TurboCAD Drafting Palette - Powerful Tool for Architectural & Mechanical Designs

One of the most powerful, yet least known tools in professional versions of TurboCAD is the Drafting Palette.    The Drafting Palette is used for the creation of 2D construction and manufacturing documents from 3D designs, including ACIS® solids and 3D surfaces.  It can be used in conjunction with both 3D Architectural and Mechanical designs.

3D Designs created or imported into TurboCAD’s Model Space are fully associative with the 2D views and construction drawings that the Drafting Palette creates in TurboCAD’s Layouts, even when working on an XRef.  Dimensions are also fully associative.

For Mechanical designs, both individual parts and assemblies can have any of 10 different standard views, 9 different preconfigured sectional views, as well as custom, detailed views chosen by a line or other closed arc or polyline.  Recent versions of TurboCAD have also added the ability to add Layer Sets containing both visible and non-visible layers, and no scaling of Drafting Objects can be controlled by the Local (right click) menu.

The Drafting Palette gives you great artistic control over how your views will work.  Each drafting object placed on your Layout may be hatched, colored, or have its line weight and style adjusted as needed, with separate controls for visible and hidden line. In addition to standard cross-sectional views, fragmental views can be created and Drafting Breaks added.

The Drafting Palette works with over a dozen file formats and helps make TurboCAD Platinum, Professional and LTE Professional an excellent collaboration tool with other CAD applications.  This includes Architectural formats such as .SKP (SketchUp) and .DGN (MicroStation/Intergraph)  so the Drafting Palette can be used to create elevations, floorplans, sections, even detailed views, all of which are associative to changes in the model!