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The
big news this year is PartyCAD 11's new Virtual Reality module
which lets you produce more kinds of 3D art more easily than ever
before. The new VR also allows you to save PartyCAD movies in a format
playable on most modern computers. That's the big news, but there is much more:
• new and improved
Virtual Reality (VR) module
• PartyCAD movies can be saved as WMV videos
• finished designs can be saved as web pages
• designs can be saved as immediately viewable PDFs
• automatic coloring of plans and drawings
• layer controls for Layout Page graphics
(PDF
of PartyCAD 11 book)
• and much more...
New and Improved Virtual Reality Module
Since the mid-1990s there have been two ways to
produce 3D art in PartyCAD. The View module was used to create line
drawings, and the Virtual Reality module created color renderings.
This meant you had to learn two ways of producing pictures of your
designs, and often times required that line drawings be handled
differently than rendered art when they were added to a page for
printing. With PartyCAD 11, all that becomes a thing of the past.
The old View module has been retired, and the new VR module takes
over all its duties.
One of the things people liked about View was a plan with dots
showing the position of the camera. You could just drag the dots to
change the view. This was a handy feature, and as you see above, it
has been added to the new VR module.
That's not the coolest thing though. Do you see the column of
buttons to the right of the view? These "Picture Buttons" give you
wonderful control over the views you produced. The buttons are
divided into sections:
Type buttons let you choose camera, full or plan/elevation type views.
Style buttons let you choose
rendering, rendering with lines or line drawing styles of art.
Background buttons allow you to easily
set the color or image in the background.
Structures buttons let you flatten a
plan or tent, and control the visibility of tent parts.
Other sections let you control the
lighting of the scene and temporarily recolor pieces in your
designs.
Save PartyCAD Movies as WMV Videos
Since the mid-90s you have been able to make PartyCAD movies by
recording the changing view as you moved about in the VR module.
This is a handy feature, but the only way to send such movies to a
client was via PartyCAD's Picture Show module. This often proved too
difficult for casual computer users to master, and so was never very
popular. Now there is a better way.
For starters, the VR module can save your PartyCAD movies as
standard WMV files which can be played immediately by most modern
computers. All you need is Windows Media Player. Most machines
already have this Microsoft product, if not, its a
free download on the internet.
Click here to see a sample WMV video
created by PartyCAD 11.
This has a 480x360 frame size, but you can go larger or smaller if
you like.
Making Web Pages of Your Designs
This new feature addresses the
remaining problems with the old Picture Show module. Picture Show
has been retired in PartyCAD 11. It has been replaced by the ability
to easily save a finished design as a web page. All you do is click
a button in the Layout Page module when you are ready, and a "Save
as Web Page" menu opens to allow you to create, preview and save a
web page that shows all aspects of your design. If you have saved a
PDF version of your page, or a WMV video, these can also become part
of the web page you produce.
You can post your PartyCAD created web page to a web site, use them
as the basis for further modification with most web design software,
or best of all, email an easy-to-use single-file version to your
client for review. You can even watermark your web page art to
discourage theft.
Click here
to see a sample PartyCAD 11 web page.
This is a very simple example. You can get much
fancier if you like.
Print and Email PDFs from within PartyCAD
A new
 ,
Make PDF button, in Layout page allows you to quickly create PDF
versions of your designs. PDF files are the standard for exchanging
documents over the internet. Right clicking this same button allows
you to direct PartyCAD to append a parts list or price report. You
can also direct that your PDFs be automatically sent to your
system's PDF reader program, where you can preview, email or print them. Some
PDF readers even allow you to blow up a page to poster size.
Click here to see a sample PDF which
includes a price report.
Adobe
Reader is the most popular PDF reader. It is free and can be
download here.
Automatic Coloring and the New Layer
Controls
So far we have seen how PartyCAD 11 features allowed the removal of
two old modules - View and Picture Show. Another long standing issue
has been the inability of PartyCAD to produce colored versions of
line drawings and floor plans. Over the years we have made a couple
attempts at fixing this, but they required users to take some
special action and were tricky to use. The new VR module solves the
problem. All you need do is select the "rendering with lines" view
style in VR, and the program takes care of the rest of the work for
you automatically. Coloring your floor plans still requires you to
select the plan in Layout Page and click a Paint button, but after
that coloring and updating is completely automatic.
When a page contains "render with lines" style art, the Layout Page
module first displays the rectangular bitmap rendering and then
draws the line drawing version on top. This insures the lines of the
drawing will be crisp and clear when printed. But, there is a
problem. Take a look at the illustration at the left above. Do you
see how the overall view's bitmap is blocking part of the floor
plan? Layer controls in PartyCAD 11's Layout Page module allow you
to easily pull a graphic image forward on the page, or push it
backward to address this sort of issue. Using these controls, it is
very easy to fix the problem and create the page on the right.
And Much More...
• When starting the
Layout Page module, if you select a page and click the Kill
button, the page is deleted. PartyCAD 11 then determines what other
files related to the page can also be deleted and asks permission to
continue. Deleting such unnecessary files results in much smaller
projects on disk.
• When saving a page in Layout Page, you are now given the option of
saving it as a new version of an existing page or as a twin
page. Saving as a new version lets you have alternate designs in a
single project. Saving as a twin lets you have multiple pages that
refer to the same design.
• An Edit Plan button in Furnish, allows you to more easily resize
your plans.
• The Goto VR button in Layout Page has been improved to easily
allow creation of movies and additional art without having to return
to the Main Menu.
• Automated Venue and Picture templates have been
added to the Party Wizard. Venue Base creates a project based upon a
floor plan whose characteristics you enter using the Make Plan
module. Picture Base is even easier, allowing you to set
up a project using a picture you supply as the floor plan.
• Importation of logos has been simplified and logos in JPG, BMP
and PNG formats are now acceptable.
• A Show Info option in Furnish now reports the current plan and
arrangement, so you will never be in doubt about the files your are
working on.
• Procedures related to killing projects in the Project Manager and
exiting the Layout Page module have been streamlined.
• Clicking About in the Main Menu allows you to check program
updates online.
• The Picture Show module collected many JPGs in a \JPG folder
anytime you used earlier versions of PartyCAD. Because Picture Show
has been retired, these files no longer need to be saved. Thus PartyCAD
11 projects take significantly less disk space than those of
previous versions.
Time to Upgrade?
Now you are all caught up on the new features and improvements in
PartyCAD 11. Using the package, it is now easier than ever to
create great looking event designs and presentations that will mean
more business for you, so...
Why not upgrade to PartyCAD 11 today?
Order
PartyCAD 11 Now
Demo PartyCAD 11
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