ARCHIMAGING Solutions

If you are looking for a Windows^® based CAD system that will boost your productivity and improve the quality of your designs MicroGDS is the answer.

The MicroGDS product family is designed to meet the 2D and 3D CAD needs of architects, engineers, facility planners, and interior designers no matter how big or how small your organisation and projects.

2D drawings produced by MicroGDS have a clarity and professional look unmatched by any other product. In 3D, fully photo-realistic rendering is available, plus direct interfaces to the highly acclaimed Piranesi product from Informatix which will allow you to produce stunning images in an unbelievably short space of time. MicroGDS is engineered to work reliably with models and drawings of unlimited complexity.

MicroGDS is an easy to learn product, packed with features which will ensure that you can create and edit your work more quickly and reliably than with other CAD products. On larger projects, the advanced multi-user capabilities will allow many team members to work on the same drawing at the same time without conflict, even if they work from different sites.

MicroGDS works hand in hand with the Windows operating system, so you can use familiar tools for copying, pasting, and even constructing spreadsheet schedules which always match the drawing! Full support for Windows Multiple Document Interface (MDI) means that you can open as many drawings and projects at the same time as you need, and freely copy between them. For those wishing to extend MicroGDS or integrate it with other applications, a full toolkit is available for use with standard Windows development environments such as Visual Basic, Visual C++, and Java. MicroGDS is the leading CAD system for data compatibility, offering data representation in XML with 100% accuracy, as well as supporting standard formats such as DWG and DXF.

Product Features

Compact Compact 3D Plus Pro Object-based 2D drafting 3D Modelling and Piranesi interface Integrated attribute data Full customisation toolkit Project administration tools     Multiple simultaneous user support     Full 3D Boolean modelling     Full photorealistic rendering     Choice of single user or multiple user licenses

What's new in MicroGDS 8.0

Using the latest Windows® technologies, MicroGDS 8.0 delivers a wide range of new capabilities. As ever, the content of the new release includes many requests from our users. MicroGDS 8.0 is the most powerful and easy-to-use release yet, and an essential upgrade for all MicroGDS users. 

Hover highlighting and InfoTips
The first thing that users notice about MicroGDS 8.0 is how much easier it is to use. "Hover highlighting" gives continuous graphic confirmation of the entity that is being worked on. The new "InfoTip" dynamically reports key attributes of the entity, such as its name or style. Together, they make it much easier to see how a drawing is structured and drastically reduce the likelihood of errors.			Graphic confirmation by highlighting and an InfoTip
Colour and transparency
MicroGDS has always excelled at producing drawings that are pleasing to the eye. MicroGDS 8.0 provides even more ways to make the final output look exactly as you want it to. Any colour can now be specified either as an indexed colour, or as a true colour with an optional alpha transparency.   A new gradient fill blends from one colour to another.   A new raster fill repeats a raster tile across an area.   Alpha channels are now supported in raster images.   The new phase control "fades down" selected drawing elements.   A new option to rasterise within MicroGDS ensures that plots look exactly the same as the on-screen drawing			Gradient fill in action. The enlarged image shows a raster tree with transparency and fading effects. Wood effect linestyle
External database
MicroGDS can now access data from any OLE DB compatible external database, and treat it in the same way as internal attributes. MicroGDS mnemonics contain the necessary SQL strings to obtain the data from the database automatically when needed.
3D construction and editing
Those who want to develop 3D models using MicroGDS will find valuable new features in MicroGDS 8.0. The new Displace command creates a solid by displacing geometry in a given direction, joining up the edges. It handles multiple loops and holes, as do its sister commands Extrude, Sweep, and Revolve. Pro and Compact3D users have the additional advantage of being able to "tweak" solids. There are new Add, Merge, Extrude, and Split commands which you can use on a face. The Move command has been upgraded to handle multiple faces and give better control over the direction of movement. 3D views can now be clipped to a given plane or cube. This enables you to reveal detail hidden behind foreground objects, by making part of the drawing invisible. Options are provided to control how the cut lines and planes are drawn.			Section planes in use
Interfaces
MicroGDS 8.0 uses the OpenDWG toolkit to translate data in and out of AutoCAD 2004 DWG format. Many additional changes have been made to improve the translation, with more control over how XREF, WIPEOUT, HATCH, and raster features are translated. The latest format from the UK Ordnance Survey - OS Master Map, based on GML - is now supported. MicroGDS data can now be imported or exported in 3DS (3D Studio File) format, and MicroGDS windows can be exported as SVG or JPEG files.
Applications
MicroGDS 8.0 sees the official release of the .NET programming interface to MicroGDS. In addition, many new functions have been provided to help application programmers make the best of MicroGDS. A new Camera application is provided to assist with setting up and saving different lines of sight in a 3D scene, without the need to save many windows. Camera uses the .NET interface, and the source code is provided as one of several worked examples. MicroGDS 8.0 also sees the release of the MicroGDS Site Modeller, which interprets text primitives as spot heights and generates a triangulated model. Contouring has been added since the first beta version.			Picture of mars generated by the Site Modeller and Lightwork renderer
Sample data
Users will find a good supply of new data files in the MicroGDS 8.0 release:   The Library/Generic folder contains a selection of raster images of people and vegetation ready to be used on your MicroGDS drawings.   The Library/Printable folder contains photos of library objects assembled within a drawing frame, which you can print out as library sheets.   The Sample Drawings folder contains new MAN files and Access databases which show the new features of MicroGDS 8.0 in use.   There's a new Symbol.cv7 font file, intended to replace the old built in Symbol font. It uses linestyles and fills to draw better looking symbols.			New raster trees from the MicroGDS library.
Miscellaneous
Each release, we take the most popular suggestions from users and incorporate them into our product. Here is a sample of what else has been added to MicroGDS 8.0:  The "Edit Many paths" command corrects references between files when one or more of them are relocated.   The "Trace spaghetti" command automatically constructs polygons from simple linework.   Visibility and editability can be controlled by entity type (e.g. text or graphic), style, or colour.   Point entities can now be represented as text primitives.   The LightWorks renderer has a new height band shader, which renders surfaces according to their height.   "Push Install", using GPO technology, allows MicroGDS to be remotely installed.   Axes Move has a new option to align the axes with 2D or 3D primitives.			Click to see the "Trace Spaghetti" command in action.