New Releases of TurboCAD Pro 2016 and TurboCAD Pro Platinum 2016 for Architectural and Mechanical Users

IMSI/Design recently announced the release of both TurboCAD Pro 2016 and TurboCAD Pro Platinum 2016.

The new releases build on the theme of the past release which focused on architectural enhancements of roof tools. It also has new 3D modeling mechanical enhancements for those designing products. The new release includes a PCMaps plug-in that allows users to superimpose a Google map or terrain data into your drawing.

The focus of this article will be on the enhancements directly pertinent to the architectural community. TurboCAD not only has a full set of architectural tools but also a fully customizable set of 3D modeling tools. IMSI/Design has invested a lot in roof tools for customization of roofs in TurboCAD, so users could experiment with different types of roof design.

Product manager Dave Taylor showed a demo of a floor plan layout that he had already created with a second floor addition. “We’ve continued to really focus in on making our roofing toolset very good,” said Taylor. “Historically what you’ve been able to do in TurboCAD is add roof walls with a special tool.  You can adjust the thickness, with open hang already set. With all operations in TurboCAD you’ll select the tool and look down in the lower left hand corner to get the next instruction.  In this case it is select wall. The roof is now added based on the configuration of walls.”

Taylor said that what they have added this year is a set of properties specific to that object type, and can change properties and so in the case of this new set of tools you can customize your roofs in fabulous ways. “In this case here, you can make adjustments, with the second floor, select a roof, and use convert to roof slab tool. Every section of this roof is now an individual roof slab. It’s exploded the roof into common sections. Along with that I can use the trim tool, and a whole bunch of clean up operations. Grab that tool, select the roof slab I want to make adjustment to, select this wall as a cutting edge, and select the portion of roof I want to get rid of.”

TurboCAD 2016 exterior by user Marian Jurcak

If you have a situation such as a roof going through a room, for cleanup you can use the new trim roof slab tool. “The first thing I’ll do is select a portion of roof I want to modify, I use the wall that turns green as my cutting edge and then I can slice that as the cutting edge. Now we have nice clean break between roof and wall. With these roof slabs you can do a lot of customization.”

A second use case is to change the work plane to the top and draw rectangles, and not worry about size, use the convert to slab tool. “With TurboCAD being a full 3D modeling package I can manipulate any 3D object in any fashion I want, I can tilt the roof, I can grab my reference point and snap it to the corner,” said Taylor.

Slabs can also be used for floors. With the exception on TurboCAD roof tools, almost all their architectural tools adhere to the AutoCAD Architecture (ADT) tools. “If you were to export out as DWG and import it into AutoCAD, AutoCAD would know these were ADT objects and it would know it’s a window or wall.”

TurboCAD has a nice wall modifier tool, so you can extend a deck, extend a roof, and extend slabs using multilanding stair by path. “With this tool I can go ahead and define a multi-landing stair, instead of having to draw manually,” explained Taylor.  “I make it follow a certain path, 2D polyline here, it will automatically draw using that path.”

Renderings:

Renderings: Slovakian user Marian Jurcak creates state-of-the-art renderings. In the case of this bedroom design, he brought in components from the Google 3D Warehouse, and modeled the room in TurboCAD. He also modeled a few components with the 3D modeling application Blender. Because of TurboCAD’s interoperability he was able to use components from both Blender and SketchUp.

User Marian Jurcak creates state-of-the-art renderings such as this bedroom design with 3D modeling in TurboCAD, adding components from Blender and SketchUp.

Some years ago, TurboCAD started licensing with and partnering with Redsdk that automatically imports and understands SketchUp models, materials and lighting components. These renderings can be generated in a short amount of time.

A full list of features and improvements for TurboCAD Pro 2016 and TurboCAD Pro Platinum 2016 are listed below:
3D MODELING / MECHANICAL

New Advanced Blending Functionality – New 3D Fillet Blending options allow for much more organic and realistic object creation. New Holdline Blend uses 2D elements to control limits of the fillet.  New Variable Blend uses points to specify the radii at various locations on the fillet.

New Bend to Path and Part Tree operation can bend an ACIS® solid object along a line, arc, or curve.

New Curve from Law tool creates a parametrically defined 2D, 3D curve using Laws. The resulting curve can be used by the Graphic on Path tool, in Sweeps, etc.

New Surface from Laws generates an entirely new parametric surface object by formula.

New Warp Entity by Law can warp an existing 3D solid based on a formula.

New Offset with Laws reshapes the resulting offset object based on a formula.

New Extract Entity allows extraction of edges and faces from a solid body with or without an offset.  Offset sheet faces loops, and other extracted objects can be used by other tools such as sweep.  Options include extract edge from body, extract/offset face from solid, remove open gap from sheet body, and offset face/planar face loop.

New Imprint Edge imprints edges into Faces, dividing them into discrete areas each of which can have its own material.

New Tweak Face Tool extends the face of an existing 3D solid object to the boundary that is defined by a sheet face, allowing users to easily create more complexed forms.

Improved Revolve Face offers the ability to use a 2D profile to generate a revolve from the face of an existing 3D object and either add or subtract the result.

New Slots Tools including Slot, Circular Slot, and Circular Slot By Center and Radius.

New Point Cloud Support – TurboCAD Pro Platinum now offers tools to interpret a set of data points in X, Y, and Z coordinates, used to represent the external surface of an object.  New Point Cloud Import/Export uses .PCD and .XYZ formats to transfer data.  New Point Cloud Triangulation can extract a surface from a point cloud data set, and New Subset Point Cloud selects a subset of an existing point cloud to create a separate entity.

Additional Enhancements include new 3D Slice by Facet, new Lofting to a Point, and a checkerboard pattern added to the Array / Pattern Tool.  TurboCAD Pro 2016 and TurboCAD Pro Platinum 2016 also now use the ACIS® R26 Kernel for its 3D modeling engine.
ARCHITECTURAL

New Convert Roof Slabs – Take a classic TurboCAD roof, and convert it to a set of roof slabs. This makes it more convenient to create and edit custom roofs (clipped gable roof, dormer, etc…).

New Trim Roof Slab by Plane – Allows users to trim a Roof Slab by the plane of other roof slabs, standard roofs, or walls.

New/Improved IFC Object Support – The IFC file filter, used for building information management (BIM), now supports the Import and Export of Beam and Column object types.

Improved House Wizard for quickly laying out house plans now allows you to name each room while in the tool.

Additional Enhancements include that ability to multi-landing stairs from a 2D polyline.  Also, the Edit Roof Slab Tool now includes an input field.

RENDERING

New Redsdk 4.1 Engine with Photorealistic Enhancements including New Portals to designate objects as transparent to sky luminances, and New Tone Mapping Controls that are both interactive and graphical.

Improved Render Manager and workflow of rendering components including materials, luminances, environments, and advanced render styles.  The render manager also now supports the Dark Theme.

Improved RedSDK Transparent fill support – Transparent fill now works the same in both Redsdk and GDI.  A solid brush pattern can also be called a fill.

Additional Enhancements include new Active Drawing Components, improved Double Precision, and faster update of some objects in RedSDK mode.

USER INTERFACE

New Highlighting of 3D objects and parts of 3D objects while using certain tools in Redsdk mode including imprinting, quick pull & 3D mirror copying.

Improved Conceptual Selector – Users can now relocate the reference point and the rotation bars using the CTRL key.  Also, scale handles are now available on the boundary boxes as in classic mode.

New Spaces – Manage all your spaces through the design director including model space, and all paper spaces so you can handle spaces more efficiently than the tab interface allows.

New Show Normals – The visualization of the normals make it easier to estimate the smoothness and orientation of the 3D objects, and to find artifacts/defects on those objects.
GENERAL
New/Improved Mirror Copy Tool for 3D Objects includes New Mirror along Face option and New Try to Create Single Object, plus operations are now recorded in the Part Tree.

New File Management Options – Improve workflow with New Backup of Open Documents on Program Close.  The New File Buffer feature saves the Undo/Redo buffer.

New ISO Circle/Grid – New tool allows you to easily construct isometric circles.

INTEROPERABILITY

New PRC 3D PDF Support – In addition to existing file export support of U3D PDF, TurboCAD now exports 3D content to PRC  (Product Representation Compact) 3D PDF.

Improved AutoCAD® (DWG/DXF) – TurboCAD now uses the latest Teigha engine for the conversion of .DWG and .DXF files to and from TurboCAD for improved interoperability with other CAD applications.

Availability and Pricing

TurboCAD Pro 2016 is now available for $1,495 USD for a full license, $399.99/year for an annual subscription.

TurboCAD Pro Platinum 2016 is now available for $1,695 USD for a full license, $499.99/year for an annual subscription.

For more information, download a 30-day trial, or to upgrade online, please visit www.TurboCAD.com

Tags: 3D, AEC, architects, architecture, Autodesk, BIM, building information modeling, CAD, design, IMSI/Design, point clouds, SketchUp

Categories: 2D, 3D, AEC, architecture, Autodesk, BIM, building information modeling, construction, IES, IFC, IMSI/Design, infrastructure, point clouds, rendering

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