Industry Proven Professional Desktop CAD Solution: PowerCAD
PowerCAD Pro 7
Your reliable AutoCAD alternative
PowerCAD Pro - most comprehensive functionality
PowerCAD Pro - most comprehensive functionality 
PowerCAD is one of the world's best professional CAD values. Fast and easy to use, it is designed for Windows operating systems including Windows Vista and conforms to industry standard DWG and DXF files (up to R2008 format), with "Round-Trip" retention of critical drawing elements.
Plus, for the price of a single AutoCAD license, you can equip about eight PowerCAD workstations. PowerCAD offers exceptional compatibility with AutoCAD, the world's leading CAD system.
PowerCAD incorporates a completely open architecture design, with drag-and-drop placement of system icons making it instantly usable by AutoCAD familiar operators and all others too. Its visual menu, dialog, and toolbox editor allows technicians of any skill level to instantly customize the desktop for maximum user productivity.
PowerCAD has over 350 AutoCAD compatible commands that require virtually no relearning, allowing for a shared AutoCAD/PowerCAD workplace. The software has all of the drawing and editing commands CAD professionals expect. Advanced 2D drawing commands (i.e. trim, fillet, or chamfer) are complemented by sophisticated functions (associative dimensioning and hatching).
Additionally to FLX (native PowerCAD file format) we have added a feature to recover DWG and DXF files in all format versions. You are now independent from AutoCAD recover and audit commands.
PowerCAD supports Windows Vista and we have added the ability to run with different user configurations. Desktop settings, print configurations, alias files etc. are now saved for every user.
PowerCAD can define dimension style overrides for the current dimension style. This is useful when you want to create overrides to suppress or change only one or two settings of current dimension style (e.g. use only a different arrow head or dimension text size) without creating a different dimension style. It is the quickest and best way to use override dimensions. The new dimension dialog reflects the new capabilities of the dimension system.
ACIS Integration and 3D Solid Modeller
PowerCAD Pro includes a 3D Solid Modeler based on the ACIS-library, the industry standard. Rendering and line/face hiding is based on the latest OpenGL standards, reducing the time needed to perform complex imaging tasks. You can add 3D solid primitives such as boxes, spheres, cones, cylinders to your drawings. We have implemented the standard Boolean- functions union, intersect, subtract, etc. for 3D solid editing. 2D regions are created with the region command and use the same solid edition commands. Finally, solids can be edited by directly accessing faces and edges.
ACIS Developer Interface for LISP and C/C++ Objects
PowerCAD includes an Advanced Programming Interface (API), supporting system customization using Lisp, Visual C++, or Delphi to directly access our 3D solid programming functions for your application development. PowerCAD allows quick and painless "porting" of existing code written in AutoLISP, ADS or script files. Menus, dialog boxes, and palettes created for AutoCAD use are automatically converted, saving end users thousands of euros per license for each CAD system purchased.
For developers PowerCAD Pro includes the complete DCL Dialog language support. AutoCAD Dialogs can be imported into PowerCAD without further adjustments or editing. The Lisp and C/C++ interface has been reworked in Version 7 and is now compatible to AutoCAD.
New HTML based Help System
PowerCAD contains a completely renovated help system using the Microsoft CHM help files.
Tutorials and Videos
PowerCAD Tutorial Video - Navigate a drawing in PowerCAD Pro, add an annotation and some drawing editing basics.
PowerCAD Design Video -Some of the Advanced features such as draw in orthogonal mode, creating and using blocks, dimensioning
and hatching drawing objects.
PowerCAD CE Tutorial Video - Navigate a drawing in PowerCAD CE, add an annotation and some drawing editing basics.
PowerCAD CE Design Video - Some of the Advanced features such as draw in orthogonal mode, creating and using blocks, dimensioning
and hatching drawing objects.
PowerCAD FAQ's
| Questions | Answers |
Where did PowerCAD come from?
| PowerCAD is based on technologies of GiveMePower - a company of the Gräbert Group. The Gräbert Group was formerly one of the world?s largest independent AutoCAD distribution companies with an annual turnaround of approximately USD 50 million. More than 400.000 users in over 40 countries and 10 languages around the world already use GiveMePower technologies. |
PowerCAD has exceptional AutoCAD compatibility. What exactly does this mean?
| Millions of euros and many years of development have been spent to ensure PowerCAD offers a very high degree of compatibility with AutoCAD, the world?s leading PC CAD system with over 2.9 million registered users (and who knows how many unregistered ones). This allows PowerCAD to be used as an affordable alternative, or as a complementary system in a shared AutoCAD/PowerCAD workplace. |
PowerCAD is thousands of euros less per license than AutoCAD. What's the catch?
| There is no catch. AutoCAD has established itself as the defacto standard for mid-range CAD processing throughout the world. However, we believe it's much too expensive and complex for most people's uses. Our goal is to deliver 100% of AutoCAD's functionality in 90% of use cases, opening the door to millions of individuals and small to medium size enterprises who simply cannot afford the high cost of implementing AutoCAD. |
I am not an AutoCAD user, so why should I use PowerCAD ? | Unrivalled AutoCAD compatibility is only one of PowerCAD's great assets, and should be high on your consideration list. However, PowerCAD is not an AutoCAD clone, offering very powerful general purpose CAD processing and customization simply not available with other products in its price range. |
What versions of Windows does PowerCAD run under? | PowerCAD has been developed for Microsoft Windows operating systems Vista, Windows 2000 and XP SP2 and requires Internet Explorer 6.0 to be installed. |
| Does PowerCAD run under other operating systems, such as Linux? | Not at this time. |
| What are the minimum requirements for PowerCAD ? | PowerCAD requires a Pentium class computer running Windows, with at least 128MB of RAM and 100MB of free hard disk space. PowerCAD supports a mouse or Wintab compatible tablet (must be Summagraphics compliant) as a pointing device. |
