Overview

Drafting, Detailing, and Superior Work Flow. Works like AutoCAD LT®. But better. For about half the price. It's the CAD of choice for Google^TM SketchUp^TM users and a great companion to AutoCAD® if you're looking for n extra CAD seat. The better way to create 2D detailed drawings.

Features

Professional Power
DoubleCAD^TM XT PRO is a 2D CAD application with advanced features for outstanding drafting and detailing. It also includes powerful 2D design tools for architectural and mechanical use.

Familiar Environment
DoubleCAD XT PRO is designed to minimize switching costs, and protect your intellectual property in existing drawings. You will be up to speed quickly, immediately benefitting from advances in productivity that will provide a quick return on investment (ROI).

Excellent .dwg support coupled with the ability to read and write nearly 30 file formats, means you will be able to protect and continue to profit from your existing drawings. Unlike IntelliCAD products, DoubleCAD XT PRO is not trying to be an AutoCAD® clone; rather it is designed as an AutoCAD LT® work-alike by providing a user interface similar to the AutoCAD classic interface. The menus, tools, command line, and other user interface elements will be familiar so that you may quickly move on to exploring our innovative advancements.

Affordable Innovations Enhance Productivity
We've listened to professional designers and drafters, so DoubleCAD XT PRO goes beyond AutoCAD LT to provide more advanced drafting and detailing capabilities at an attractive and affordable price. DoubleCAD XT PRO is for anyone who performs drafting and detailing regularly who is dissatisfied with the cost, lack of innovation, and stagnation of leading 2D CAD applications.

DoubleCAD XT PRO also excels at 2D parametric design with features such as parametric constraints, scripted parametric parts, architectural tools, and parametric AEC objects.

Whether you are starting a project with 2D design, or documenting a 3D model created in another application, DoubleCAD XT PRO streamlines workflows as a companion to many third-party applications.

WATCH YOUTUBE VIDEOS TO SEE IT IN ACTION

Architectural Tools
DoubleCAD^TM XT PRO includes an integrated suite of architectural tools that accelerate productivity in 2D design and drafting, or in the documentation of existing compatible 3D architectural models. The DoubleCAD AEC objects are AutoCAD® Architecture (ACA) compatible so that .DWG models with ACA extensions may be read, modified, and documented as needed.

Using self-healing walls is dramatically faster than designing with standard double line tools. The DoubleCAD XT PRO wall tool includes compound wall definitions to generate multiple-component walls with separate design parameters such as width, offset, and even hatches to represent each material within the wall. Because AutoCAD includes object enablers for AEC wall objects, a 2D design from DoubleCAD XT PRO will keep its self-healing properties even when modified in the basic AutoCAD, or AutoCAD LT®, neither of which includes the tools necessary to create the architectural objects.

The integration of the tools facilitates productivity: create a roof automatically by selecting the walls; add a railing to stairs with a click; drop in a schedule and see all the elements generated on the fly.

Using the wall, stair, and other tools can be an effective way to kick off a project to be designed in a 3D application. Explode the walls and bring the file into SketchUp^TM, create faces from the outline: begin extruding the walls and add depth to the slab, add doors, windows, and other details. Then bring the .SKP back into DoubleCAD XT PRO to prepare elevations, add dimensions, and complete your construction documentation.

Walls & Compound Walls
DoubleCAD^TM XT PRO provides the tools to quickly design floorplans by using the wall tool. Self-healing straight or curved walls speed design over conventional 2D drafting with double line tools. Cleaning up intersections, moving walls, adding columns, windows, doors, and more is tedious with standard double lines, but not with the wall tool.

Not only do walls heal properly and automatically at intersections, but they may be easily moved, cut, have openings inserted, and through the styles manager, may be made into compound walls with different wall styles selected. This adds appropriate hatches and fills, line weights, colors, and more for each layer of the wall, and different styles may be made for interior, exterior, load-bearing, non-load-bearing, or any other type of wall you design.

Polylines may be converted to walls, and then styles applied, to quickly modify or start a project. Blocks, whether standard, imported, or created on-the-fly, may be inserted into walls, and the walls will heal and automatically align the blocks.

As an integrated set of architectural tools, the walls also treat parametric AEC Door and AEC Window objects accurately and heal correctly, and the walls share information with the roof and slab tools for auto-generation of correct dimensions and roof lines.

Because the walls are AEC objects recognized by AutoCAD® object enablers for AutoCAD Architecture, a project with self-healing walls started in DoubleCAD XT PRO will continue to be self-healing in AutoCAD, making the AutoCAD experience better as well.

Parametric Doors & Windows
DoubleCAD^TM XT PRO provides parametric AEC door and AEC window objects. They are style driven, and multiple door and window styles may be created. AEC doors and windows that are inserted into self-healing walls are also recognized by AutoCAD® object enablers, so they will be accurately represented in AutoCAD or AutoCAD Architecture (ACA), even though neither AutoCAD, nor AutoCAD LT® have the tools necessary to create them (for that you need ACA, or now, DoubleCAD XT PRO).

These items are intelligent as well as parametric. This means they work well with the suite of other architectural tools. Doors and windows communicate with the auto-generated schedule tool, and they understand how to interact with walls.

This is yet another productivity advance over simply using standard blocks, double lines, and tables in AutoCAD LT.

Stairs, Rails, Slabs, & Roofs
DoubleCAD^TM XT PRO can automatically generate roofs or slabs from wall objects. It understands the wall definitions and shapes, including arc walls, and generates the right rooflines based on object property settings for overhangs, pitch, and more. They can be easily modified for different slopes on different faces as well.

Slabs such as concrete spandrels or others can be created in a variety of shapes and sizes. Holes can be added in different shapes and dimensions to accommodate columns, elevator shafts, or stair wells.

Stairs may be added and managed parametrically, whether straight, curved, spiral, u-shaped, multi-landing, or other configuration. Their properties can be managed to determine the specific riser height, width, number of steps, and easily define landing styles and turns.

Rails can be added to one or both sides of stairs with a click. Object properties that can be defined include rail locations, post locations, rail extensions, and styles may be created for those rails to be applied elsewhere.

Markers & Schedules
DoubleCAD^TM XT PRO includes all the expected architectural marker tools, and has great flexibility in setting the mark properties to assist with proper annotation.

The product also includes a schedule tool that generates a table with all doors, windows, slabs, walls, and more, with the properties listed by style, and quantity by style. This can be inserted directly into the layout (paper space) and saves valuable time.

DoubleCAD^TM XT PRO architectural tools are driven by styles. Individual styles may be created, modified, and managed so that appearance, size, and attribute information will appear in schedules. Additional styles may be read from existing AutoCAD® Architecture .DWG drawings so that information is not lost and your intellectual property is protected.

Changes to doors, windows, and other objects may be made globally at a styles level, or locally for control over an individual part. This provides tremendous flexibility and productivity in both design and revision.

Drafting Palette
The drafting palette is one of the most powerful features for advanced drafting and detailing in DoubleCAD^TM XT PRO. It works with solid or surface models, turning 3D designs into associative 2D manufacturing or construction drawings, even when working on an Xref. This means your sectional views and elevations in layout (paper space) will update automatically as the model changes.

For mechanical design this means parts and assemblies can have all standard views, 2D or 3D sections, and detailed views chosen by selection; or created as a derivative of an existing view. Dimensions are associative too so they update automatically and scale correctly in paper space, and geometry is recognized so that individual parts may be separately hatched or include different line weights and color. The solid model engine works with SAT objects in AutoCAD® .DWG files, objects created with any 3D ACIS® Modeler, or saved in IGES or STEP format.

Parametric Constraints/Drawing
Parametric drawing provides precision and productivity. You have greater control to enforce design intent, and may very quickly modify a design by using geometric and dimensional constraints. The variable palette allows you to set values to driving dimensions, including formulaic relationships between objects.

Rapid Revision Productivity
Often referred to as variational sketching, a constraints system allows you to enjoy greater control and productivity, empowering your creativity. You will get more done, create part families faster, incorporate red-line changes more quickly, and have the flexibility to evaluate different designs with ease. This last point is important in 2D design work: look at what-if scenarios the way you would update a spreadsheet. See the movement of linkages simply by changing a driving dimension.

Geometric Constraints
Geometric constraints determine the relationship of two pieces of geometry with each other. DoubleCAD^TM supports the following geometric constraints:

• point to point coincident
• point to line coincident
• parallel
• perpendicular
• tangential
• concentric
• symmetrical
• horizontal
• vertical

Dimensional Constraints
Dimensional constraints determine the size of geometric entities. DoubleCAD XT Pro supports the following dimensional constraints:

• equal radius
• equal length
• equal distance
• distance
• length
• angle

The autoconstrain feature will attach all possible constraints to a selection, or set autoconstrain ON while drawing and relationships will be added as you go. All standard dimension types may be used as driving dimensions. These features allow for dramatic productivity gains when drafting or making revisions.

Proven Technology
This valuable DoubleCAD XT PRO feature includes the D-Cubed^TM 2D Dimensional Constraint Manager (2D DCM) from Siemens PLM Software - This is the same trusted engine used by far more expensive design platforms such as AutoCAD® 2010, Autodesk Inventor®; by Dassault Systems for CATIA and SolidWorks®; by Siemens PLM Software for Solid Edge; and by think3® for thinkdesign.

The DoubleCAD^TM XT PRO parametric parts manager allows you to create and consume parts that remain parametrically controlled even after insertion in the drawing. They are a bit like a 3D dynamic block, an AutoCAD® dynamic block, or a SketchUp^TM dynamic component.

The key difference is that parametric parts (.PPM files) are defined using a text description (script). The script defines the structure, editable properties, and outputs that result in a parametrically editable part.

Because the parts can be saved individually, like a symbol, libraries of .PPM objects can be created, shared, and reused from project to project.

Simple examples could be to create a dynamic picket fence, or balustrade. Designing furniture of different lengths or seating configurations: chairs with or without arms, couches of 6' or 8' lengths, bookshelves with different configurations. Mechanical parts that come in differing sizes and configurations may also be easy to design.
Another use for .PPM objects is to create 2D symbols. Imagine in landscape architecture if you had plants with a different appearance for different seasons, or for different growth sizes at 1 year, 5 years, and 15 years size. The uses are endless.

File Interop & Xrefs
DoubleCAD^TM XT PRO includes support for dozens of file formats making it an invaluable drafting and detailing companion to a broad spectrum of applications. Open, import, or embed up to 35 file formats and export up to 28, including .DWG, .DXF, .SKP (Google^TM SketchUp^TM), .3DM (Rhinoceros®), .3DS (Autodesk® 3ds Max®), IGES, STEP, .OBJ, Collada; vector formats include .EPS and .SVG; raster formats include .BMP, .GIF, .JPG, .PNG, .TIF, and more.

DoubleCAD reads and writes .DWG and .DXF files from R14 through 2009 (2010 coming soon) including AutoCAD® Architecture extensions. This broad range of support helps to maintain your intellectual property investment supporting older files, models, and parts. It also makes it easy to access parts from vendors or posted on model exchange sites like the Google^TM 3D Warehouse.

All of the file formats that may be opened and imported, with the exception of bitmap images, may be used as an external reference (Xref). More than 15 of the 3D formats that may be used as an Xref also work with the drafting palette. This combination means that the model may be designed in one application, and the views, sections, elevations, and floorplans will be updated when the original model is changed. The designer may continue to work in SketchUp, AutoCAD, or SolidWorks®, for example, while the drafting continues in DoubleCAD

SketchUp Workflow
DoubleCAD^TM XT and XT PRO are able to open a Google^TM SketchUp^TM .SKP file directly. All geometry, colors (but not materials), layers and layer properties, groups, components, views, and even scenes with layer visibility are preserved. Components become blocks, and blocks work with the self-healing walls.

The biggest time savings comes from the quality of the geometry brought into DoubleCAD and the creation of viewports with specific layer visibility. Image if you have 40 views of the model to document, each with a specific selection of visible layers. Determining the correct views with the specific layer visibility options can be tedious and error prone when there are dozens, or even hundreds of layers. If you have them set up in SketchUp they will be generated automatically upon opening the SketchUp file in DoubleCAD.

Additional productivity enhancements include the creation of elevations, floorplans, cross sections, and detail views with the drafting palette. Even use the .SKP file as an Xref, or use several in collaboration with a team.

DoubleCAD XT PRO saves files in several formats that SketchUp can open, including .DWG, .DXF, and .3ds. This means you can even begin your design in DoubleCAD XT PRO using the self-healing walls, the parametric stairs tool, setting up layers, layer colors, developing blocks, adding line work using Bezier curves, and various means of precision drawing. Explode the walls and stairs before saving, then import the file into SketchUp, clean up the faces, and extrude the walls, slabs, and other elements. You will quickly, and precisely, launch your project.

The images on this page were from a model called "Robie House - Frank Lloyd Wright" on the Google 3D Warehouse by "tintin et keke." The first image shows the model in a draft render mode, the bottom image is a floorplan created from a sectional view created with the drafting palette

Requirements

PC :
Minimum: Microsoft® Windows® 2000 (SP4), XP (SP2) or Vista; 500Mhz or higher processor; 750MB free hard drive space; 512MB RAM (1 GB RAM Recommended); DVD-ROM drive; Video Card with OpenGL driver and 32MB RAM (64MB RAM Recommended); Color monitor with 1024x768 resolution or higher.