Key Features
AllyCAD’s intuitive interface and logical technical drawing processes are appreciated by seasoned draighting professionals as well as hobbyist designers alike.
Review some of the key features and functionality demonstrated and described below:
Full DWG and other Compatibility
AllyCAD allows you to work with DWG files easily and with no loss of data and includes XRefs, drawing space and layouts, multiple viewports and various line, text, dimension and table styles. AllyCAD can also read DGN, CEX, UCX, DRG and SHP files.
Image Handling Ability
AllyCAD is known for its lightning speed in handling multiple images as well as its compatibility with geo-referenced data. We currently support the JPG, BMP, SID (MrSID), ECW (ERMapper), PNG & TIF image formats among others. Easily rotate, clip, and adjust the brightness and contrast of your images with the built-in image controls and the Image Manager.
Google Earth Tools
Capture and georeference the active view from Google Earth. This image can then be imported into the correct position in a survey drawing for planning and preliminary designs. Import snap shot aerial photos and extract grid elevations of your project from Google Earth, then export project CAD lines from visible layers to Google Earth as a KML file.
Block Editor
The Block Editor allows you to edit the CAD-entities in the block definitions in your drawing. It will display the selected block in a separate drawing window. Once you have finished editing the block you may simply close the window or use the Save option.
Layer Groups & Filters
Layer Groups and Layer Property Filters make working with multiple layers more convenient, allowing you to group layers and display layer subsets in the layer grid. Filters can be used to filter which layers are displayed.
Layout Navigation
Select and display a layout from a displayed list which makes it a lot easier to find a specific layout when there are many drawing layouts.
Expand Detail Function
The ‘Expand Detail’ function from AllyCAD 3 has been implemented. Dimension linear scale and layer magnification values are adjusted for the expanded details.
Control Centre
The Control Centre gives you quick and easy access to view and interact with blocks, line types, text styles, layers and objects in a drawing through a central interface.
Hatch Perimeter Tracking
Hatches and solid fills are so much easier with vastly improved auto perimeter tracking including island detection and multiple perimeters.
Import shape files with Lat-Long coordinates
ArcView Shape files in geographical coordinates can be converted to survey coordinates during import. Importing also has an option to create an Access MDB file (requires the relevant ADO database driver) containing the data associated with the Shape file. The data link can be manipulated to produce labels based on the contents of the database table.
Sheetfile Editor for production drawings
Using the powerful sheetfile concept, unique to AllyCAD, you can generate production drawings with detailed title blocks, north signs, grids, scale bars and much more so that your plotting requires minimal, if any, CAD editing. The sheetfiles can be created or edited using normal CAD functions in a vastly improved Sheetfile Editor.
Visual Snaps with GrabAll snap mode
Visual snaps allow you to see where a snap will be applied as you move the cursor. The screen will be dynamically updated to indicate where the nearest snap point is and in GrabAll snap mode, it will also indicate what type of snap point is nearest.
Publish the Drawing Space / Multiple Layouts
The ‘Publish Layout’ function allows you to save one or more layouts to disk as separate drawings and print multiple layouts in one operation.
Supports Northern & Southern Coordinates
AllyCAD supports both Northern and Southern hemisphere survey coordinates to ensure that you maintain data integrity with astounding accuracy.
Dynamic Dimensioning
Dynamic dimension preview shows you exactly what the dimension will look like before it becomes part of the drawing. You can also have different dimension styles per drawing.
Convert single to multi-line text
The ‘SText to MText’ function allows you to indicate one or more single-line text entities, which are then joined together into one multi-line text entity.
Output Bar information display
The Output Bar displays information such as the measurements and properties of entities when you measure or query an entity or polygon area.
Comprehensive Purge Function
This function removes unused objects from the drawing thereby reducing it’s size. You can select which entities you wish to remove.
Batch Print
Batch printing allows you print the drawing, the layouts or both from all AllyCAD drawings in a selected folder. Print orientation is automatically selected according to the drawing and/or layout settings.
Export to PDF
Drawings can be exported in Adobe PDF format. The exported file will contain the drawing and any layouts, each as a separate page. The drawing layers are also present in the PDF file and can be switched on/off as desired.
Plotting
The plotting function uses the powerful sheet file system, but generates layouts with viewports. Your production drawings will therefore automatically update as you change your design.
Shape File Export
ArcView Shape file export includes arcs and circles (exported as exploded lines) as well the contents of any inserted blocks or XRefs in the drawing
Load Bitonal TIF images
Bitonal TIF images are special 2-colour images whose background can be drawn transparent.
Style Importer
The Style Importer allows you to import styles from external drawings. This is much quicker than trying to recreate the styles from scratch for every new drawing.
Pick & Apply Settings
The ‘Apply Settings’ function lets you indicate one entity, whose settings (layer, colour, linestyle etc) can then be ‘painted’ onto multiple entities. Which settings are applied can be modified in the ‘Apply Settings’ CAD bar.
Flyout Toolbars
Flyout toolbars contain multiple nested toolbars without sacrificing screen space. The nested toolbars are displayed only when activated and are otherwise not visible.
Text Styles
Text styles allow you to apply multiple text attributes to one or more text items by simply editing the associated text style or applying a different text style.
Multiple arrows with one text item or block
The ‘MLeader’ entity consists of one or more leader lines attached to a note. This allows the note (which can be a text label or a block) to point to multiple items of interest in your drawing. Each leader line can have multiple vertices, and can be smoothed. MLeader Styles can be used to standardise the appearance of your MLeaders.
Auto and dynamically updating layouts
AllyCAD has layouts that contain viewports into the drawing space and will also automatically generate all your final plans as dynamically updating layouts which will reflect all drafting changes instantly. If your drawing changes, so do your layouts, so that your design and your production drawings are always in sync.
Specialized Toolkits
The AllyCAD specialized toolkits have been designed to speed up essential but time-consuming tasks relevant to the various CAD disciplines. The toolkits included are the Genera, Architectural, Structural, Mechanical and Survey Toolkit.
Multiple Views & Viewports
A drawing window can be split into multiple views, each with its own view direction (including isometric views). You can even draw from one view to another. It is also possible to ‘step into modelspace’ from a layout viewport.
Table Editor
The Table function makes it a lot faster to draw tables with definable column widths, text styles and colours. Table styles can be defined to simplify table formatting.
Tolerance Editor
Annotate your drawing with tolerances through the simple interface of the Tolerance Editor which also allows you to include finishing symbols.
Embedded Drawings (Xrefs)
Multiple drawings can be embedded in the working drawing allowing multiple designers to work on different aspects of a project. The XRef’s layers, linestyles, text styles, dimension styles and blocks will be merged into the current drawing..
Geometry Lines
Geometry lines are a superset of construction lines and allow you to position lines and arcs tangential to each other, and to define the basic layout of the drawing elements. You can then fill in with solid lines to create the objects. In short, geometry lines allow you to focus on your design.
Ole Objects
The OLE function allows you to embed other objects such as documents, spreadsheets and illustrations in your drawing. To edit these objects simply double click to activate the host application for the object.
Explode & Repeatedly Explode
The explode function breaks a compound entity (object) into its component entities (what it is made up of), while the repeatedly explode function will explode a compound entity to its base entities so that they can be edited.
Easy Menu & Toolbar Customisation
Company standards can be enforced by placing standardized pallets, pen mappings, line styles, menus etc on a network drive for all workstations to use seamlessly. Visual indicators, skins, prompt colours, geometry colours and messages can also be customized.
3D Capabilities
We have added 3D with hidden line removal, rendering with light sources and shading, and perspective views. You can define your own lighting and view your design in multiple named viewports or in different perspective views and work on any view (top/side/iso) at the same time.
Draw text aligned to entities
The ‘Draw Text’ functions allow you to align the rotation and position of the text you are drawing to existing text or lines in the drawing, this avoiding the hassle of manually aligning/rotating the text after adding it to the drawing.
Set The Transparency of Entities
All entities have a ‘Transparency’ property, which can range from 0 (fully opaque) to 90 (90% transparent). Entities can also have ‘By Block’ or ‘By Layer’ transparency. Transparency can be used to ‘see through’ solid objects so that entities ‘behind’ the object are visible.
Xref & Locked Layer Fading
XRef fading makes it easier to identify which parts of your drawing belong to XRefs. Locked layer fading works allows you to reduce the brightness at which locked layers are drawn, to more easily identify which entities in your drawing are on locked layers (and therefore not editable).
Drawings From Templates
You can create template drawings with your preferred settings, styles and title blocks and then use them as a starting point when creating a new drawing.
Graphical Editing
AllyCAD gives you easy graphical editing of all selected entities by either selection handles or nodes. This includes hatches, elliptical arcs and splines.
Database Linkage
Drawing entities can be linked to external databases containing attributes allowing dynamic updating. In addition, data associated with entities in SHP files can be linked and queried.
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