TPC Desktop 2025
Although TPC continues to be The No CAD Zone for lots of good reasons, we know how important it is to interface well with CAD.
That’s what this release is all about.
In TPC Desktop 2025, You’ll find new tools to
- Export all CAD drawings with both Model Space and a Paper Space layout to match the TPC drawing, with clipping, rotation, plot setup and more.
- Import CAD layouts all by themselves as drawing templates, continue to import just Model Space or combine both Model Space and a Paper Space layout together.
- Clipping survey space in a TPC drawing creates a viewport in the exported CAD layout and vice versa.
- TPC can now clip survey space to paper space objects which play nicer with CAD Viewports.
- TPC now supports Rich Text objects in CAD blocks which are commonly used in CAD templates.
- Layouts work with both imperial and metric.
- And dozens more tools to make all this fun.
TPC now exports CAD layouts and viewports in addition to Model Space.
The paper space objects in your TPC drawing will be exported to the paper space layout created for this drawing in the exported CAD drawing.
When exporting a DWG drawing, TPC embeds the printer and paper form names into the layout. When opened in CAD, the CAD page setup for the layout should reference those properly.
Export CAD Page Setup
TPC exports the Page Setup to CAD so you are ready to plot from CAD.
In the Page Setup dialog shown here from a generic CAD program TPC has set the Printer, Paper Size, Print Offset, Drawing Orientation so you are ready to plot from any CAD program.
Available in Premium & Professional Edition. Compare Editions
When you import a DWG file, TPC displays the available layouts, along with some of their information, letting you select one or more for import.
Import Options
Choose from any one of the following options when importing a layout.
Importing A Layout and Model Space
When you select any of the available Paper layouts and the Model layout together, TPC recreates the layout in a TPC drawing and plots the model space in a survey clip object corresponding to the viewport of the imported layout.
Importing Just a Layout
Import a single paper layout to create a drawing template you can re-use in TPC. The TPC drawing will included a survey space clip object for the layout’s viewport
Importing Just Model Space
Import just the model layout from the CAD drawing to get just the survey data and none of the layout paper space objects.
CAD Layouts Dialog
The new CAD Layouts dilaog lets you select which layouts you want when you import a CAD file into a drawing and when you use the new Create TPC Drawing From Layout… command in the CAD View.
Each layout contains information to help you identify what is in the layout. This can be helpful in determining which layout you want to import.
Basic information includes the Plot type, size, margins, units and size of the active viewport.
CAD View Layouts
The CAD View lets you look at the individual Paper Space layouts in a CAD drawing, along with Model Space. You can select a layout to view, then easily export it to a TPC drawing or drawing template.
Create TPC Drawimg from Layout command
A new command in the CAD View lets you add the layout you’ve selected in the CAD View to the TPC drawing you have open or create a brand new drawing.
Create TPC Drawing from Layout
This is the easiest way to turn an existing CAD drawing into a TPC Drawing Template you can use over and over again.
Dimension Style
TPC provides a new Dimension Style toggle so you can work with the layout in the CAD View much the same way you would in a CAD program.
Paper Space
Toggle to Paper Space to pan and zoom the layout, just like you do in CAD.
Model Space
Toggle to Model Space to zoom in and pan the model space inside the viewport, just like you do in CAD.
Save Blocks Command
The new Save Block… command can save imported CAD blocks for later use in TPC.
Once the block has been saved, TPC will then store the block’s pathname in the survey file instead the complete block definition. This makes survey files smaller.
Of course, you can still get all the blocks from any CAD drawing like TPC has done forever.
Rich Text in Blocks
TPC now supports Rich Text objects in blocks.
We found that Rich Text was used often in CAD templates, like the logo shown here. Every text entity used to create this block has rich text coding embedded into it in CAD. So, we added the ability to read/write rich text in TPC’s blocks, for both paper space and survey space.
Viewports
CAD viewports correlate well with the survey space clip objects used in TPC drawings.
In this video, scroll to 1:40 to see Viewports.
Here, we imported a CAD template and the active CAD Viewport becomes the survey space clip object in the TPC Drawing Template. Just like you want it to.
Rich Text Improvements
Because Rich Text coding is used so heavily in CAD drawings and templates, we beefed up TPC’s Rich Text objects to play nicer with CAD.
- Bold, Italics, Underline and Strikethrough work better with selected text
- We implemented the Line Spacing factor and added Line Spacing qualifier – At Least or Exactly
- Rich Text better retains its position and word wrap when shared with CAD (import and export)
- Rich Text can now be used better in Survey Space when Units are selected for height.
Font Replacement
TPC now replaces some commonly used CAD fonts with fonts that work much, much better for Windows.
In the example shown here, TPC replaced a CAD font that was not very readable in Windows, with the True Type font RomanD, and the text turns out great in the TPC drawing and all the deliverables created from it.
Point Code Variants
New Point Code Variants automatically handle multiple uses of the same point code, like BLDG_1, BLDG_2 or SW1 and SW2 and keep your point code tables clean because they all work off of their shared code, like BLDG or SW.
Just add a number, _number or -number to any point code and TPC knows its a variant of that code.
Use as many variants in a job as you need. Then, when your sort points into traverses using Point Codes, you decide if you want to
- create a traverse for each variant
- put all the variants in a single traverse
- insert GAP points between variants in that single traverse
Point Code Close Command
The new Close Traverse / Variant command creates a closed traverse or variant when encountered in a point description or attribute.
Close Traverse / Variant Command
Of course, you could close them manually, but that would take all the fun out of it.
Emlid Control Code
Emlid now includes a CLS Control code in the CSV files it exports. In the field, just tell Emlid Flow to close the code you are using. When you import that job into TPC, all those closed figures show up in TPC when sorted into traverses with Point Codes. Nice!
Sneak Peek
Beginning with TPC Desktop 2025 R1, TPC allows you to reject or accept survey points and their associated survey lines.
Displaying Rejected Points
In the Points Manager and Traverse Views, you can show the rejected points with color and strikeout. Select any rejected points and Accept back into the survey.
Available in v25.0.2
Plot RTK Base Points
You can now choose to plot RTK Base points or not.
The new default is to not plot them, so the CORS station that is 4 miles away won’t affect Zoom Extents in your drawing.
Available in v25.0.2
Now computes Prism Offsets and PPM
These new import toggles let you turn them On or Off.
[x] Apply Prism Constant if Found
[X] Apply PPM if Found
Available in v25.0.2
Walk Through a Survey
We’ve added more tutorials on walking through a survey.
These are 2 entry level walk throughs that focus on just getting emlid GNSS data into TPC.
Latest CAD Drivers
This version includes the latest CAD drivers for DWG, DXF and DGN files.
Resolve Calibration Files
Managing a Survey’s Calibrations
TPC saves a survey’s calibrations in .cal files using a relative path if they are stored in the survey’s project folder. But if you rename the sub-folder where it is stored, TPC can’t find it.
This new feature browses for the file if it isn’t found.
TPC does this with Blockreference files in drawings and has just extended it to calibration files.
Available in v25.0.2
Released April 21, 2025
What’s New – all versions
