Graebert’s Annual Meeting conference, this year handled virtually, delivered the interesting news that the German CAD software company has a “universal” version of its next big product release—ARES Commander 2022—available now under beta.
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This means Greabert beat all other primary CAD vendors serving the Mac platform to market with a native version of their CAD software for Apple’s new Macs with the ARM-based M1 processor. This news is one of many exciting items delivered to press and conference attendees this week virtually as part of Graebert’s virtual conference.
ARES Technologies for 2022
The German CAD technology and software company will deliver the final version of ARES Commander 2022—a fully native (.dwg) file-based CAD software platform—in March 2021. ARES Commander 2022 will be simultaneously available for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems and will include numerous innovative new features which we will highlight in a moment.
ARES Commander 2022 is out in beta now and due in March 2021. It is the first shipping major CAD package built for Apple’s new ARM-based Macs featuring the M1 processor. ARES Commander 2022 is available today in beta for current users. ARES Commander 2022 is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux and has feature parity with new BIM technologies, data extraction, PDF features and more, all across all three platforms. (Image: Graebert / All rights reserved.)
As part of Graebert’s Trinity of CAD, new ARES technology also extends to ARES Kudo (cloud) and ARES Touch (for iOS and Android).
New in ARES Commander 2022 is the redesign of the print dialog box. This was done for UI/UX reasons with better alignment and space between data fields which improves readability and user-interaction. A third column was added on the right side, where users can find the same options that previously were located in the “Additional options” dialog in a second window. (see image below)
The Sheet Set Manager is now available for the Mac and Linux versions as well. This is one of the “feature parity” items mentioned below, (along with BIM features, PDF import, and Data Extraction—all now on Mac and Linux versions too). The Sheet Set Manager helps users keep drawings and sheets organized and accessible and enables various organizational workflows. There are also custom subsets to group sheets along with Publish to PDF and Publish to Print workflows. And there is full DST format support for drawings created on other CAD systems.
ARES Commander 2022 features a redesigned Print Dialog box that complements its Sheets Manager functions and expanded new capabilities therein. (Image: Graebert / All rights reserved.)
There is a lot to unpack and this is the first of our Graebert Annual (virtual) Meeting content Architosh will be publishing. So let’s skim through the highlighted items below.
Highlighted New Features
- Mac and Linux gain feature parity with Windows version in ARES Commander 2022 — while some specific features like the Windows ribbon interface and Mac’s Printing are handled specifically around those operating systems
- Mac version gains macOS 11.0 (Big Sur) support as well as previous Mojave and Catalina versions, and new ARM-based Mac support via Universal Mac installer
- Expanded BIM to DWG Drawings features — including the ability to refresh the geometry of ARES Commander’s BIM drawing when an updated BIM model is received
- New BIM features — including BIM dimensions, BIM labels, and BIM material mapper. With the first feature, you can select multiple entities on a BIM drawing and generate aligned dimensions that will automatically update when a BIM model is refreshed. Association is maintained also for BIM labels. BIM material mapper enables the configuration of rules to match up BIM data to ARES Commander 2022 pen color, size, hatch, and other graphics attributes.
- ARES Kudo will now enable you to compare any two drawings (as is already possible in ARES Commander). Version Compare and Drawing Compare are supported in ARES Kudo.
- ARES Commander 2022 has new UI enhancements, a new printing and Sheet Set Manager, and multiple new commands and features
- ARES Trinity supports the largest choice of integrations in the market, with a full constellation of Cloud and server data connectivity. (see image)
- New Integration with Trimble Connect — Connect users work with (.dwg) files every day, now they can work with them directly in Connect rather than download them and upload them in order to work with them.
- New Integration with Hancom Space — similar to the Trimble Connect integration, Hancom is the market leader in South Korea for office suite software.
- New ARES Kudo Drive — is powered by the S3 from AWS and offers high performance and scalable cloud storage option, in lieu of a provider like Box or GoogleDrive.
Other notable features to mention include Version History, a feature that relies on cloud technology at heart to storage delta data. With the new Version History and cloud storage, users can simply update the file and read all the history of the file, even if multiple users are working on it. This feature works on all the cloud storage providers supported by Graebert (see image below).
ARES Trinity Solutions combine desktop, cloud, and mobile versions of ARES CAD technologies and offer the widest array of cloud server and cloud solutions integrations in the CAD industry, including new Trimble Connect and Hancom of South Korea integrations. (Image: Graebert / All rights reserved.)
Another final item we will mention is the new Email Notifications features. This notifies other users and collaborators about the modifications, comments, and markups on a drawing pertaining to them. Each user can define their own preferences for notification frequency for a specific file and in general by default. Perhaps they want daily updates in general but an hourly recap on a specific file related to a hot-button issue or project.
Learning More
Architosh will be publishing another major report on Graebert’s virtual annual meeting and the announcements within, so stay tuned for in-depth information about ARES Commander 2022, ARES Trinity technologies, ARES Kudo and ARES Touch advances as well.
To reach Graebert visit their website here.