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OT: BricsCAD vs. CADopia

J

jemmej

Senior Member
OT: BricsCAD vs. CADopia

We are currently evaluating these two IntelliCAD providers. Does anyone have any comments on either company?

In my own investigating, I can't shake the nagging feeling that CADopia is simply a repackager of the IntelliCAD kernel. I also am highly skeptical of their 700,000 user claim as well. This is especially due to their user forum which is not active at all compared to the Alibre forum with far fewer "users".

I am leaning towards BricsCAD. They seem to do a lot of the coding (sold some code to the ITC) and have bugfixes and patches periodically based on user support (sound familiar?).

Any comments?

Jim
 
M

MilesH

Alibre Super User


Yes, BricsCAD seem to be more pro-active with bug fixes.

Surya Sarda (CADopia CEO) worked on Intellicad when it was launched by Visio, and was president of the ITC at one time. Also, CADopia 'developed' the DWG editor for SolidWorks.

Perhaps BricsCAD have more incentive as they use the IntelliCAD core in their architectural software?

Try them both and see which one falls over first :)

Have you tried the free version from ProgeSoft?

Miles
 
J

jemmej

Senior Member


Thanks Miles! Good information.

I wish I could try CADopia, but, I had some computer issues when I first installed it and uninstalled it to see if it was the problem (it wasn't). Then I installed BricsCAD and used it for 30 days. Then I went to use CADopia's trial and it has the initial install logged, so it won't let use it. I've e-mailed them 3 times since August 23rd with no response :(

Any other good info on BricsCAD or CADopia?

Jim

P.S. A co-worker d/l'd the free ProgeSoft version but it kept popping up asking him to d/l the "newer" version (of which he'd just d/l'd). So, no I haven't yet as it appears not to work at the moment.
 
M

MilesH

Alibre Super User


Jim,

I've used BricsCAD for a few years. It's improved a lot, bugwise, the latest versions have been pretty good. They usually respond if you report an issue on the forum. Anyway, they don't appear to be a company that's likely to sublimate overnight....

CADopia don't seem that interested in your custom :)

Miles
 
J

jemmej

Senior Member


How's the forum? I haven't been able to log into it. Is it a good forum? CADopia's does not inspire confidence.

Jim
 
M

MilesH

Alibre Super User


It's not an open forum. Licence only.

Well, it's not exactly a community, like this is. Maybe 2 or 3 posts and then a few days with nothing, sort of thing. It's certainly not comatose, like the CADopia one appears to be, though.....

I only check it once every couple of weeks, but it's useful if you have a problem.

The CMS Intellicad forum is the best open one, I think.

What will you use Intellicad for?

Miles
 
J

jemmej

Senior Member


Well, the 2D drafting part of Alibre is barely useable for anything approaching a real drawing (don't get me started about Engineers turned drafters..ugh ;)) and we have a large ammount of legacy .dwg format drawings that we need to retain compatability with. Basically, Alibre Design Pro and IntelliCAD will be replacing AutoCAD LT for our work environment. If Alibre would incorporate the IntelliCAD kernel into their drafting package it would be a slam dunk and we could consolidate on one program, THAT would be awesome! (Though it seems like Alibre has considered the idea before and passed citing a lack of user requirement for it).

Jim
 
G

Gaspar

Alibre Super User


We are about to buy from Cadopia (didn't even know there were other Intellicad suppliers).

:arrow: When you mention bugs, how bad are those bugs? We are only interested in simple AutoCad like 2d drafting and in the ability to interact with clients who still have AutoCad.

:arrow: Who developed Intellicad and why is it sold by so many vendors?

Thanks in advance for any comments :D
 
G

Gaspar

Alibre Super User


Very kind of you Miles. Thanks for the info.

I've read through a good part of the paper. Very interesting.
 
J

jemmej

Senior Member


I don't neccessarily have a problem per se with CADopia, but, three e-mails to their listed e-mail address go unreturned, their user forums are a joke and my nebulous gut feeling is to be cautious.

That being said, the majority of the tech is from the ITC and therefore should be fine. I can't comment on the actual program as I haven't been able to demo it!

I will say that I've heard some things about BricsCAD being faster than CADopia but, again, I can't comment directly myself and they may have already been addressed with the point below...

One further thing, BricsCAD did sell some of its code to the ITC, for what that's worth.

Maybe you could have your rep drop me a line if you are dealing directly with CADopia, if not, you have a VAR so that's a good think to have.

Jim
 
C

CGN

Senior Member


I can recommend that if you anyone thinking of buying any IntelliCad "flavor", if you are going to be active exchanging drawings done with AutoCAD buy AutoCAD LT, IntelliCad is great and works just fine, but it is not AutoCAD so issues will be always there (more than common ones), but if you are company or a contractor that produces (Drawings and products) more than receive form clients finalized drawings, then IntelliCad is a great option, you can even get a version (Flavor) of IntelliCad from

http://www.intellicadms.com/products/sp ... ricing.asp

cheers
 
M

MilesH

Alibre Super User
Re:

CGN said:
, if you are going to be active exchanging drawings done with AutoCAD buy AutoCAD LT, IntelliCad is great and works just fine, but it is not AutoCAD so issues will be always there (more than common ones),
Click to expand...

Certainly, that's what MegaloDesk would like you to believe... I'm not sure it's quite that simple. For exchange between versions of AutoCAD with the same file format, of course, that's the case, but for backward compatability with older versions, all bets are off.....

Speaking of bugs, anyone remember AutoCAD R.13 :)

Miles
 
G

Gaspar

Alibre Super User


Our needs are:

:arrow: We receive ACad drawings from some clients. We need to see what's in them and print them out.
:arrow: Sometimes, the shape of cavities has to be exported to DXF to be sent to an electro-erotion supplier.
:arrow: Draw electric, pneumatic or hydraulic diagrams (I know this is not a problem).

Would any of you go for Intellicad (Cadopia)?
 
A

acall

New Member


BricsCAD all the way. I closely watched CADopia and BricsCAD and finally chose BricsCAD. Their forums have way more meat. Most of the Tech support is with emails directly to support outside of the forums. They are constantly releasing interims fixes compared to CADopia.

I am not a expert by any means in IntelliCAD and I reached a point where something like Alibre Solid Modelling seems more appropriate for designing iceboats which is my wintertime hobby.
 
J

jwknecht

Alibre Super User
Re:

MilesH said:
Gaspar,

Why don't you try this free version to start with:
http://www.progesoft.com/compra/index.a ... 1&lang=eng
Click to expand...

Thanks for this post. I can't believe this is free. Have you run upon any limitations of the lite version? There don't seem to be many limits? According to an experienced AutoCad user, it seems to be almost a replica.

EDIT: After visiting the user forum, it would appear that it is a "buggy" program. Is this what you have found?
 
L

lens_cad

Member


I purchased a license of BricsCad IntelliCad. I think it is the most expensive of the various IntelliCad vendors, but when I evaluated several demo versions, it seemed to be the most stable and incorporated the latest improvements. It is still an incredible bargain compared to AutoCAD.

Len
 
M

MilesH

Alibre Super User


John,

I haven't tried it myself (I have BricsCad V6).

As it uses the same ITC code, I don't see why it should be that much more buggy than other versions. Recent releases of BricsCad have been pretty clean and fast, for my use.

Miles
 
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