Direct Modeling In Bricscad V12 – Part 1

In a previous article titled “CAD Vendor Changing Direction” I mentioned a CAD software vendor that was hell bent on changing its image  as well as direction. That company is Bricsys, the developer of Bricscad, an AutoCAD clone. In this blog series I’m going to talk about one particular new feature of Bricscad V12 – Direct Modeling.

Speaking of AutoCAD clones I actually have a folder called “AutoCAD Clones” in my Windows Quick Launch folder.

I have been writing about AutoCAD clones for quite a while now and have been lamenting on how they all simply end up playing catch up to Autodesk. They don’t bother to do anything different or offer something more than what Autodesk offers to its customers. Over the past few years I have spoken to many of these clone developers and have asked them why they blindly follow Autodesk. The excuse given to me is they cannot afford to be incompatible with AutoCAD since that is the target market they are going after. Some others tell me that they don’t have the money and manpower required to do the kind of R&D needed to innovate.

The question of money and manpower is a valid point. Not so much the point about needing to be compatible with AutoCAD. Compatibility with AutoCAD mainly amounts to being compatible with Autodesk’s DWG file format. There is absolutely nothing stopping these clone developers to make their software look and work differently or better than AutoCAD.

In an article titled “Growing Up The Clones” I posted a couple of years ago I wrote:

When I was at the Bricsys office in Gent, Belgium, this April, I asked [CEO] Erik whether he had plans to offer his customers something more than what AutoCAD offered. “You bet“, came the reply.

This brings me to Bricscad V12 and how Bricsys has implemented direct modeling in it.

Part 2 >>