Copyright (C) 1986-2008 by Daniel H. Hudgins, All Rights Reserved.

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This Web site is dedicated to the thousands of "users" of my programs, those who have helped test my programs over the last 22 or so years, and especially those who shared their experiences with me.

You must read this notice: This is a licensed Web site (HTML document and associated files). You must read and agree to be legally bound in contract by the Terms of Use and conditions given in the End User License Agreement ("EULA"), Legal Notices, Instructions, Warnings, Disclaimers, and all other text in "SECTION: 0" of "This Web Site" (HTML document and associated files) before reading or using any of the information, software programs, and or files, contained in, linked to, and or associated with, "This Web Site" (HTML document and associated files). Any use or "Beta Testing" of "This Web Site" constitutes your acknowledgment of your full agreement with the current End User License Agreement ("EULA") and your decision to have this current license supersede all prior and contemporaneous agreements and understandings. Information and files in "This Web Site" (HTML document and associated files) have been placed here so that long time users of "The Author's" programs DANCAD3D.COM (tm) , DANCAM.EXE (tm) , or DANPLOT.EXE (tm) could help proofread the text of the documentation files or screens displayed, and also help test data files, example files, and or any software programs that might be made available from time to time, to aid "The Author" in finding mistakes, bugs, and other errors, omissions, defects, mistakes, and faults. Everything in "This Web Site" (HTML document and associated files) is "Beta Test", "Beta Code", Experimental, Preliminary, requires proofreading, or is being evaluated for possible revision, and is NOT warranted to be free of defect. To help "The Author" report any bugs, foul-ups, defects, or mistakes that you find, see "SECTION: 8" for instructions. "This Web Site" (HTML document and associated files) and all other files and programs by Daniel H. Hudgins are made available "AS IS" without warranty of any kind express, expressed, or implied. All offers and specifications are subject to change or discontinuation without notice of any kind. Please read "SECTION: 8" of "This Web Site" (HTML document and associated files) before trying to contact "The Author."

The CAD and CAM programs for v2.7 and v3.7 come in different *.ZIP file distributions in Section: 9. Since the screens in v2.7 and v3.7 look much the same the illustrations here from v2.7 or v3.7 should serve to show what the programs look like in general. The program versions currently available for download may produce screens that look different from the program versions used to make these illustrations.

The Drawing Editor in v3.7L has the option of operating in many of the different video modes that your video board supports, including VESA SVGA video modes at various color and pixel resolutions. Clicking on the resolution numbers 640 through 1920 below the thumbnail above shows you what the Drawing Editor can look like at those resolutions, note that the on-screen text gets smaller at the higher resolutions, and the portion of the screen for the drawing area gets larger. In order to view the larger screen images properly you need to disable the shrink-to-fit feature in your WEB browser, or use a browser that does not shrink-to-fit WEB images larger than the browser's window. These sample images were saved to 24bpp BMP files by selecting 32 bpp color depth video modes in the video board. The v3.7L programs may work with pixel resolutions higher than 1920x1440, such as 2048x1536, but at the time I was making these sample images I did not have a video board that supported those modes to make a sample image with. The thumbnail is from the 1024 resolution image. When saving just images without the Drawing Editor menus showing, you can save BMP images larger than those your video board supports by using the BMP video mode with the CAD Main Menu Preview command. Older video modes such as CGA are still supported by v3.7L for use in the Drawing Editor and other places where the graphics are displayed.

The Drawing Editor in v3.7L of DANCAD3D.EXE (tm) and DANCAD87.EXE (tm) lets you display 3D elements with a solid hidden line display mode, as well as line and wire-frame type display modes. The number of display modes available in the Drawing Editor was increased, so v3.7L includes all of the perspective display modes available with the main menu Preview command.

The Drawing Editor can also be used for drawing line drawings that can be printed out on dot matrix and laser printers or plotted on a pen plotter. 2D or 3D tool path files can be drawn in the Drawing Editor, or you can load tool path files made in the CAM programs teach mode, or imported from G code and edit them before saving them back to disk for execution in the CAM or CNC machine. The Drawing Editor has commands for making lettering and automatic dimensioning. The lettering commands can be used to make tool paths for engraving part numbers, trophies, panels and such in different languages. The higher resolution video modes available in v3.7L may make viewing small details in tool paths, lettering, and line drawings easier since you might not need to zoom in as much.

The appearance of the version of this program from the *.ZIP file may look somewhat different, or display different text messages, so be sure to look at the actual display by the program in the *.ZIP file you downloaded or copied.

The Drawing Editor of both v2.7I and v3.7L in DANCAD3D.COM (tm), DANCAD3D.EXE (tm), DANCAD87.COM (tm), and DANCAD87.EXE (tm) lets you display 3D elements with a solid hidden line display mode, as well as line and wire-frame type display modes. The number of display modes available in the Drawing Editor was increased in v2.7F to include some of the modes available with the main menu Preview command. The main menu Preview display command has other display modes for shaded display with adjustable light sources.

The Drawing Editor in v3.7L can work at higher pixel and color resolutions than in v2.7I, see above. In v2.7I the Drawing Editor works up to VGA mode, in v2.7I you need to use the Preview command to display in SVGA modes. In v3.7L both SVGA and other modes are supported in the Drawing Editor.

The Drawing Editor can also be used for drawing line drawings that can be printed out on dot matrix and laser printers or plotted on a pen plotter. 2D or 3D tool path files can be drawn in the Drawing Editor, or you can load tool path files made in the CAM programs teach mode, or imported from G code and edit them before saving them back to disk for execution in the CAM or CNC machine. The Drawing Editor has commands for making lettering and automatic dimensioning. The lettering commands can be used to make tool paths for engraving part numbers, trophies, panels and such in different languages.

The appearance of the version of this program from the *.ZIP file may look somewhat different, or display different text messages, so be sure to look at the actual display by the program in the *.ZIP file you downloaded or copied.

The Load G code command has a Trace screen option that lets you view the loading of the G code data one block at a time, or continuously until an error is detected. The Load G code command's Trace option could be a help in debugging G code type tool path files.

The Load G code command tries to automatically detect and adapt for G code files in EIA RS-244 type codes and ISO RS- 358 or ASCII 7 bit and 8 bit type codes. EBCDIC or user defined character codes may also be able to be selected directly through the Load G code configuration Install command.

The Load G code command has an option to automatically skip over man readable codes that may be present before the start of the tool path information. There is also an option to select the starting point manually.

When G code sub-programs are called from the main part of the G code, e.g. with M98 and M99, there are two block number displays, the Block Total for blocks that have been executed and the Current Block for the location in the file. These counters may help in debugging G code files that have sub- programs and loop repeats.

If you do not want the Trace on all the time while loading your G code files you might turn it off in the configuration file by using the Load G code Install command option. The Instal command also lets you make many adjustments to how the G code file is interpreted to compensate for some different file dialect variations.

See also the information about using G codes with my programs in Section: 3.1.35.0, Section: 3.1.50.0, and Section: 7.10.20.0.

The appearance of the version of this program from the *.ZIP file may look somewhat different, or display different text messages, so be sure to look at the actual display by the program in the *.ZIP file you downloaded or copied.

The Binary File Editor allows any type of file to be edited, even those that will not work in the Write command or other text editors. More particularly, the Binary File Editor lets you edit the man readable codes at the head of punch tapes used on NC and CNC machines, i.e. RS-274-D and such. The Binary File Editor automatically tires to detect EIA RS- 244 type punch codes as well as ISO RS-358 ASCII 8 bit and 7 bit type punch codes, EBCDIC and user defined types of punch codes can be selected manually.

The display of the holes in the punch tape can be flipped end to end, or across the tape so that the man readable codes can be read right way around. You might delete existing man readable codes, and add new man readable codes.

In addition to inserting, deleting, and typing over the codes on the punch tape converted into a file, you might convert the codes from EIA to ISO and vice versa, as well as convert to an from other character codes such as EBCDIC and such. There is also an option to filter the EOB character from man readable codes being generated, since the End Of Block character can be different for the various character code types.

The Binary File Editor might be used to make changes in EIA type tool path files and help update old tool paths that have been converted to files from punch tapes, e.g. to chop off the man readable leader codes and such, so that the tool paths might be saved by using the Save G code command in a different character code, e.g. ISO or 7 bit ASCII, or to save the G codes with altered numeric formatting.

There are different options for the display of the punch tape holes, i.e. block characters, small letter "O"s as holes, or numbers 1 through 8 for the binary hole position of the track or channel. The codes are also translated into the selected character code and displayed under the tape. Also vertically under the one inch oiled paper punch tape or Mylar (tm) punch tape simulation are the punch codes represented in decimal and hexadecimal, the equivalent of what is being displayed as the tape's binary holes.

You can scroll the display of the tape over the length of the tape by using the mouse or cursor keys, and jump or search by using the various included editing commands.

Different fonts can be selected for making the man readable codes, so the man readable lettering can be in various European languages, as well as Greek and Russian. You can create your own *.F08 font files for special characters or languages that you want to use for your man readable codes.

The appearance of the version of this program from the *.ZIP file may look somewhat different, or display different text messages, so be sure to look at the actual display by the program in the *.ZIP file you downloaded or copied.