Tag Archives: LISP

BabaCAD – CAD Software for Mac OS X

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Apple Mac version of BabaCAD is released on Mac App Store on Dec-21. It’s professional CAD (computer-aided-design) developed as native 64-bit Mac OS X application. Multiple drawings interface, DXF file format (dwg will be available later in version update). Draw line, polyline (with bulge segments), arc, ellipse, circle, hatch with number of patterns included. Make and insert block, insert and save images of popular image formats as png, jpg, gif, tif. Export drawing to image or pdf document. Plot from layouts with multiple viewports available.

BabaCAD for Mac version has a LISP scripting enabled. Just run APPLOAD command (or find in menu) and load your favourite lisp (.lsp) program. Then just type lisp function name to start using lisp function.

To plot in scale, click “Page setup” in File menu, then choose “BabaCAD” from “Settings” list box. Plot setup dialog will appear where you can choose plot units (mm or inch) and specify plot scale.

Object tracking and snap is enabled by default. Move cursor pointer across end-points or specific object to see snap markers (end-point, nearest , intersection, perpendicular) and tracking lines (horizontal ,vertical, extension….).

You can also insert images into your drawing. Click on image insert icon and choose image from dialog. Then, specify insert point and scale factor to insert image in the drawing. Images will be saved among all other geometry objects and blocks.

As every professional CAD application, BabaCAD for Mac comes with support for inserting text, block, hatch, formatting layers, dimensioning (linear, aligned, angular, radius, diameter), modify tools including trim, extend, array, mirror, duplicate, block explode etc.

BabaCAD for Mac page link: http://www.babacad.com/mac

LISP Enabled CAD — And So What?

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First ask yourself why other commercial CAD software like AutoCAD, DraftSight and others, have no customization capabilities for free. LISP (AutoLISP in AutoCAD) is one of the most powerful customization features found in AutoCAD. But only one problem is that AutoLISP is not available in AutoCAD LT (lite low-price version of full AutoCAD). Every neighbourhood has a LISP programmer cause LISP is one of the oldest programming languages and it’s very easy to learn. Even non-programmer can learn to write LISP routines to automate and speed up his CAD work. If you don’t know how to write lisp function then you can find millions of lisp routines on internet for free.

BabaCAD was among the first to have LISP programming support. It’s also AutoCAD AutoLISP compatible in most cases. LISP is available as AddOn/Extension module and you can download latest updated version on http://www.babacad.com/bem

I found that I’ve forgot to include option of changing layer for multiple selected objects in last BabaCAD release 1.3. I will fix this in next BabaCAD release, but I will give here temporaray solution using LISP. Just copy this lisp function to chlayer.lsp (open notepad and copy/paste and save as CHLAYER.LSP). You can set lsp file to automatically load on startup or manually load using command APPLOAD. You can even assign your custom icon and toolbar to your LISP command by editing bcad.mnu file in BabaCAD/Support folder.

(defun c:chlayer (/ lyr ss en ind)
 (setq lyr (getstring “Type existing layer name to change to: “))
 (setq ss (ssget))
 (setq ind 0)
 (while (setq en (entget (ssname ss ind)))
  (setq en (subst (cons 8 lyr) (assoc 8 en) en))
  (entmod en)
  (setq ind (+ ind 1))
 )
 (princ)
)
(princ “chlayer.lsp by Mirza Coralic. Type chlayer to change object’s layer.”)