BricsCAD® is a software application for
computer-aided design
Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...
(CAD), developed by Bricsys NV. The company was founded in 2002 by Erik de Keyser, a long-time
CAD entrepreneur. In 2011 Bricsys acquired the intellectual property rights from Ledas
[Ralph Grabowski]
Exclusive Q&A: What it means, now that Bricsys bought IP from Ledas
WorldCAD Access, October 5, 2011. for constraints-based parametric design tools, permitting the development of applications in the areas of direct modeling and assembly design. Bricsys is headquartered in
Ghent
Ghent ( ; ; historically known as ''Gaunt'' in English) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the Provinces of Belgium, province ...
,
Belgium
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
, and has additional development centers in
Nizhny Novgorod
Nizhny Novgorod ( ; rus, links=no, Нижний Новгород, a=Ru-Nizhny Novgorod.ogg, p=ˈnʲiʐnʲɪj ˈnovɡərət, t=Lower Newtown; colloquially shortened to Nizhny) is a city and the administrative centre of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast an ...
and
Novosibirsk
Novosibirsk is the largest city and administrative centre of Novosibirsk Oblast and the Siberian Federal District in Russia. As of the 2021 Russian census, 2021 census, it had a population of 1,633,595, making it the most populous city in Siber ...
,
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
;
Bucharest
Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Buc ...
,
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...
and
Singapore
Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...
. Bricsys is a founding member of the
Open Design Alliance
Open Design Alliance is a nonprofit organization creating software development kits (SDKs) for engineering applications. ODA offers interoperability tools for CAD, BIM, and Mechanical industries including .dwg, .dxf, .dgn, Autodesk Revit, Aut ...
, and joined the BuildingSMART International consortium in December 2016.
In 2018, Bricsys NV was acquired in full by
Hexagon AB of Sweden.
The BricsCAD Editions
Today, BricsCAD is available for the
Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
,
Linux
Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
and
macOS
macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
operating systems, and comes in five, workflow-centric Editions. Prior to the release of V21, a sixth edition called BricsCAD Platinum was available. With the release of V21, all BricsCAD Platinum functionality was moved to BricsCAD Pro, and the Platinum Edition was deprecated.
* BricsCAD Lite (BricsCAD Classic' in V20 and below)'' is designed and optimized for 2D drafting workflows. It reads and writes native DWG, and offers a
LISP
Lisp (historically LISP, an abbreviation of "list processing") is a family of programming languages with a long history and a distinctive, fully parenthesized Polish notation#Explanation, prefix notation.
Originally specified in the late 1950s, ...
API for customization and the automation of repetitive tasks.
* BricsCAD Pro contains all the functionality of BricsCAD Lite, plus 3D modeling and parametrics, standard part libraries, a rendering engine, a materials library, and an Autodesk AutoCAD ObjectARX-compatible development system that supports hundreds of third-party application programs. In V21 and above, BricsCAD Pro offers the features of the deprecated Platinum Edition, including 3D constraint system management, surface entity creation and lofting, TIN surface creation, deformable modeling, automatic healing of imported solid geometry, automatic design intent recognition, and basic assembly creation & editing.
* BricsCAD BIM contains the functionality of BricsCAD Pro, and adds a concept-through-documentation
Building Information Modeling
Building information modeling (BIM) is an approach involving the generation and management of digital representations of the physical and functional characteristics of buildings or other physical assets and facilities. BIM is supported by vario ...
workflow. BricsCAD BIM uses ACIS as its core modeler, allowing push-pull, free-form development of concept models. Low level-of-development (LOD) massing models can be automatically converted to a Building Information Model using an A.I.-assisted workflow, called BIMIFY. BricsCAD BIM also supports the concept of "''continuous Level of Development''" via a machine learning / A.I.-assisted feature named PROPAGATE. This feature supports the concept of ''"model once, use many times"'' with regard to BIM data refinement. In BricsCAD BIM V21, sheet set generation has also been automated, with the first delivery of a drawing sheet standards manager. The core database schema of BricsCAD BIM is based on the
Industry Foundation Classes
The Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) is a CAD data exchange data schema intended for description of architectural, building and construction industry data (ABCII). The IFC file format is based on ISO 10303-21 standard and definitions of ABCII are ...
(IFC) from BuildingSMART International. BricsCAD BIM is certified by BuildingSMART International as compliant with the IFC openBIM 'IFC4' import and export schemas.
* BricsCAD Mechanical contains all the functionality of BricsCAD Pro, and is optimized for 3D mechanical part and component design. It contains an assembly modeling workflow, the creation of sheet metal parts using unique lofted solid representations, kinematic animations, bills-of-materials and exploded-view creation tools. Like BricsCAD Pro, BricsCAD Mechanical is based on a push-pull, direct modeling engine. It is a history-free modeler, and is claimed to be free of the 'regeneration failures' of history-based modellers
*BricsCAD Ultimate is a bundle that combines all the BricsCAD editions - Classic, Pro, BIM and Mechanical - into a single installer package.
The BricsCAD 30 day free trial download is a full commercial version of the BricsCAD Ultimate Edition. During the trial, customers can use the RUNASLEVEL command to try any of the BricsCAD Editions. At the end of the trial period, BricsCAD reverts to a free-of-cost 3D solid modeler, called BricsCAD Shape. At any time, a trial version (or an installation of BricsCAD Shape) can be converted to a full commercial license with the entry of a valid license key. The license key determines the user's Edition.
BricsCAD BIM, BricsCAD Mechanical and BricsCAD Ultimate were added to the BricsCAD product family in late 2018. Prior to V19, the BricsCAD BIM product was delivered as a module called "''BIM for BricsCAD''", and required a separate license of BricsCAD Platinum. BricsCAD Mechanical was added with the release of BricsCAD V19. It was based on the 3D direct modeling functionality sourced from the pre-V19 "Sheet Metal for BricsCAD" module, and additional MCAD toolsets, developed in-house.
All BricsCAD editions use the
Open Design Alliance
Open Design Alliance is a nonprofit organization creating software development kits (SDKs) for engineering applications. ODA offers interoperability tools for CAD, BIM, and Mechanical industries including .dwg, .dxf, .dgn, Autodesk Revit, Aut ...
Drawing API software development platform, giving BricsCAD read and write capability of the
DWG file format, made popular by
Autodesk's AutoCAD
AutoCAD is a 2D and
3D computer-aided design (CAD) software application developed by Autodesk. It was first released in December 1982 for the CP/M and IBM PC platforms as a desktop app running on microcomputers with internal graphics control ...
. BricsCAD reads and writes DWG files directly via its NEW, OPEN, SAVE and SAVEAS commands. The software is capable of most contemporary AutoCAD release functions. BricsCAD is currently localized into 15 language versions.
Communicator for BricsCAD
Communicator for BricsCAD is an add-on that imports and exports 3D CAD data (geometry & Product Manufacturing Information
MI for data exchange with major Mechanical CAD programs (e.g.
CATIA,
PTC Creo,
Solid Edge
Solid Edge is a 3D computer-aided design (CAD), parametric feature and synchronous technology solid modeling software. It runs on Microsoft Windows and provides solid modeling, assembly modelling and 2D orthographic view functions for mechani ...
,
NX/UG,
SolidWorks
SolidWorks (stylized as SOLIDWORKS) is a brand of software used for solid modeling computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE). It was one of the first 3D CAD applications designed to run on a desktop PC.
The brand is owned ...
and
Autodesk Inventor
Autodesk Inventor is a computer-aided design extension application for 3D mechanical design, simulation, visualization, and documentation developed by Autodesk.
Features
Inventor allows analyzing 2D and 3D CAD models by creating a virtual rep ...
) and several industry-standard neutral file formats. The BricsCAD Communicator works with BricsCAD Pro for single part import/export, and BricsCAD Mechanical for assembly import/export.
BricsCAD Shape
In January 2018 Bricsys released a free-of-charge conceptual modelling tool called BricsCAD Shape. It was derived from the BricsCAD solid modelling core.
The geometry domain of BricsCAD Shape is equivalent to that of BricsCAD and the native file format of both products is DWG. BricsCAD Shape has a simplified user interface that reduces command options to a minimum for support of effective solids modelling. BricsCAD Shape also includes a library of parametric windows and doors, materials libraries and a set of 3D furniture and objects.
Bricsys 24/7
Bricsys 24/7, known as Chapoo when launched in 2012, is a
Common Data Environment (CDE) for project data management and document sharing in the AEC and Civil Engineering sectors. It allows real-time collaboration among multiple stakeholders through role-based permissions and provides workflow automation and the exchange of multi-format documents.
APIs and customization
BricsCAD implements many of the AutoCAD
Application Programming Interfaces
An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build su ...
(APIs). In general, BricsCAD provides a nearly identical subset of AutoCAD-equivalent function names, whilst also extending some APIs such as the LISP API. In the case of non-compiled AutoCAD applications (e.g. LISP, DIESEL and DCL), these programs can be loaded and executed directly in BricsCAD. Specifically regarding LISP routines, BricsCAD supports both Vanilla AutoLISP and Visual LISP (e.g. vl, vlr, vla and vlax functions as found in AutoCAD), and also supports the use of COM functions on Linux and Mac platforms. BricsCAD also supports encryption of LISP programs to .des format using either the BLADE IDE or DESCoder application included with the main application. BricsCAD cannot read AutoCAD .fas or .vlx (compiled LISP) files.
Most compiled applications developed for AutoCAD's Runtime eXtension (
ObjectARX) API require recompilation with the BricsCAD Runtime eXtension (BRX) libraries. BRX is source code-compatible with AutoCAD's ARX, with a few exceptions. Bricsys also supports the deprecated Autodesk Development System (ADS) through BricsCAD's (also deprecated) SDS interface.
Partners
Bricsys works with application development partners to bring AEC (Architecture, Engineering and Construction), Civil,
GIS and Mechanical CAD tools.
Bricsys offers LGS 2D and 3D, two component technologies that enable 2D and 3D constraint management.
Bricsys offers licensing of these modules to software developers that build products on Windows (32/64-bit), MacOS, and Linux, for integration into their own software products. Licensees for these modules include
ASCON (CAD),
Cimatron (CAD/CAM) and others.
Comparison of speed
According to BricsCAD advocates, BricsCAD's
OpenLisp-based run-time environment is faster than AutoLISP (in Autodesk, Inc's AutoCAD).
See also
*
Computer-aided design
Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...
*
List of CAx companies
*
Comparison of CAD software
The table below provides an overview of notable computer-aided design (CAD) software. It does not judge power, ease of use, or other user-experience aspects. The table does not include software that is still in development (beta software). For al ...
*
Comparison of CAD editors for CAE
The table below provides an overview of notable computer-aided design (CAD) software. It does not judge power, ease of use, or other user-experience aspects. The table does not include software that is still in development (beta software). For al ...
References
External links
*
{{Building information modeling
3D graphics software
Computer-aided design software
Computer-aided manufacturing software
Building information modeling
MacOS computer-aided design software
Computer-aided design software for Linux
Proprietary commercial software for Linux
Software that uses wxWidgets