that much less memory is used when loading a drawing with many bitmaps at the expense of slower drawing of the bitmaps (as they need to be loaded from disk on every redraw). 14. New feature: Added a new function, FINDTXT, that will locate text in a drawing based on a wild-card case-insensitive search. The wild-cards that may be used are * which matches 0 or more occurrences of characters and ? which matches a single occurrence of a character. When a matching text item is located the drawing is panned at the current zoom factor to the location of the text and you have the option of continuing or cancelling the search. The menu item for this function is under the Tools menu as Locate Text. 15. New feature: Added a new function, POLYBULGE, which allows the entry of polylines with arcs at vertex points. The function is identical in operation to the Line-Arc-Line function except that a polyline is created. The menu item for this function is under the Draw menu as Bulged Polyline. 16. New feature: Added a new function, BITMAPBATCH, which will load all bitmaps of supported types from a selected directory. The supported types are JPEG, TIFF, BMP, ECW and MrSID. However, in order to facilitate the automatic placement of these bitmaps, a world file of the same name as the bitmap must exist in the same folder. The standard world files (log, tfw, sdw and hgr) are supported. For Southern Hemisphere drawings the sign of the coordinates in the world file are automatically reversed. The menu item for this function is under the File | Load menu as Batch Load Bitmaps. 17. Items 2 and 4 relating to fileblocks have been removed again due to persistent problems. We will be working on this and aim to reintroduce the functionality at a later stage. (Build 2) 18. Enhancement: Simplified the definition of points when setting up a Helmert transformation. Previously you would have to click a Yes button in order to input every point beyond the third which was not very user-friendly if you wanted to select many points. Now you have the option of pressing the space bar before selecting an old system point in order to terminate the point entry. If you terminate with less than 3 transform points entered then the function will end. If 3 or more points have been entered the function will continue as you have a chance of cancelling later on. 19. Enhancement: Updated to version 1.13.0 of DWGDirect for AutoCAD import/ export. 20. Enhancement: Added functionality to the close file dialog so that if a new file extension is selected from the drop down combo box this file extension is updated in the file name in the edit box above. 21. Bug fix: Fixed a bug in the plot function so that it could handle the new bitmaps. During a plot the following message used to appear "Bad id 48 passed to CADControl". 22. Bug fix: Fixed a problem with AutoCAD and AllyCAD palettes being muddled up after a dwg/dxf drawing was loaded. (Build 3) 23. Enhancement: Changed pen mappings so that only nonzero pen widths, and colours that differ from the current palette are stored in the pen mappings dialog. If a mapped pen does not exist the current palette pen colour is shown. If a mapped width does not exist a zero is displayed. 24. Enhancement: AutoCAD XRefs now loaded in AllyCAD as normal blocks (no clipping). 25. Enhancement: Viewport clipping for bitmaps implemented for rotated and clipped bitmaps. Bitmap rotation edit box is no longer greyed out in the bitmap dialog. 26. Enhancement: Printing implemented for clipped and rotated bitmaps. (Build 4) 27. Bug fix: Fixed a crash in Import Shape Files. A NULL string was specified as the default when reading from an IniList. (Build 5) 28. Enhancement: Updated the results of division in macros where the second operand was 0. Previously the result of such an expression would be 1 which is a bit misleading. Such a division will now return 0 as the result. 29. Bug fix: Updated stack processing in macros. There was no check for stack underflows which could result in bad expressions causing an infinite loop. The condition is now tested for and displays an error message if encountered. 30. Bug fix: Fixed an odd error message that was displayed when exiting after having imported an AutoCAD DWG/DXF file. The imported file was not being closed correctly. 31. Enhancement: Updated AutoCAD DWG/DXF import library to version 1.13.02. 32. Enhancement: Updated the MrSID SDK to version 5.0.6.955. (Build 6) 33. Bug fix: Fixed a bug relating to old style bitmaps (pre-3.5) contained in blocks being converted to new style bitmaps. In this case internal drawing structures were updated incorrectly resulting in a drawing that could not be loaded due to a continual loop. 34. Enhancement: In DXF/DWG import the linear dimension "linear measurement scale factor" is honoured. Special characters %%o and %%nnn in AutoCAD text are now converted appropriately. 35. Bug fix: Fixed a bug in DXF/DWG export where text with "decimal point" alignment was being given an invalid alignment value. 36, Bug fix: Fixed sizing of text exported to DXF/DWG. 37. Bug fix: Fixed bug/crash exporting elliptical arcs to DXF/DWG. 38. Bug fix: Fixed sizing of tolerance frame imported from DXF/DWG. 39. Big fix: Fixed a bug with the snipping of hatches and bitmaps. There is still some work to be done on snipped bitmaps with islands(holes) and multiple snips. 40. Bug fix: Fixed a bug with the plotting of hatches and bitmaps. This works for plots of clipped rotated bitmaps as well. 41. Bug fix: Fixed a bug exporting linestyles to DXF/DWG - "Invalid Symbol Table name" (Build 7) 42. Bug fix: Fixes to DXF/DWG polyline import/export (2D polyline segment widths stored but not used). 43. Enhancement: Updated AutoCAD DWG/DXF import library to version 1.14.01. This was changed back to 1.13.02 because of a problem with dimensions in which caused AllyCAD to crash and dimensions were not imported. 44. Bug fix: Support for forward-referenced blocks when importing DWG/DXF (eg: blocks within xref's). 45. Bug fix: Rotation of attribute text when importing DWG/DXF "block array". 46. Enhancement: DWG/DXF splines now more closely approximated using a polyline. 47. Enhancement: Implemented importing of DWG/DXF "polyface mesh" (converted to lines). 48. Enhancement: Improved the method of selecting images. If you click or double click near the edge of the image it is selected. 49. Enhancement: An error message that could occur during the Clarke->WGS84 transformation has been made more informative stating which entities are problematic. 50. Bug fix: Fixed a problem where all the bitmaps of the first plot are unloaded. Previously the only way of remedying this was reloading the drawing. The bitmaps are now reloaded automatically. (Build 8) 51. Bug fix: Fix to font mapping when loading DWG/DXF with XRefs. 52. Bug fixes to DWG/DXF import/export: - Corrected arrow/leader colour - Updated handling of MText special characters '{', '%%C', '%%D' etc. - Fixed AutoCAD spline to AllyCAD polyline conversion - Zoom to last AutoCAD view fixed - Fix to number of decimal places when AutoCAD dimension units are not type "Decimal" - Fixed bug where "frozen" layer was visible in AllyCAD - 2-line angular dimensions: correct arc segment now imported - Better hatch scaling - Splines with 0 fit points now approximated more correctly - Fixed bug where program crashed when exporting an arrow - Fixed import of polyface mesh with "invalid" vertexes - Fixed import of elliptical arc with negative normal vector (was draw "backwards") - Import of Multibyte and Unicode special characters in AutoCAD text now handled 53. Changed the Cut and Rub function to continue with the selected function until Esc or Space is pressed. Then prompt to cut another line. If Yes, give cut options again. (ID 20) 54. Added an option to the Polygon draw function to continue drawing polygons with the current parameters. (ID 20) 55. Changed the Divide a line function under the Toolkit General menu to continue dividing lines with the current settings until Esc or Space is pressed, then the menu with options is displayed again. (ID 20) 56. Fixed a bug in DWG import routine. Hatch perimeters that include arcs came in incorrectly, sometimes causing infinite loops. (ID 26) 57. Enhancement: AllyCAD now hatches ellipses and part ellipses for both solid and normal hatches. It imports and exports these to DWG/DXF and as macros. (ID 21) 58. Enhancement: The bitmap placeholder has been adapted for rotated and clipped bitmaps. (ID 323) 59. Enhancement: Added support for reading JPEG2000 world files when loading bitmaps. These world files have the same format as .tfw files but have the extensions .j2w, .jxw and .jfw. 60. Enhancement: Added support for reading positioning information directly from the image file when loading Earth Resource Mapper .ecw bitmaps. Note that this only applies if the positioning information is in metres. 61. Enhancement: Updated BITMAPBATCH (item 16) to handle .j2w world files and to handle .ecw files without world files (reading positioning information directly from the image file rather than from a world file). 62. Bug Fix: The TEXTSTYLEAPPLY macro always applies changes to the fill and frame text settings, regardless of the input. (ID 336) 63. Bug Fix: Fixed a bug with the List Objects function which caused the program to crash. Also fixed a bug which gave a funny area value for some drawings using the same function. (ID 359) 64. Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where the colour is not correct when importing a solid hatch from AutoCAD with a bylayer pen colour. (ID 358) 65. Bug Fix: In intersection snap or jump code was added to ignore points, and geometry lines or arcs which have elements which are duplicate arcs or lines (collinear / parallel in the case of lines) when selecting elements to find intersections. 66. Bug Fix: When the units (mm, inches, points) are changed in the Dimension Settings Dialog the witness gap, witness overshoot, arrowhead length, arrowhead, width and text height now change to reflect the current units. 67. Enhancement: Added support for reading bitmap rotations when loading bitmaps that have an associated world file. 68. Enhancement: Added support for reading .geo world files. 69. Bug Fix: Fixed a bug with the printing of tiled bitmaps, where some of the bitmap tiles were distorted. 70. Bug Fix: Fixed a bug with the bitmap scaling which allowed a negative pixel size or a pixel size of zero, which caused the bitmap to disappear. The absolute value of pixel size is now used if the pixel size is negative and the pixel size is unchanged if the pixel size is zero. 71. Bug Fix: Fixed the export of rotated and clipped bitmaps to AutoCAD. (ID 393). 72. Bug Fix: Fixed a bug with the export of multiline text from Civil Designer to *.dwg. AllyCAD did not recognise the '\n' as a linefeed character and did not convert it to a '\P' which AutoCAD uses for linefeeds. (ID 394). 73. Bug Fix: Added support for exporting solid colours to AutoCAD. 74. Enhancement: Added support for the export of filled polylines to AutoCAD. The fill is exported as a hatch entity. 75. Bug Fix: Fixed a bug with the scale of the arrow head when importing a leader (arrow) from AutoCAD. The arrow head now scales correctly. 76. Bug Fix: Fixed a bug with the point jump / snap. The cursor now jumps to the closest corner in the case of an unclipped bitmap and the closest vertex in the case of a clipped bitmap. 77. Enhancement: Added pen number display for the standard pens in the colour selection dialog. 78. Bug Fix: Corrected functionality of AutoBackup where the backup path setting was blank or set to ".". In these cases the program was unable to rename backup files so ABACKUP2.DRG was never created. ABACKUP1.DRG would be created but ABACKUP2.DRG would actually be named as ABACKUP1.bak. 79. Enhancement: Extended functionality of AutoBackup in order to make backups of new drawings that had not yet been stored and to include the current drawing name in the backup file name. The backup files are now named ABACKUP1.name.DRG and ABACKUP2.name.DRG where name is the current name of the drawing. This will ensure that backups are not overwritten when more than one drawing is open. 80. Bug Fix: Fixed a bug with the export of bitmaps to AutoCAD where more than one of the same bitmap exists in the drawing, only one of the images is seen in AutoCAD. Fixed this by checking the image database and assigning a unique name to each image. 81. Bug Fix: Fixed a leak which occurred when snipping closed polylines. 82. Enhancement: Parallel geometry lines now works for polylines. A geometry line is now drawn parallel to the closest polyline segment. (ID 450) 83. Bug fix: Symbol lines are drawn as normal continuous lines if visible symbol size is less than 1 pixel. Symbol lines are also clipped. Result is a faster redraw. 84. Bug fixes to DWG/DXF import/export: - The export of dimensions with no text label now handled correctly - Import of dimension text with special characters (DWG 2004+) - Corrected alignment of imported paperspace on AllyCAD "paper" - Corrected initial zoom to current view when importing DWG paperspace Toolkit ------- (Build 1) 1. New feature: Sectional Plans is a new suite of functions added to the survey toolkit. These are for the preparation of the main sheets of a sectional plan, i.e. sheet1, block plan, floor plans and the pq sheet. 2. Enhancement: The Setup dialogs for the Diagram and General Plan functions have been simplified with the optional settings moved to separate dialogs. They have also been given a new look and feel. 3. Enhancement: Added grub screws (set screws) to the Mechanical Toolkit socket screws function. 4. Enhancement: Where you are prompted to enter text or "Blank to continue" a single press of the spacebar will now also allow you to continue. This is to clear up some confusion as to the meaning of 'blank'. The intention was for no entry at all. 5. Enhancement: Improved the overlaying of the title block drawing when generating an SG diagram. The borders of the generated drawing are now the same as the title block drawing. Previously there was a horizontal shift. (Build 2) 6. Enhancement: Various checks put in place for the setup dialogs of the SG toolkit to ensure that settings are loaded when you want to continue. The most obvious of these is that the OK button is disabled until an ini file is loaded. 7. Enhancement: A method put in place to determine whether an SG toolkit ini file being loaded is in fact valid for the current setup dialog. (Build 3) 8. Enhancement: In SG functions underlining of text as a default setting is now possible. (Build 4) (Build 5) (Build 6) 10. Bug fix: General Plan Options had the handling of the bearings and thousand separators switched around. 11. Bug fix: Underlining of text in Sectional Plans would occur throughout or not at all instead of per item as intended. 12. Enhancement: Sectional Plan Sheet 1 title block drawing amended with more space for the SGD number to be filled in. 13. Bug fix: SG Diagram was not printing the erf area. 14. Bug fix: SG Diagram Setup dialog did not have row headings for the Data table page. (Build 7) (Build 8) Turn ---- (Build 1) 1. Enhancement: Added tool tips that explains the dimension fields on the Vehicle Dimension dialogs. 2. Enhancement: Updated some of the Dimension dialogs. 3. Enhancement: Each Minimum envelope will be grouped into its own pattern and will always be located on layer MIN_TURN_ENVELOPE. 4. Enhancement: When running the Delete Run function, the MIN_TURN_ENVELOPE layer will not be deleted. 5. Enhancement: Added an option to the Dynamic Simulation function. You can now specify an obstacle position and clearance distance. The vehicle will then move around the specified obstacle position. (Build 2) (Build 3) (Build 4) 6. Enhancement: Added an option to the Simulation output dialog to export the array to an ASCII file (*.csv). 7. Enhancement: Added a check-box to the Simulation Output dialog that will cause the array not to be printed with the graph when the user clicks the Print button. The graph will then be printed 1.5 times bigger. (Build 5) (Build 6) (Build 7) (Build 8)