Tip of the month! April: New in Palette CAD 9, pt.2

As promised then, this month we have the second part of the Palette CAD 9 features for you. Seeing as we have now changed our release cycle to more frequent 6-8 week releases, you will also be seeing more of such fun packed notes. No excuses then for not trying them out, get to it.

Palette Play / virtual rooms / room glasses

• The export of virtual rooms has become much faster and creates even better photorealistic quality
• At the current state of development, however, rooms which are not visible from the active camera are not given any lighting
• The camera can be set so that it always creates an external panorama in which the camera always rotates about an object (Rotate camera about the visual focus)
• In contrast to Palette CAD 8, it is not possible to continue working in Palette CAD during rendering for export to Palette Play

Sanitary equipment

• The ARGE New Media catalogues of the German plumbing, heating and cooling industry are now indexed automatically in the background just like object and material catalogues
• Plumbing equipment articles in the ARGE format now have an object controller
• When a sanitary equipment article is selected, the article’s properties are displayed in the object controller
• Animations, such as opening doors, can be run using this object controller
• A dimensioning type can be assigned to every plumbing equipment object type (ARGE format) for the automatic dimensioning feature via an editable list

Tiles and natural stone

• The former “Tiles” tab is now called “Lay”
• This makes it clearer that the tools there can also be used to lay natural stone flags or parquet
• The “Floor in rows” laying pattern now accommodates rows of different widths than the tiles
• For tiling patterns, it is now possible to lock the size of the tiles so that when the tile or material is changed, the set size of the tiles is not changed
• For automatic laying of corner profiles, it is now possible to select articles from manufacturers in addition to the general profiles
• The new installation walls and interior walls automatically create isles in the laying area of the wall and the floor behind them

Wood technology

• Wood technology boards have been completely reworked and now have a modern user interface
• The board is shown in a 3D preview
• Features can be clicked directly in the preview
• Free-form milling is now possible
• Milling contours can be exported and imported making processing easier
• Inactive features can be hidden
• Connectors can now create pockets and grooves in addition to bores and CNC programs
• Board materials with a thickness of “0” do not change the board thickness when selected
• The board manager now also shows the thickness of the boards
• Direct printing and printing of a cover sheet directly from the wood technology board is once again possible
• Edges and edge features as well as grain direction are marked in the board view
• CNC tool assignment with additional CNC parameters is now possible for every feature
• The start point of a milling operation can be selected (also in the centre of a contour element)
• When the workshop text is used, this is marked with an exclamation point in the user interface
• The alignment of a wood technology board can be changed at any time
• It is now possible to copy the dimensions and angles of every feature from the scene
• The subtraction of a cuboid from a wood technology board is now recognized as a rectangular pocket
• There is a new intelligent nested distribution which can divide the height and width at the same time
• The distribution of fronts and internal fittings can be coupled in such a way that changes are applied automatically
• There are new, intelligent built-in objects which replace the previous placeholder objects
• The intelligent built-in objects can control exchange operations and only suggest objects that it makes sense to swap in
• The intelligent built-in objects can also be angled, making them suitable for corner cabinets and pitched-roof cabinets 

 

Stoves and fireplaces

• The size of stove tiles can be calibrated
• This makes it possible to adapt stove tiles to joint thicknesses that deviate from the standard joint thickness of 6 mm
• The size of stove tiles can be set with precision when it deviates from the standard grid spacing
• The calibration of stove tiles is controlled via the stove tile manager in the “Extras” menu
• The stove technology module must be licensed for this function
• The “Stoves and Fireplaces” catalogues as of version 19 support the calibration function

Simplify object

• There is an operation called “Simplify object” with which the number of faces of an object can be reduced in steps
• Simplify object can be found in the Extras menu

Smaller enhancements

• The units for input and for dimensioning include m, inches and feet
• With the masonry enclosure function, the walls which are to be included in the masonry enclosure can now also be selected manually
• You can change the name of a project when sending it as an email
• There is a new function in the editor called “Sew” with which the ill-fitting segmentation in the interior of objects can be joined together

Drawing frame

• The previous option for quickly inserting a drawing frame during simple printing has been omitted
• Drawing frames can now only be inserted in the Exposé
• However, the options for drawing frames have been expanded and it is easier to set your own drawing frames

Palette CAD 9.02

• When a style is selected in the managers for dimensioning styles, line styles and hatch styles and confirmed with OK, this style is automatically applied as the default setting
• The positioning of dimension texts for small dimensions has been improved
• When you switch to the Exposé, pending processes in the scene (such as camera settings or dialog boxes) are closed and the Exposé is no longer held up by these processes
• Pending processes are also closed automatically when you switch between projects
• In the Exposé, "Fit to page" has been added as a separate option in the context menu
• In the Exposé, the first view loaded automatically fills the page in the display
• This means that the Exposé can now be used for quick printouts with a drawing frame as used to be the case with print preview
• You can set a fixed scale in the Exposé for transferring views
• The display of 2D lines and dimensioning in the Exposé has been optimized
• Standard lines from 2D drawings now automatically have a line width in the Exposé
• The PDF export feature has been reworked
• There is an object controller for rotation
• The Copy operation remembers the setting for Gap or Offset when this has been made once
• When a room is joined to form a group and then copied, the connection of the walls is retained
• In the update manager, you can select a path for new catalogues that were previously not installed on the computer
• The ifc import has been enhanced
• For a DXF/DWG import, you can set whether invisible elements should be imported
• Several interactions in 2D Drawing have been further improved
• For the intelligent staircase, you can now click on the steps that you wish to move manually in the dialog’s preview
• Further refinements in the new built-in object
• Further refinements in the new nested distribution
• Preview bitmaps for bathroom fittings and plumbing catalogues with the ARGE New Media format can be updated via the update manager
• The new PCAD2Wop version 5 is supported for CNC connections 

Should be plenty to keep you all busy at the moment, but just in case there is the 9.03 update to look forward to before the end of the month. The details naturally then coming in the next post. Stay tuned and enjoy.

Greeting from Stuttgart,

Your Palette CAD Blog Team