Bricsys Ships All New BricsCAD V18.2—New Core Features Advance BIM and Sheet Metal Design

The latest BricsCAD is now version V18.2 and brings new features to the core of the BricsCAD platform. These new features extend to its industry or discipline versions of the software, including BricsCAD BIM and BricsCAD Sheet Metal.

What’s New in BricsCAD V18.2

Version 18.2 features new associative center-lines and center marks to automate drawing tasks. In-place text editing makes its debut in version 18.2. And very importantly, Viewport boundaries work with the TRIM and EXTEND commands, also.

The trademark BricsCAD Quad cursor and roll-over tips have been enhanced again in this latest release. 2D and 3D constraints are much easier to create.

Key Takeaways

New BricsCAD 18.2 advances automation within its BIM offering with “BIMIFY” command gaining more intelligence. More direct-modeling improvements signal thought about how Bricsys intends to differentiate itself within the BIM market, which is largely parametric-based. 

Version 18.2 now incorporates the automatic generation of multi-resolution persistent image cache to display PDF underlays. That long phrase means when utilizing PDFs as underlays in BricsCAD 18.2, you can zoom in and out much faster than before, and it speeds up Pan operations as well.

01 – Bricsys has updated BricsCAD to version 18.2—adding numerous new features and intelligence to its native DWG cross-platform CAD offerings.

There are numerous new direct modeling enhancements added to this release, helping users create more advanced forms and shapes in 3D. And BricsCAD 18.2 features BricsCAD LISP Advanced Development Environment (the folks in Belgium want users to just call it BLADE). So LISP is alive and well in BricsCAD.

Bricsys in the BIM World

Bricsys is an important emerging player in the BIM arena. The company has heavily invested in serving this segment of the engineering software market in AEC. In version 18.2, BricsCAD BIM gains further intelligence, with the new “BIMIFY” functions getting wiser. Now in version 18.2, BIMIFY recognizes model elements using standard profiles as structural members, and auto-tags them with their profile data.

This version adds Australian Standard Steel Section profiles as well as added smarts to creation and editing of linear solids. Room detection is now smarter about bounding elements. In version 18.2, users can attach volume sections to a Room as interior elevations. The BIM Suggest tool can use section views to demonstrate how the BIM model fits together.

02 – BIM advances in version 18.2 of BricsCAD BIM 18.2.

And there are several other BIM improvements.

BricsCAD Sheet Metal

Version 18.2 has more features for mechanical designers as well. The general modeling power of BricsCAD Platinum grows with each release, with new constraints and drawing generation features adding to general benefits to the new Platinum Sheet Metal V18.2.

Sheet metal settings can now be stored in drawing template files. The handling of adjacent loft bends can be exported to OSM files for manufacturing due to a new zero-radius hinge feature.

When you export a sheet metal assembly, the report will clearly flag malformed parts that represent “poor” sheet metal design. A series of new LISP commands help automate sheet metal entity selection and editing as well.

To learn more about BricsCAD, a fully-native DWG file-based 2/3D CAD system with BIM and Sheet Metal, visit here.

Architosh Analysis and Commentary

Bricsys’ new Shape program clearly signals the company’s orientation within the direct-modeling versus history-based parametric modeling debate. This echoes largely what is happening within the overall MCAD industry as well. An example of that discussion will be coming up very shortly here at Architosh with coverage of the new Shapr3D application for iOS. 

In discussing this debate recently with a particular Nemetschek Group BIM software provider, the recognition of the importance of “direct-modeling” from the user’s perspective is present but the challenges of marrying both direct and parametric modeling still remain. Complicating this matter is the growing importance of algorithmically-driven modeling and computationally determinant architecture. Architosh will be watching closely to see how the Belgium CAD company responds to both the former challenge and the latter’s emerging importance. Will Bricsys take the position of partnering with tools like McNeel’s Rhino or will they develop such capacities directly within their BIM tool? Or will they avoid algorithmic modeling for years to come still?