Mark Madura demonstrated DataCAD v12 Alpha 49, though the latest is A50.
 
There are a lot of new symbols; mainly 3D office and plumbing symbols;
residential kitchen and bath fixtures, and office furniture AND American
flags, too..  They are based on actual models direct from the
manufacturers, but they have been simplified to reduce the number of
polygons and cleaned up.  Eventually they may have scale or view
dependent symbols, that change the detail levels, depending on how you
are viewing them.  They have rendering info built in, so they will work
right away.  Also, things have been nested, so sinks are available with
or without the faucet, for example.

Mark mentioned a Cheap Trick at this point: you can stack multiple
symbols! If you select several in a row in the SB, then you can place
them in reverse order by placing the last one you selected (as many
times as you want) and then right click once, then place the next
symbol, then right click once, then place a symbol...

Another Textures method to get interesting metallic surfaces in a model,
that change as you navigate: use a metal texture as reflection map.

Photo tubes or stickers. Mark made the  seamless textures that will be included in v12.  Two of the programs he  used are Texture Maker (which costs $150) and another is Bricks & Tiles. Each piece of the image needs to get "defringed" in Photoshop  Elements, and Texture Maker adds a "drop shadow" to add more realism.
In both programs, you then build the texture by placing a random
sequence of similar pieces, and they show you in real time what the
texture will look like.

Smart Walls!!  They clean in 2D as you draw, and when you erase them,
they also clean up afterwards.  There are several new concepts, like
linked or unlinked walls; which means that  they can  act as one entity
(linked).  This can be toggled back and forth after the fact, so you can
link or unlink walls as needed.  Mark showed two linked walls; one is a
  zigzag wall, and it is over straight wall.  When he moved either of
the walls and they "reclean" themselves after each move.

There are no limits to the number of walls at  intersections.  The
“smart walls” appear with snapping points at the places where you
snapped; so at the centerline, or at one of the faces. Internally in the
program's database, the walls are nodes and edges, and then the
attributes like the linetypes and the width of the wall, etc. are also
editable.

Control-Right Click on them brings up the Properties Dialog, to change
the thickness, etc., and the walls change based on the way they are
created (side or center).  The plane that you drew it by defines the
“anchor plane.”  There are snap points visible at the nodes of the wall,
as I mentioned before.

Multi-line walls will be view/scale dependent in how they appear.  So,
at smaller scales, a simpler view won't muddy the plot, but zoom in, and
more detail is shown.  Again, walls can be altered after they are drawn,
and the intersection with other walls get adjusted and cleaned up
automatically.

Two more new concepts are that walls will have Priority number, so you
can keep some walls from cleaning to other walls. A Priority 1 wall
might be a CMU fire wall, and if a Priority 2 framed wall intersects
with it, it would not clean, so it would appear correctly on the 2D plan.

The other new concept is Levels.  These are more or less the building
stories, but you could have walls on the same level, that would have
different Z values (think: rooms with different heights, or a split
level plan).  So, you could edit stacked plans, and the walls on
different levels would not clean to each other.

There are a lot of permutations that have to be considered with these
“smart entities”!

Smart Door!!  The Control-Right Click properties dialog can be used to
change the door type.      Units can be fixed or adjustable, which means
you can “lock” it to a specific size, or if you stretch one jamb, the
door also changes to match.  These are drawn just like we draw doors
now, but it also shows up as a 3D door, with a knob, and casing trim
when you switch to a non-Ortho view.

Smart Window!!  These can have better 2D detail control than we have
now.  A door outsill for example, or a window sash.  Casements can be
shown open or closed, and all this is adjustable via the Properties
dialog.  Sill and head heights at based on the relative Z values of the
wall that they are being placed into, so even if you are on the 5th
floor of a building, you just have to think about the sill height above
the floor; not the total Z height above the Z base, if that makes sense.

DataCAD will let you “break the rules”, and doing so won't make it
break.  For example, Mark drew an pair of crossing walls, then a window
in one of the four wall segments.  He then moved the window "through" a
wall intersection!  The context of this might make perfect sense for
what you are drawing (say the window is to be demoed, or something may
actually be built that way?).   If you want to do something like this,
it won't break the program.

The overall approach seems to be one of additive tools.  We start with
the basics: smart walls, doors, windows, roofs, floors, and maybe
others, too – and later one other things are added.  Like maybe
structural elements, trim and finishes; that extend from the basics.  We
will be able to generate elevations, sections, details, etc. (maybe
partition type drawings?), from the basic building model, and we can
then add the required 2D entities to show things on drawings in the
fashion that we do now.  You can use the 3D, but you don't have to.  The
mechanics of drawing in 2D will be streamlined, and it also does 3D at
the same time.  Mark also mentioned that we will be better able to edit
in a 3D view.

Meeting Notes by Neil Blanchard

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