Announcing a new Release 7.7 for the Expert Translator

[Salleh Diab]

Expert InfoCAD is proud to announce:

A new release of Translator Release 7.7 that supports AutoCAD R2007. You can read more information about this release in the attached PDF file.

This new release 7.7 is free for the end users who are on the Translator subscription program (please email to me the Host ID<s>). For end users who are not on the subscription program, the Upgrade can be bought from Sigma Design Int., the ARRIS dealers or at our web site).

The Expert Translator for ARRIS Application R7.7 can be downloaded from our web site as follows:
www.expert-infocad.com/index2.html
>> Software Download >> Under Expert Translator, pick either Windows-77 or Solaris-77 (Solaris-77 will be uploaded on the web within a week)

To install the Windows version: Unzip the downloaded file dwg77.zip into a selected temp directory (e.g. c:\temp), then from this temp directory run the program: 'setup_arris.exe' and select to install the translator R7.7
Further information about the installation, if needed, will be found on the c:\temp directory after unzipping the downloaded zip file.

Sales are on a decline and inflation is up, and we in the building industry are all hit by these changes. Since we (users and software vendors) are all in the same boat, I see it's not time to increase the price of our products, although it would be very helpful that either the increase the price or if the sales increase to be able to continue the same quality software and support.

Here are the criteria for issuing a R7.7 authcodes for customers that bought or upgraded the Translator in the last month:
1- Those that bought a new seat of the Translator R7.6 from September 15, 2007 to October 15, 2007 (one month period) deserve to get a free R7.7 upgrade. Please email me your ARRIS key<s> number or host ID.
2- Those that bought an upgrade of the Translator R7.6 from September 15, 2007 to October 14, 2007 (one month period) deserve to get authorization for R7.7 after paying for the difference in price of the upgrade between R7.7 and 7.6. Please email me - your ARRIS key<s> number or host ID - for more information.

Coming Soon – Three new Applications based on the Expert-Translator Technology:
a) DWGplace. Place the DWG drawing in the current db at the working layer, with your own scale and rotation. Currently in beta testing.

b) A new bidirectional DWF to/from ARRIS/BCAD translator. Multi-page DWF for each sheet in your db. Currently in Alfa testing. Sample of a translated DWF can be downloaded from:
www.expert-infocad.com/anonftp/download/samples/all-db-sheets-dwf.zip

c) A new ARRIS/BCAD to PDF. Multi-page PDF for each sheet in your db. Currently in Alfa testing. Sample of a translated PDF file can be downloaded from:
www.expert-infocad.com/anonftp/download/samples/all-db-sheets-pdf.zip

Thank you for your support,
Salleh Diab

[Wim]

Salleh,

There seems to be a small bug in the latest version:
all attributes are being translated with both the attribute NAME and VALUE visible, something like #date.:#25-10-2007, where the text "#date.:#" shouldn't be there. Here it shows up while translting sheetfiles.
Can you take a look at this?

[Salleh Diab]

This bug has been discovered by Mark Aycock and Chad Estes; it has been fixed and will be incorporated in next spin 3 of the Translator due (approximately) within 2 weeks. It contains also a major enhancement to Optionally support translating all the ARRIS Layers-Styles associated with a db into AutoCAD Layer-Filters stored within the DWG.
Salleh

[Wim]

Another small bug:
single character text is not being translated.
If the text is just one character long, like bubble text for a grid, it is not being translated.
Can you repair this ASAP please. An in-between patch would be nice right now.
Thanks.

[Salleh Diab]

Wim,
The bug - text with just one character long is not translated - was due that AutoCAD Text needs two points to define its location:
1) The Text Left Point location and 2) The Text Alignment Point location.

Arris still have many variables and many file stored as Integer database. One of them is the font files (lt). In doing the calculation for the length of the Text String in Integer calculation and then converting to Real value, a one character string length when rounded gave a Zero Length. Somewhere in the routine when the length of the string is Zero the entity is rejected. That is why the 1 character strings are not translated.
I rewrote the whole routine as floating point calculation and this fixed the bug.
The change may affect the alignment of all Texts in the DWG produced, including the Dimension Text.

I posted a patch to the Translator latest release 7.7 spin 03 on the web site. You can download this patch from:

http://www.expert-infocad.com/anonftp/download/beta/e-translator/dwg_7703.zip

Unzip and copy the produced two dll files to the directory
$ARRIS\ap\infocad.vn\dwg.ap\.
to overwrite the existing files.
Please back up the old file first.

And please – if possible – test this beta patch – as a new spin of the Translator is about to get released this week, and let me know the results.
Thank you for your help,
Salleh Diab

[Wim]

Thanks, that's much better.
One thing I see though is that some dimension texts appear on the other side of the dimension line. Maybe this only happens with rotated dimensions.
Could you please check?
Thanks for your quick response!