FREE eBOOK for Migrating Board Drafting and Hand Sketch Designs to CAD

Are you an engineer, draftsman, architect, landscape artist, surveyor, sheet metal wood or plastics designer that does all drawings using a t-square and triangle? Are you thinking about using CAD but worried about the cost involved? CADDIT is happy to release a new, complete free eBook entitled "CADDIT Guide: From Board Drafting and Hand Sketch Designs to CAD" to answer these questions and more. Even if you are a CAD designer with several years experience, the reference information given in this free publication is well worth having. This free eBook is available now from http://www.caddit.net/auto-cad/AutoCAD.php and discussion is held on the CADDIT forum at http://www.caddit.net/forum/ .

This eBook includes the first section of a CAD tutorial that demonstrates opening and editing AutoCAD files without AutoCAD software, using progeCAD Professional CAD software. More information about progeCAD is at http://www.caddit.net/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1

VariCAD 2008 3.0 3D Mechanical Design CAD Released

The cross-platform Windows-Linux CAD for 3D mechanical design has released 2008 version 3.0. VariCAD is ideal for machine, jig, fixture and small project design.

New Features Include:
- Implementation of Unicode. The new version supports using fonts from anotherlanguages (e.g. Japanese, Chinese, Russian etc.) and special characters.
- Improved DWG/DXF file compatibility
- More convenient system settings
- Improvements in BOM
- and more

VariCAD can be downloaded an used free for 30 days before buying a license HERE. Please contact CADDIT with questions regarding this CAD program.

VariCAD 2008 2.0 3D CAD Design Software Released

Today VariCAD announced the release of VariCAD 2008 2.0. Here is what is new in this release:

- It is available in both 32 and 64-bit versions
- 2D drawing editor works also in 3D space, which is especially important for editing solid profiles and creation of new solids using profile rotation, extrusion, etc.
- 2D drawing in 3D works also with access to 3D solids
- Improvements in 2D drawing
- Improvements in working with colors and color settings
- Improvements in 3D display and objects selection
- And more

VariCAD can also be downloaded free from CADDIT. Linux and Windows versions may be purchased from the CADDIT CADstore.

progeCAD CAD Free CD Give Away Offer

CADDIT Software is offering a free CD to those requesting one within Australia and New Zealand. The complimentary CD provides the same trial version of our most popular CAD products. The CDs are for those who have problems to download the applications for one reason or another. There are free trail CDs available for:

progeCAD Professional 2008
T-FLEX CAD CAM Software

Users can request the free CAD Software CD trials on the CADDIT website HERE.

You should specify:
Name
Shipping Address
Which CD
Why download is not working for you

This is a limited offer to Australia and New Zealand customers only.

Autodesk denied Summary Judgement in USA Court Ruling

Autodesk was defeated in the first round of this battle in Seattle US District Court, May 21 2008:

Read Vernor versus Autodesk Judgement Announcement

Interestingly, Autodesk is also resorting to more and more desperate measures to attack the Open Design Alliance:

http://www.adskvoda.com/Docket/tabid/55/Default.aspx

The issues around this ruling are complex and a final district ruling is not due until June. But it could serve as an important benchmark for similarly licensed software sold by other companies. Such decisions can ultimately challenge the legal position that software EULA take, restricting the customer's use of software they have paid for. That being said, many modern software programs like AutoCAD still require an activation from the vendor for each new installation. I offer one guess as to whether Autodesk would nicely re-activate a used serial of AutoCAD 2006 that someone buys "arguably legally", but second-hand.

Update March 23 2009:
A federal district judge in Washington State handed down an important decision this week on shrink-wrap license agreements and the First Sale Doctrine. Read more HERE.

Update April 2009:
As reported on CADnauseam, new facts in this case are emerging. Apparently "Vernor was selling software that effectively didn’t exist. He was selling used copies of Release 14, when those copies had already been upgraded to AutoCAD 2000". If true, then certainly we will definitely have to look for better examples to rally around. CADDIT in NO WAY condones the sale by another of software already upgraded by the original buyer for that first party's own ongoing use unless expressly permitted by the copyright holder.

progeCAD 8.0.18.18 software patch released

A new free upgrade for progeCAD Professional 2008 has been released:

Two bugs are fixed:
ALE: Fixed a general problem that could cause an error in the ALE library
DRAW: Fixed "Snap-From" command

T-Flex CAD CAM Software Launched in Australia

The rumours are true. T-Flex is finally here.

What is T-Flex? High-end hybrid parametric solid and surface modeling CAD CAM software. Many of the features somewhat resemble Pro Engineer. T-Flex CAD comes bundled with basic FEA and motion simulation and kinematic study for assemblies. Sketches are defined by either outlining or hatching vector construction entities, much the way a board draftsman darkens (HB) lines from his much lighter draft strokes (6H).

But don't let the simplicity fool you! T-Flex CAD CAM has been used to develop entire factories and transport systems. It's hybrid modeling abilities allow free-form changes to be made on parametric solids or surfaces, and these free-form changes can then themselves be changed parametrically from the model history. Coupled with an extensive standard parts library and included simulation and FEA, T-Flex is a complete engineering platform.

T-Flex CAD costs a fraction of what competitive systems do. CADDIT as further reduced the T-Flex price for a limited time as part of the product launch in Australia and New Zealand. It can be downloaded and tested free from the CADDIT T-Flex Page.


Read the entire CADDIT T-Flex press release here.

New AutoCAD style drafting tutorial: Blocks & XREFs

progeCAD Australia staff member demonstrates the how to create DWG blocks, insert them in a DWG drawing file, and how progeCAD saves additional time with their ALE DWG block library of 10,000 blocks that is part of the progeCAD Professional software, USB and Network Licenses options available from CADDIT.net.

IntelliCAD Tutorial Feedback

A lot of CAD drafters have seen the new IntelliCAD tutorials. Current scope for this CAD tutorial was basic entity creation and drawing management using IntelliCAD, but alot of the tips are relevant to new AutoCAD users as well. There is a chance that we might extend their scope, so if you have any contributions or requests for these pages, let us know here. Thanks!

ProgeCAD Smart! Smarter Than Ever!

progeCAD Smart! has been downloaded more than 10,000 times since the announcement of the free AutoCAD clone. Smart! traffic has exceeded a total of more than a terabyte of bandwidth (a thousand gigabytes by ISP accounting). Because of increasing international demand, limited bandwidth and high costs in Australia, CADDIT has been forced to move the primary download to a server in the USA. progeCAD Smart! can now be downloaded directly without initial registration on the CADDIT CADstore.

The new URL for progeCAD Smart! is:http://www.progecam.com/download/progeCAD_Smart_Free_Personal_CADDIT.exe .
A new direct download URL for progeCAD Professional has also been announced:http://www.progecam.com/download/progeCAD_Professional_2008_CADDIT.exe

progeCAD Smart! Free Personal CAD Released

ProgeCAD 2008 Smart! is available for download at:
http://www.caddit.net/progecad/smart.php
This is the long-awaited free successor to progeCAD LT 2006. Smart! is fully functional and powerful DWG based CAD software that is absolutely free for personal use only. There are no rivals on the world free CAD scene in terms of AutoCAD compatibility and functionality. Smart! derives it's features directly from the professional codebase of progeCAD. The software is easy to learn and simple to install. Some significant features of progeCAD include:

• AutoCADr 2007/2008 DWG files completely compatible
• Express tools availability
• PDF format printing
• Photorealistic Rendering
• True Colour Support
• eTransmit
• Asiatic fonts support
• ALE blocks management module with more than 10,000 blocks (separate download)
• 
  
incredible enhancement of the services performances

Only some of these excellent features are included in Smart! The software may be freely downloaded by anyone. It may be made available on websites and reviewed on the Media without any limitation. Commercial or business use of any kind, however, is prohibited. No commercial license is granted for Smart!
Ethical Business - Like its predecessor progeCAD LT 2006 the software is related to a charitable initiative in favour of Doctors Without Borders for the Darfur, a westernSudan region in Africa, that endures a humanitarian crisis without precedents. All of the users that want to help us in the initiative can carry out some donations. Donations do not limit in any way the free usage of the software.
CADDIT Pty Ltd is legally based in Sydney, Australia and provides a wide range of design solutions, ranging from consulting to design contracting, software development and sales. They can be contacted via their online website at

http://www.caddit.net.
ProgeSOFT SAS Como, Italy has been specializing in CAD for the last 18 years and is an executive member of the IntelliCADr Technology Consortium.
c CADDIT Pty Ltd Australia. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.