We’ve added a CAD View to work with CAD files directly.
Open any CAD file (DWG, DGN, DXF, DXB), select just the entities or layers you want and send them to the Drawing View to use in TPC.
Or send parts of your drawing over to the CAD file you have open. Or write a DWG file from TPC, open it in the CAD View and tweak the drawing before sending it out.
Pan and zoom to the parts of the drawing you need, then list entities to check for the information you need. Isolate layers to bid part of the project or verify the dimensions of a feature. You can do that in the CAD View
View Exported CAD File
Once you export a drawing to a CAD file, you can open it in the CAD View to double check that it's OK before you send it to the client.
Of course, you can open pretty much any CAD file in the CAD View.
Edit and Save CAD Files
Premium, Professional
You can open any CAD file, make changes and save the file.
Let’s say you sent a site survey off to the architect. He reviewed the file and and asked for a little more information on the rock wall you tied.
Now you can:
•Update your drawing and send him another CAD file
•Update your drawing, open the original CAD file and send the new stuff into the CAD file and save it
•Open the CAD file and add the information right there
If the architect has already started working on the CAD file you originally sent, options 2 and 3 above allow you both to keep your changes to the original CAD file – It’s pretty sweet!
Send Selected Entities From the CAD View to the Drawing View
Professional
Prior to TPC Desktop 2016, TPC users could import CAD files into the Drawing View to fill in missing site data, plan their as-built survey work, select features for stakeout or whatever else. TPC did the best job it could of converting the CAD entities to it’s own drawing objects.
Now, in TPC Desktop 2016, Now you can just open a CAD file in the CAD View, use the layer, pan and zoom tools to evaluate what you need, select it and send it to the Drawing View. Your drawing now contains just the entities or layers you need – not the whole drawing. This new process has a lot of advantages:
•The Drawing View doesn’t need to render the drawing – the CAD View does that, and it does it really well. This is same technology that commercial CAD programs use. We leave the details up to them.
•Since you are bringing in just the entities or layers you need, your TPC drawings stay small and fast.
•Since you are bringing in just the entities or layers you need, your TPC drawings aren’t cluttered with dozens or hundreds of layers you don’t care about.
•You can bring in entities and layers as you need them. Start with the site grading, then later on, bring in the underground utilities, then the foundations, then the parking structures, and so on. Get what you need, when you need it.
Send Selected Entities from the Drawing View to the CAD View
Professional
We are very excited about sending drawing entities into an existing CAD file and here’s why – it retains all the integrity of the existing CAD file. So open any CAD file from any architect or engineer, add your survey objects and save it. That’s it. They now have all of their original and proprietary drawing information along with the deliverables they contracted you to provide.
Convert from One CAD File Type to Another
Premium, Professional
Open a DGN file and write out a DWG file. Or open a DWG file, write it out as a DXF, then strip the blocks out it and add them to TPC’s blocks library. You run into lots of reasons to convert CAD files in your work and now you can do it right from TPC Desktop.
View Layouts
Most of the time you spend in the CAD View, you will be working with model space. But TPC also support any layouts saved with an existing CAD file.
