ILEXSOFT has recently released the first AEC industry CAD product on Windows for ARM from a well-known CAD industry software firm. The Italian CAD software company has been delighting customers for years with its impressive 2D CAD platform for architects, designers, and interior design professionals.
HighDesign first emerged as a dedicated macOS CAD product with a stunningly attractive user interface. Over the years, the platform has been adapted to deliver its strong features to Windows users.
HighDesign R8.2
The latest update includes new and enhanced design tools, better interoperability, more powerful layer features, macOS Sequoia support, and native Windows ARM support, which is quite exciting.
HighDesign 8.2 is the latest release from the Italian software company ILEXSOFT. It is the first professional 2D CAD software to run natively on Windows on ARM computers, which are rapidly growing in the mobile laptop market.
Version R8.2 features a new Zones tool. Offered in HighDesign Pro, Zones delivers automatic numbering, stamp, color presents, and schedules support. Zone schedules help organize projects into the distinguished elements of a project. Another new feature is the new Flip Horizontal and Flip Vertical commands that instantly enable rotation about the axis of an object.
A more meaningful addition in version 8.2 is the new Alignment Side property for doors and windows. The alignment is set in the insertion phase and enables doors and windows to be flipped without any impact on the host wall. Another add is that the surfaces of doors and windows are now a computable parameter that can be added to schedules. Such data would help understand how much paint is needed to cover doors, for example.
Improved DWG and PDF support includes color transparency and better support for imported splines. This growing CAD software developer also benefits from a faster and more integrated help system and new language support for Spanish and Portuguese. In addition to English, German, French, and Italian languages are already supported.
Windows on ARM
HighDesign is a younger CAD platform than the larger installed base platforms like Archicad, Vectorworks, AutoCAD and ARES, et cetera. Its more modern code base has likely made it a lighter lift to support chip transitions and chip architecture support. The big news in this release is support for Windows on ARM. HighDesign already supports Apple’s ARM-based Apple Silicon chips that come in every modern Mac computer.
New ARM-based laptops are gaining in popularity thanks to efficient power management and very fast performance. HighDesign notes that chip makers are predicting that 50% of the laptop market will be ARM-powered in the next five years. The Italian software maker notes that HighDesign has always been on pace with the latest technologies.
HighDesign ships in LT, SE and Pro versions with various feature sets. The Pro version sells for USD 499.00, making HighDesign one of the most affordable 2D CAD products in the market for AEC professionals. To learn more visit them here.
Architosh Analysis and Comments
When HighDesign 8 came out the CAD software package experienced a massive 2x speed boost in areas of the software like screen refresh, selecting and deselecting objects, switching views and the general speed of the user interface. It also boasted speed-ups in saving and loading files. Version 8 also added interactive schedules and support to tabular data and the ability to import and link Excel files with live updates. And walls, openings, and columns received height parameters for computational needs. HighDesign is a 2D CAD package but this data is still useful once computed and scheduled.