Economy: progeCAD users enjoy savings against high price of AutoCAD

Once resorted to only by smaller businesses needing basic DWG CAD compatibility and AutoCAD commands for 2D technical drawing, progeCAD is now making gentle inroads to larger companies. "Great! This (progeCAD) delivers just the right level of features for a fractional price of what one copy of (AutoCAD) LT costs us..." wrote one office in Australia. "I sorted all our guys with progeCAD without capital expenditure" laughed another.

A downturn in the economy and the rising cost of new licenses for corporate brands like AutoCAD and Microstation have some department heads scrambling to find affordable CAD software that still gets support. Still, the new trend of larger companies toward progeCAD surprises some. It was only a few years ago that the program still suffered issues to edit large files (in excess of three megabytes) and snap to points within nested AutoCAD blocks. As progeSOFT continues to improve their flagship product, end users are enjoying the benefits of what many now consider to be their CAD of choice for money.

Schools benefit the most. They get theirs free. When CADDIT first announced the progeSOFT educational program in Australia, it was quiet. Then slowly interest started calling - TAFE, universities, public and private high schools. Now CADDIT.net receives new educational requests on pretty much a weekly basis.

CADDIT is an international partner of progeSOFT, Italy, specializing in the English or German language product sales and support. Users and companies from any country can download free or register progeCAD and choice of support plans directly online. For full corporate progeCAD site license requirements, the best options is to contact CADDIT directly. Current progeCAD 2008 Professional users can expect at least one, if not two more free minor support upgrades this year. These minor upgrades are mostly patches to enhance and sometimes fix existing functions. progeCAD 2009 is still many months away.

T-FLEX Educational CAD CAM and Free Student Software Program

T-FLEX CAD CAM is a PLM software solution for industry, machinists, marine and vehicle system product design. T-FLEX offers integrated free-form/parametric modelling, FEA, kinematics simulation and CNC manufacturing for mult-axis milling, lathe, wire EDM, flame- and laser-cutting, punching, drilling and more. It also features a full set of sheet metal tools and an large 2D and 3D standard parts library of nuts and bolts, etc. Users can create their own custom part templates and feature definition windows to increase engineering efficiency even more. Functionality of the T-FLEX CAD system rivals far more expensive platforms like Pro Engineer, Autodesk Inventor, SolidWorks, and Solid Edge.

This impressive suite of integrated CAD CAM solutions is available to schools and universities even lower cost than its already-affordable commercial price. This program allows schools, TAFE and universities to bring innovative parametric 2D drafting and 3D modeling technology directly into their classrooms. Applicants should send CADDIT a message HERE with description of their engineering, engineering technology, or design program and an overview of how they will use T-FLEX CAD in their curriculum. We will reply with further details.

CADDIT is also very pleased to remind individual student users of our FREE 3D CAD STUDENT VERSION. Of course, it is illegal to use T-FLEX CAD Student Edition or Educational license for commercial purposes. When you download and install T-FLEX CAD Student Edition you have 30 days to register the product, for free! After that there is no time limit on its usage. Technical support on the product is not provided. Students wanting T-FLEX student version may download CAD software HERE.

Limitations of the T-FLEX CAD student version (important):

• File format is incompatible with the commercial release. Files saved in T-FLEX CAD Student Edition cannot be opened in commercial T-FLEX CAD with the exception of special Academic license provided only to the certified academic institutions. Academic license allows opening documents from T-FLEX CAD Student Edition but cannot convert them to the format of commercial T-FLEX CAD.
• Printing capabilities are limited. Most of customizations options are not available, printing page size is limited to A4 format, special text is printed on the border.
• Limited export/import functions. Export is limited to bitmap formats; import of Parasolid format is not available.
• BOM is not supported.
• Document protection control functionality is not accessible.
• Integration with T-FLEX DOCs software is not supported.
• Finite Elements Analysis results are limited.
• Parasolid models insertion is disabled.
• External add-on applications based on T-FLEX Open API are not supported.
• "Technical Support" command is not available.
• Fragments "detailing" feature is disabled.
• Animation screen play command is switched off.

More information about how T-FLEX CAD CAM can work for business, schools or students is available on our CAD software website or by contacting: