Vdraft: Emulating the AutoCAD Standard

Vdraft is produced by SoftSource, a company in Washington State in the US on the border with Canada. SoftSource has previously been noted as a programming contractor for various CAD producers, and for its programmer's library modules for reading and writing AutoCAD DWG files.

It is also the originator of the SVF (Simple Vector Format) file format for viewing vector CAD data on the Internet. SVF is being offered freely as a truly 'neutral' vector format to serve as a standard for Internet use. Here, 'neutral' means 'not designed solely for one maker's conception of CAD data'.

Vdraft was produced to address the demand for a low-cost CAD system that operates similarly to the already well-know AutoCAD. There are a couple of other products with a similar aim, but Vdraft's unique feature is that it does not just have the capability of reading and writing DWG files; it actually uses that format as its own data format. Hence it is the only system other than the actual AutoCAD that does not have to translate the DWG format to and from its own internal representation. This obviously should remove any doubts about interchange compatibility.

The screen layout necessarily has a lot in common with several CAD programs designed for Windows and the Microsoft Office interface conventions, including AutoCAD LT. But AutoCAD is less conformant with Windows graphic program conventions than most CAD systems designed for Windows since it was adapted from DOS and still retains many of its DOS interface features , such as the command prompt area and use of sequences of command prompts for many commands.

ONE - LINE COMMAND ENTRY PANEL

Vdraft is more fully Windows oriented. It has no command text entry and prompt window pane. Actually that's not completely true. It does have a one-line command entry panel that normally is used to display explanation of what to do next; like a prompt but less cryptic and never going on with options. You can set the system to use either the AutoCAD command names or a set of faster-to-use two-letter commands, rather like those of Generic CADD.

In all the instances where AutoCAD would produce a series of sequential prompts, Vdraft uses either a dialogue box to gather the desired options, or else proceeds into the drawing command without seeming to offer any options. But all the options are instantly accessible by clicking the right mouse button to pop up a Windows-95 style 'context menu' beside wherever the cursor is located (see example opposite page). This is a far more convenient and less obtuse method than prompt sequences.

The pulldown menu bar has a very similar set of menus to AutoCAD and the menu items are similar enough for any AutoCAD-conversant to feel at home quite quickly. There are difference, but not enough to be too confusing.

There are also many possible icon button palettes and the installation selected quite a lot of them to be permanently 'docked' around the screen edges. You can have fewer or even none visible. I think the installation program has been made bright enough to select as many tool palettes as will fit reasonably, depending on the prevailing screen resolution.

I use 1024 x 768 and unlike many programs that show toolbars short enough for a 640 x 480 screen with blank gray to the right side, Vdraft filled the width up. You can drag the toolbars to any edge or have them floating over the work area. Macintosh-style, and pop them up and shoo them away whenever you wish. I was glad they all gave the little popup 'tool-tips' balloons when I held the cursor over the icons. A large number of icons are rather inscrutable at first without that.

Some interface mechanisms unique to Vdraft are worth mentioning. A small text box appears beside the cross-hairs to remind you what action is current. When a draw command is in progress, it serves to display the rubber-band cursor line statistics; coordinates and distance/angle from the last applied point. You can see this better than by explanation in the illustration above.

Object snap is a vital part of CAD work. Vdraft has adopted a more obvious and convenient user mechanism than AutoCAD. All the snap modes are on a fairly self-evident icon buttons, but if one or more are clicked when a draw command is not actually in progress, the 'Object Snaps' button 'presses itself' on. This is the equivalent of AutoCAD's 'running osnaps'. The individual snap mode buttons remain depressed in appearance and serve to indicate which modes have been turned permanently on. At the drawing point (the cross-hairs), the part-drawn 'rubber-band' line from the last point to the moving cross-hair jumps to any available preselected object-snap as the cross-hair is brought within range of any.

OSNAP MODE CONCEPTS

The true cross-hair position is then visible as a detached small cross. This shows you what is happening and available very clearly, and also shows unambiguously which of any multiple preset modes will be applied as you move the cursor slightly. It is nearly as good as those 'intelligent' cursors that some systems provide, but still uses the long establish AutoCAD osnap mode concepts.

I loaded my pet 'torture-test' DWG file, that has caused most supposedly DWG compatible systems to produce at least a few erroneous objects even though it is all in ModelSpace.

I am pleased to report that I can not add Vdraft to the short list of non-Autodesk products that have handled it entirely correctly-Corel Visual CADD, TurboCAD 4, FelixCAD and MicroStation. That is the drawing seen in the full screen image on the opposite page. However, Vdraft, is I think, the only one that fully preserves PaperSpace data, extended entity data and Z-axis (3D) data. It also fully handles x-refs, which are often only partially supported.

The PaperSpace capability is particularly important as many DWG files now being interchanged rely heavily on PaperSpace, and a large proportion of the data disappears if it is not recognized. Try the AutoCAD sample file, TABLET DWG, to test files up to and including the R12 format are supported.

Vdraft provides a good visual block or x-ref selector dialogue; sadly absent from AutoCAD all those years. This effectively implements an easy-to-use block library system even though, like AutoCAD, it relies on separate DWG files for each block. At least with this arrangement you can keep you libraries organized in folders (directories) and easily navigate to the desired folder and pick the block with instant visual preview.

Paper Space is supported, but I couldn't find any viewport visibility options in the layer system. I am informed that this has been corrected with the 1.5 version of Vdraft which is now in beta testing and should ship within the next month.

Vdraft is clearly intended as a 2D system, as is AutoCAD lT, but like LT, it has a few of the 3D facilities from AutoCAD. But there is no means of setting the 3D work-plane, or UCS. Its absence is irrelevant for 2D work, of course. Probably the intention here is just to have enough 3D facilities to be able to fully display 3D drawings created in AutoCAD properly, and to be able to adjust their view angle in a Paper Space viewport for printing. I am told Vdraft is capable of supporting all 3D entity creation and UCS manipulation with its application development tools, but the facilities are not included in the interactive interface supplied.

The text facilities reproduce the AutoCAD R12 text facilities; using the same SHX-based font system. Despite Vdraft's good Windows orientation, there is no support for Windows TrueType text, at least not in the current version. A complete set of R12 SHX fonts is supplied, with some extras I think ;43 fonts in all.

Unlike many CAD programs, Vdraft can have a large number of drawings open concurrently. It greatly facilitates work being able to cut and paste between drawings and quickly refer to related drawings or alter related things on several drawings.

INTERNET FACILITIES

Vdraft has considerable support for working with the Internet. Naturally it supports the SVF format, and they supply SVF and DWG/DXF plug-in modules for Web browsers. The manual has four pages of useful guidance on the use of Internet facilities in conjunction with CAD. The manuals are generally very helpful and clear. There is a 170-page spiral bound User's Guide, a slim book called AutoCAD's User's Guide to Vdraft to help transitional users, and a Customisation and Programmer's Guide.

Vdraft uses the Microsoft Visual Basic language for its programming and supplies an API to interface with the CAD facilities. There is also support for Active-X programming, and OLE automation is intended as a main means of customising. See the OLE customisation panel, supplied by SoftSource. Delphi and C++ are also supported.

Vdraft provides everything a 2D user of AutoCAD R12 has and will add the missing PaperSpace dimension visibility control in v1.5. Several operational aspects are an improvement on AutoCAD. It is probably more easily learned by a newcomer to CAD than AutoCAD, but is sufficiently similar to allow an established AutoCAD expert to work productively with very little familarisation. It offers excellent value at US$495, and will be distributed in Australia by Business Technology Australia in Sydney. The Australian price will be set to a typical US conversion, ie about A$700.