The Upcoming ZWCAD Gets a Smart Ribbon UI

Recently there has been a lot of speculation about the next version of ZWCAD because of information released in an official statement this March. We are confident to say, that the next release of ZWCAD will be a game changer. It will greet users firstly withnew user interface features, including an application menu button, new capabilities for palettes and most notably, SmartMouse and a different Ribbon Interface. Now let’s take a sneak peek at the new user interface. 

1. SwitchBetween Classic and RibbonMenu 

In the newversion of ZWCAD, the classic menu bar is retained for users who prefer to stay with thisfamiliar interface. It is, however, turned off by default. To display the menu bar, click the arrow at the lower-right corner of ZWCAD. From the popup menu, choose the Classic/Ribbon option to display eitherthe menu bar orthe ribbon. 

2. Using Classic Dropdown Menus with the Ribbon 
You don’t need to switch to the classic menu; you can enjoy the ribbon as well as the classic menu in one environment.The Classic Menu Access Button lets you access menu items while working in the ribbon environment. You find this button inthe top-right of the ribbon. (See the figure below for its location.) 

3. Hide the Ribbon to Gain More Room 
The ribbon presents many icons, but its large size reduces drafting space. There is, however,no need to worry about this, because you can minimize the ribbon any time. At the right end of the ribbon’s tab names, there is a down-arrow button: click it to minimize the ribbon; click it again to bring back the ribbon. 

4. Three Skins for ZWCAD 
The default color scheme of ZWCAD’s skin is Black, but there are two more options: Light Blue and Silver. These let you choose between dark and light motifs. The skin options button is atthe topright corner of the interface, as illustrated below. 

5. Auto-hide Palettes 
All palettes in ZWCAD, like the Properties palette, Design Center, and Tool palettes, have a new feature: they are all hidable. Just right clickon a palette, and then check the Auto-hide option, as illustrated below. From now on, palettes are hidden when your cursor is not over them. This gains you more room fordrafting. 

6. SmartMouse = Mouse Gestures for ZWCAD 
Mouse gestures are common among Web browsers for performing browsing actions, and now this useful technology has been added to ZWCAD. We call it “SmartMouse,” and you can customize commands for eachgesture. To do so, choose the Tools tab in the ribbon, and then in the Mouse Gesture panel, click the Settings button. This opens a dialog box for modifying the commands associated with different gestures. 

7. Thumbnail Views of Recently Opened Drawings 
In the upper left corner, there is a ZWCAD logo. It’s the application menu button(see figure below), whereyou can find a list of all of the drawings that were recently opened -- or that are currently open now. You can also view them as icons or as images.When you choose the Large Image option, then the drawings areshownas thumbnail images, which let you instantly recognize the drawing contents. 

8. Search All Related Commands 
The ZWCAD application menu button contains a search box, as shown below. When you input a keyword, it lists all related commands that you can select from to use in your drawing. This is a quick way to find functions whose name you don’t exactly remember. 

A video to show Ribbon and SmartMouse of ZWCAD+:

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Read more about "Ribbon" from ZWCAD forum:
Switch between RIBBON and CLASSIC style
As I can load the ribbon of my application?
CAD ribbon

ZW3D and GrabCAD Present a 3D CAD Model Challenge

Guangzhou, China: April 6, 2012---ZWSOFT, a leading supplier of 2D and 3D CAD/CAM solutions to the AEC and MCAD industries, announced today that it will partner with GrabCAD to present a 3D CAD model challenge. This contest wants CAD users to create imaginative and intricate 3D models that are designed in ZW3D CAD/CAM software. The winning entries of this challenge, will receive cash and other prizes, as well as a chance to be featured on the cover of a ZW3D 2013 brochure.

In this 3D CAD model challenge, participants are encouraged to run wild with their imaginations and create something extraordinary. Entries can be any object designed in ZW3D CAD/CAM, from a nice mobile phone to a sports car. ZW3D can be downloaded for a free 30-day trial from http://www.zwsoft.com/en/products/zw3d.html. For those who are new to ZW3D, it is easy to learn the CAD/CAM software with its built in show-n-tell tutorials.

“ZW3D is an amazing CAD/CAM product for modeling, mold design and machining. It offers top-notch design experience,” says Colin, Manager of ZW3D Technical Support Department, “now with this powerful software teaming up with GrabCAD, there will be a multitude of creative minds working, and I believe that this challenge will unleash new innovation in 3D design.”

This challenge will have a total of 6 winning entries, out of which one will have the chance to be on the cover page of ZW3D 2013 brochures. The first place winner will receive $500 USD and a 3Dconnexion SpacePilot™ Pro 3D Mouse which is valued at $399 USD. The second place winner will get $300 USD plus a 3Dconnexion SpaceMouse™ Pro 3D Mouse valued at $299 USD. The challenge is open to everyone. To enter, go to Grabcad.com, sign up and submit your design.

For more details on this challenge, please visit: http://grabcad.com/challenges/3d-cad-model-challenge

About GrabCAD

GrabCAD is a renowned on-line CAD community with over 200,000 mechanical engineers and CAD users. It aims at forging a platform for excellent 3D models to be shared.

About ZW3D

ZW3D, formally VX CAD CAM, is cost-effective CAD/CAM software developed by ZWSOFT. It integrates product design, sheet metal, reverse engineering, product assembly, mold development and machining in one package. Free trial of ZW3D is available fromwww.zwsoft.com.

Contact Info

John Chow

 ZWSOFT

zhouzehong@zwsoft.com

86-20-38289780 Ext 858

www.zwsoft.com

ZW3D CAD/CAM Selected as Teaching Software in Riga Technical University

Guangzhou, China: March 30, 2012- ZWSOFT, a leading supplier of 2D and 3D CAD/CAM solutions to the AEC and MCAD industries, announced today that it donated 25 licenses of ZW3D 2012 to Riga Technical University in Latvia. ZW3D will be used for teaching and training students who study material technology and CAD CAM product design.

ZWSOFT constantly strives to help enrich students’education, whether through donating licenses to schools like Riga Technical University, or through the new ZW3D student edition, which is available to all qualified students.  With these programs, ZWSOFT hopes to help students learn and gain an understanding of CAD CAM software, which will prepare them for the future.

For more than ten years, Riga Technical University has prepared students in Latvia for careers in many different fields of product design. At the end of 2011, RTU began renovating their architecture and design building in order to meet their increasing needs. The building will be finished at the end of 2012, when it will be fully equipped with the latest technologies.

ZW3D was selected as one of the CAD/CAM solutions for teaching. The company provided 25 licenses and they are now being used by students in the university’s Faculty of Materials Science and Applied Chemistry, Institute of Textile MaterialsTechnology and Design.    

ZWSOFT’s Latvian Partner, ZWCAD Baltic Distributor Centre, facilitated this donation, and is providing support to the university. Riga Technical University stated, “We want to teach our design study program students the latest CAD/CAM technology, so they would become high qualified personneland leaders in international and local companies after graduating fromour university.”

For more information about ZWSOFT’s educational program or to obtain a student version of ZW3D, please visithttp://www.zwsoft.com/en/student/.

About Riga Technical University

RTU is an accredited, internationally recognized European level university offering high-class academic and professional study programmes. Founded in 1862, Riga Technical University is now comprised of 8 faculties ranging from design, architecture and urban planning to mechanical engineering.  www.rtu.lv/en.

About ZW3D

ZW3Dis cost-effective CAD software integrated with CAM for 3D modeling, mold design, and machining, which takes engineers from concept to finished product in one easy-to-use, single collaborative environment. It integrates product design, sheet metal, reverse engineering, product assembly, mold development and machining in one package. Free trial of ZW3D is available fromwww.zwsoft.com.

Contact Info

John Chow

ZWSOFT

zhouzehong@zwsoft.com

86-20-38259726

www.zwsoft.com

ZWCAD Hot tutorial: Walking Through Layers with LAYWALK

Have you ever needed to check whether objects are on the correct layers of your drawings? Is everything on the right layer? Have you repeatedly toggled layers on and off to show and hide them for temporary viewing?

All of these actions (and others) can be accomplished with a simple but useful command in ZWCAD 2011, LAYWALK – short for “layer walk”. Let’s take a look at how it helps you manage layers in your drawings.

Tutorial 1: Showing and Hiding Layers

When you first open the Layer Walk dialog box with the LayWalk command, all of the drawing’s layer names are listed. All those not turned off are down selected (are highlighted) automatically, so you can see the layer visibility settings as they were in the drawing before you started this command.

Now, whenever you select a layer name from the list, the corresponding layer is displayed in drawing area, and other layers are turned off instantly. (You don’t need to exit the dialog box to see the changes.) This allows you to view dynamically only the objects assigned to this layer.

You can hold down the Ctrl key to select more than one layer for viewing at a time; also, you can hold down the Shift key to select a contiguous group of layer names. A simpler way to select multiple, contiguous layer names is to click on one layer, and then drag down the list with your mouse.

The dialog box works in reverse, too: when you choose one or more entities in drawing by Pick button, the dialog box highlights the layer names of those entities. In this way, it functions like the Layer Isolate command.

Tutorial #2: Filtering Layer Names

At the top of the Layer Walk dialog box, there is a text entry box, in which you can input expressions to filter the names of layers. This shortens the list of layer names displayed, and is very useful in complex drawings with many layers. The filter function supports wildcard characters, such as * (all characters) and ? (any single character). For example, if you want to list and view all layer names starting with the letters “gr”, then follow these steps: (1) enter gr*” in the text entry box, and then (2) tick the “Filter” option. Notice that the dialog box lists only those layer names that begin with “gr.”

Tutorial #3: Using the Right-click Menu

You can right-click on the list of layer names at any time to display context menu with additional functions for selecting, viewing, and summarizing the layers.

For example, the Hold Selection option keeps your current selection always turned on as a reference; based on it, you can select other layers. The on-hold layer is prefixed with the “*” character; you can select it, release it, or release all.

Another useful option is Inspect, which provides a detailed summary of the currently selected layers; see the figure below.

Tutorial #4: Using Other Controls in LayerWalk

You may notice the Purge button at the bottom of the dialog box. It allows you to purge empty layers from drawings, those layers that have no entities. This button is disabled until you select one or more empty layers.

The Restore on Exit option means that the layer state will be restored after you end this command -- regardless of what you’ve done while in the dialog box. When this option is turned off, keeps the layer state when you exit the dialog box, which can be very useful.

 

By the way, this command works both in model space and in layout tabs.

ZWCAD Hot tutorial: How to Delete Stubborn Layers

In your daily design work, you may encounter the same issue I do: sometimes there are too many layers in my drawings, many of which have little or nothing on them. I can't, however, seem to delete them, even with the Purge command. When there are so many layers, I find that they make my design work more inconvenient.

This issue annoyed me long enough that I figured out some methods of how to get rid of them. I can’t wait to share them with you.

We usually use Purge command to remove the unused named items from the current drawing, such as the blocks, layers, linetypes, text styles, and dimension styles that are not being used.

Sometimes, however, layers are nested in blocks, and in this case Purge seems to not work. Some users have suggested that the Delete Layer command is available, found in ZWCAD under the Layer sub-menu of the Express Tools. Yes, it works. But it is not the best way, because it will also delete layers that contain objects.

Your drawing could definitely incur some damage if you aren't paying attention!

Here are some other methods that I want to share with you:

Method 1: Copy'n Paste

a.            Turn off the useless layers.

b.            Select all objects.

c.             Copy them (Ctrl+C or CopyClip command), and then paste them (Ctrl+V or PasteClip) to a new drawing.

Method 2: WBlock

a.            Select the objects you want to remain.

b.            Use the WBlock command to write these objects to a new drawing file.

Method 3:  LayTrans

a.            Use the LayTrans command to translate the layers you want to delete to another drawing file or new drawing file.

These are my quick tips on how to delete stubborn layers. If you have a better method, or tips on other aspects of making CAD operations more efficient, please share them with us on the ZWCAD forum. Let’s move ahead, together!

ZWCAD Hot Tip: The Many Ways to Count Blocks in Drawings

Sometimes we need to count the number of blocks that exist in our drawings. It turns out that there are several approaches to doing this in ZWCAD. Let me share them with you.

Approach 1:  BCOUNT

Here is how to use the BCOUNT command to count all or just a selected group of blocks in drawings:

1.     Enter the BCOUNT command.

2.     Select the objects you want to count, and then press Enter.

3.       Notice that the name of each block and the number of its occurrences appear on the command line. To see all of the details, press F2 to get to the Text window, a big version of the command prompt area. It looks something like this:

As a bonus, this method also reports the number of each kind of block in the selection set.

Approach 2:  BLOCKSUM

The BLOCKSUM command does not count the total number of blocks; rather, it is used to count how many blocks are on a specific layer, and how many have the same name.

The BLOCKSUM command can be accessed from ZWCAD Express menu: Express > Tools > Number of Blocks.

Follow these steps to use the BLOCKSUM command:

1.     Enter the BLOCKSUM command, or select it from the Express menu.

2.     Notice that it prompts you, ‘Layer/selection Set/<All>’. There are two choices, Layer, or select a specific number of objects:

                - Layer option counts the number of blocks on the same layer as the selected block.

 - selection Set option counts the number of blocks that have the same name as the selected block.

3.     When you input L to choose the layer option, it prompts you, ‘Select an object on the layer or <exit>:’. Select a block, and then press Enter.  

Notice that the command line it reports, ‘[Number of] blocks on layer [layer name]’.

Approach 3:  Attribute Extraction

The BCOUNT and BLOCKSUM commands are specifically meant for counting blocks. There is also an indirect way to count them, through attribute extraction. The AttExt command extracts all kinds of data from blocks, such as attribute values and X,Y coordinates -- and it also extracts the number of blocks. The result is similar to that of BlockSum, in that it lists the names of blocks and the number of occurrences. See the figure below.

Approach 4:  QSELECT

ZWCAD's quick select feature is yet another indirect way to count blocks. Here is how to use the QSELECT command for this task:

1.     Enter the QSELECT command.

2.     In the dialog box that appears, set the following options:

Object type=Block Reference
Color=Bylayer  (We assume that all of the block’s colors are ByLayer.)

3.     Press the OK button. Notice that all the selected blocks are highlighted. The command line prompts us that there are X item(s) selected, so we know how many blocks are in this drawing.

In addition to these ways of counting blocks in drawings, we could use LISP programs, but I think above four methods are enough for block counting. I'm glad to have shared them with you. 

ZWCAD Hot Tutorial: Creating Curves in ZWCAD Quickly with Excel

In surveying and mapping, we get coordinates by taking measurements in the field, and then we make curves from these coordinates. To draw the curves in ZWCAD, we have to input the coordinates one by one at the command line, unfortunately. When there are many coordinates, then it becomes inefficient to draw curves in this way; in any case, this form of manual input is prone to making mistakes.

Now there is an easier way to draw these kinds of curves by using ZWCAD and Excel together. This makes the task efficient and more precise. Here are the steps to carrying this out.

1. First, enter the coordinates into a spreadsheet, such as Excel or LibreOffice. In the figure below, column B contains the x coordinates and column C contains the y coordinates.
   
   
   
   
   
2. Next, define column D as “Point (X , Y).”
3.    Input the following formula in cell D2:”=B2”,”&C2”
4. Copy the formula to all rows by dragging the cell down the column, as shown by the following picture. When you are done, the x,y coordinates are generated automatically in column D.
   
   
   
   
   
5. Now switch over to ZWCAD, and then start Spline command to begin drawing the curve.
6. When the Spline command prompts you, “First point for spline,” copy the x,y coordinate from cell D2 to the last one in the Excel document, and then paste them in the command line in ZWCAD. As you do, the spline will be created automatically, as shown by the figure below.

This method using ZWCAD with Excel makes it easy to quickly create the measured curves with x,y coordinates, but without making mistakes -- no matter how many points you have to input.