In an effort to increase its 15% share of the desktop computer-aided design market and move closer to Autodesk Inc’s 70% lead, Bentley Systems UK Ltd has announced a two-dimensional drafting package. PowerDraft is targetted at professional drafters and users of low-end packages that do not need the more complex design functions within high-end design software. Bentley is also working with third parties to develop customised tool kits for specific drafting functions in the belief that it can muscle in on the market for AutoCAD LT, Autodesk’s drafting software, which does not support third party development. Customised tool kits will appear within the next two or three months. PowerDraft runs under Windows and uses iconised menus, rather than the drop down ones in MicroStation. Menus can be also be customised by selecting functions most used and incorporating them in one window. The AccuDraw function enables two- and three-dimensional shapes to be drawn to scale by keying in co-ordinates. SmartLine is designed to produce filetted and arch lines using just one command. Regularly used shapes, such as blocks and cones, can be created and stored using Macro Recorder, which automatically generates code in Visual Basic that designers can use to customise specific applications. AccuDraw, SmartLine and Basic Macro Recorder will feature in the forthcoming release of MicroStation v5, due out in the third quarter. PowerDraft requires a 66MHz 80486SX machine with 16Mb RAM running Microsoft Windows, Windows NT or MS-DOS. It ships this month for รบ1,900.
