StreamCAD

This dream of mine started in 1998 when Autodesk started to compete with its third party developers. All successful software that I’m aware of relies on external ("third party") developers to make it a success. Cutting off that support seemed unwise to me.

Today, many developers are exploring AutoCAD LT rather than AutoCAD as a development platform. Autodesk is doing its best to remove such capabilities in AutoCAD LT. The relationship between Autodesk and its third party developers seems strained.

The user interface

I’ve been heavily inspired by the Mac view on things: the working document is shown in a single window with toolbars and information windows float around it.

Once you’ve selected a command, the floating windows vanish until you’ve completed the command.

Information windows are useful … until there’s too much information in them. Often you only need a subset, so I’ve tried to select one for you:

There are three levels of information: simple, advanced and complete. The complete setting is intended for very technical information such as database connections.

Some usage points

The most convenient form of zoom will be to use the mouse scroll wheel, which zooms around the cursor.

There’s an object snap bar:

I’ve played around with the icons so that they reflect their snapmode. In order, they are: End point, Mid point, Quadrant, Center, Apparent Intersection, Intersection, Grid, Orthogonal (with respect to last point), Nearest and Perpendicular.

Note: intersection and apparent intersection can be very calculation intensive and may cause the software for freeze for small periods of time.  

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