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Comparison BitCAD - AutoCAD (Round 1)

Before I had talked about BitCAD, which is a Economic alternative to AutoCAD, with an advertisement Very aggressive and that right now he has released his 6.5 version with 3D functionalities. 

More and more companies are forced to abandon the practice of hacking because international agreements are getting more governments involved in copyright protection as well as private enforcement centers.

I am aware that these applications will never reach the full potential of AutoCAD or Microstation, but I also believe that these alternatives should be promoted because they are fully functional; I am so convinced of this that I have decided to open a new category under the IntelliCAD line. In this review, I am doing a comparison between AutoCAD 2008 and BitCAD, as far as data construction is concerned, with an emphasis on command availability.

The data construction bar

Bitcad autocad

The image above represents a drawing bar comparison between AutoCAD 2008 and BitCAD 6.5. The commands are almost the same, with some differences; in the bar between both menus I have placed the equivalents. BitCAD groups line and xline into a single icon, also boundary with the pline command

What is more of AutoCAD: The block command, BitCAD only has the option to insert it, to create it you have to go to the menu Tools, Also the region command that is in menu MOdify.

Apparently AutoCAD has more, and that BitCAD: Cloud and Table do not seem to exist.

What's more BitCAD: The Donut, wipeout and mtext commands to activate them in AutoCAD must go to the menu Draw

Apparently, the freehand and plane commands do not exist in AutoCAD, the latter is quite similar to solid, but BitCAD has its own solid in the 3D object menu.

Grouped Commands

One of the best features that BitCAD has is that the commands in this bar already bring the other options, so that the possible alternatives can be displayed with a command. Quite similar to the functionality of Microstation. With AutoCAD you can also build these drop-down menus but BitCAD already brings them by default.

Grouped menus bitcad autocad

In this way, the 18 button bar has 32 additional buttons, thus becoming 50 direct commands. Not that the commands do not exist in AutoCAD, but there they require a necessary step to activate that alternative, generally activating the command and then the right mouse button.

Very accurate indeed, this way the second command option is available from the first click.

Context Menus

In addition, when a command is activated, the third option of the command, known as the context menu, is available with a single click. Likewise, this functionality is taken from Microstation, with the intention that it is available at a click, once the command is finished the panel disappears.

Grouped menus bitcad autocad

In the case of AutoCAD, it requires one more step, with the right mouse button to see the contextual options. Both show below the command line options for using the keyboard.

It is valuable to rescue that AutoCAD in these versions has integrated the floating context line near the pointer; However that BitCAD solution seems very suitable to avoid using the keyboard or the right mouse button.

This feature also simplifies the operation and combination of commands, to give a basic example:

Grouped menus bitcad autocad The line command in AutoCAD is only used to make lines, waiting for the click on source / destination points or the command on the keyboard; While the context menu of BitCAD activates the options:

  • Angle, with which he saves having to write the annoying @
  • Follow with which the lenghten command is integrated, allowing to continue in the same direction of the previous line
  • Lenght, with which you can enter the distance that the lenghten command asks for
  • Undo / redo, these require keyboard use or right button.
  • And from the third point the functionality of Close is activated, to be able to close with the first point indicated, without being a pline.

Execution of text commands

Here the commands work the same in both programs, even the same commands and shortcuts are recognized.

Conclusion

Definitely, data construction in BitCAD is more efficient as it requires fewer steps. It is clear that users acquire practice in AutoCAD combining the keyboard, the mouse and the Esc key, but if an experienced one of both programs were to try, doing the same work, it would be interesting to know how many fewer commands the one using BitCAD executes. In time, it could be the same, but in performance it is clear that one's brain effort is more exhausting, especially if there were five cartoonists working 8 hours, after 4 weeks of work we could believe that there is better performance than those who had the brain less saturated.

At the end of this first round, BitCAD wins the battle with just the 10% budget, in another post we will continue to see other similarities, because it seems to me a viable alternative for a company that believes that AutoCAD is not within reach for all its operators and Which has taken the right path not to pirate.

The BitCAD 6.5 version includes 3D, for a price less than 400 Euros, if a company bought a computer for $ 700 or more, it seems to me that it is capable of buying one of these licenses. Definitely, a lot of people don't use BitCAD Because you do not know it, although the 30 days version is fully functional to test it.

Grouped menus bitcad autocad

This not A sponsored post

Golgi Alvarez

Writer, researcher, specialist in Land Management Models. He has participated in the conceptualization and implementation of models such as: National Property Administration System SINAP in Honduras, Management Model of Joint Municipalities in Honduras, Integrated Cadastre-Registry Management Model in Nicaragua, Territory Administration System SAT in Colombia . Editor of the Geofumadas knowledge blog since 2007 and creator of the AulaGEO Academy that includes more than 100 courses on GIS - CAD - BIM - Digital Twins topics.

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5 Comments

  1. Well, this program is on the internet, it can be evaluated, it is good, but where is it bought today in the 2014 ?, apparently the company broke. All commercial links are broken.

  2. Pline only asks you to indicate the points, which can be by clicking directly on the screen or entering the coordinate in the form x, y

    Then the command displays below options, such as Close, Fit, Spline, Decurve, Join (Join consecutive lines ), Width (Assign line thickness)

  3. A favor could tell me what are the data requirements of the command pline

  4. Well, my co-worker makes this comment to me: "with this intellicad one can do the same thing as autocad, you can make all the drawings of a residential complex without noticing much difference"... I add: well, until we talk about the price.

  5. Although I have never acquired a license for any of the IntelliCADs on the market, I have already tried several of them (almost all of them have a trial version that they offer directly on their site). I've done it out of curiosity and I feel that without ever having the power of a program like AutoCAD they are already advanced enough to be a tool to take into account. It is important to say that they are not AutoCAD 100% clones, although they have the purpose (that they say it) of resembling a lot, they have their own peculiarities that sometimes make them feel more (or less) at ease with them. If it were up to me at this time to make a choice for the office I work with, I would definitely opt for one of these.

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