Making Design Master work on AutoCAD LT has long been a request of our customers. Unfortunately, Autodesk does not allow third-party programs such as ours to run on AutoCAD LT. This limitation, plus support for 3D, is the difference between full AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT.
About two years ago, we learned of a company called Bricsys. They have an AutoCAD clone called Bricscad. Their goal with Bricscad is to allow third-party programs that run in AutoCAD, such as Design Master, to run on their platform as well. The benefit of their software is that it is much cheaper than AutoCAD–$665 for a new license and $235 for a yearly subscription (versus $4,425 for a new license of AutoCAD and $430 for a yearly subscription).
Over the past two years, we have been working with them to make their software and ours work together. It is not an exact replacement for AutoCAD yet, but it is close enough that we are ready to start beta testing Design Master Electrical with Bricscad. We are looking for customers who are currently using our software who would be interested in helping us with this test. If you are interested, reply to this email and let us know.
There are currently two known limitations in Bricscad in Design Master Electrical.
- 3D modeling does not work. You cannot create 3D conduits or cable trays, and the functions to export to IFC files for 3D-BIM Revit compatibility are not supported.
- Activating other drawings to apply changes does not work. We use this feature when changes to one drawing affects another. You have to manually open the other drawings to have the changes made to them.
In addition to those limitations, there are a number of additional limitations in Design Master HVAC and Plumbing that prevent us from being ready to declare that those programs work with Bricscad. Bricsys is aware of these errors and is working to fix them in their software. Once they are overcome, we plan to support HVAC and Plumbing on Bricscad.