Bones, clones, and cyclones

My blogging has taken a nosedive in recent years, but I’m happy to report that I am doing great. I’ve been 100% focused on making sure there’s a viable alternative DWG platform for all you lost, lonely, and depressed CAD users out there. I’m going to keep this short and sweet, because as I write this I am still 100% focused on the task: putting finishing touches on BricsCAD V19 to be released “soon”. ...

November 7, 2018 · 2 min · Owen Wengerd

LspLoad updated for BricsCAD 17 and ZWCAD 2017

I have updated the automatic lisp loader modules (LspLoad.zip on my freebies page) to support BricsCAD V17 and ZWCAD 2017. Note that the source code for LspLoad is also available.

November 4, 2016 · 1 min · Owen Wengerd

QuirkyPolyline updated for Bricscad and ZWCAD+

I’ve updated QuirkyPolyline and added support for Bricscad 14 – 15 and ZWCAD+ 2014 – 2015. The new QuirkyPolyline download is available on the ObjectARX freebies page. Share ThisTweetFacebookLinkedInTumblrStumbleDiggDelicious

December 9, 2014 · 1 min · Owen Wengerd

Building a commercial grade lisp plugin installer in 5 easy steps

Rumors about the death of AutoLISP have been floating around for many years, but fear not, those rumors are greatly exaggerated. Bricscad and ZWCAD both have excellent support for lisp plugins, so well-written lisp code is truly cross-platform and enjoys a large and growing audience. Unlike other languages, the vast majority of lisp code works unmodified on any hardware architecture, in any version of Windows, and inside any host application that supports it, including AutoCAD versions released more than a decade ago. On top of that, OpenDCL gives lisp developers the power of a modern event-driven user interface that can put their lisp plugins on the same playing field as plugins written in any other language. This is a powerful combination, and given lisp’s low entry cost, it is not surprising to see lisp continuing to enjoy strong support in the developer community. ...

February 18, 2014 · 4 min · Owen Wengerd

LspLoad now supports Bricscad V14 and ZWCAD+ 2014

I have updated the automatic lisp loader modules (LspLoad.zip on my freebies page) to support Bricscad V14 and ZWCAD+ 2014. Note that the source code for Lspload is also available.

November 1, 2013 · 1 min · Owen Wengerd

LspLoad Updated for AutoCAD 2014 and Bricscad 13 64-bit

The automatic lisp loader modules (LspLoad.zip on my freebies page) have been updated to add support for AutoCAD 2014 and Bricscad 13 64-bit. The modules are now digitally signed so that AutoCAD 2014 loads them quietly.

April 13, 2013 · 1 min · Owen Wengerd

Registering an ARX/BRX module as a COM server

If you’re developing ARX modules that need to be registered as a COM server, you’re faced with some decisions about how to register them. In the old days before anyone cared about user permissions, registration could be safely accomplished at runtime, even via AutoLISP. Unfortunately runtime COM server registration just doesn’t work reliably any more under limited user accounts, not to mention registry redirection on 64-bit platforms. There is only one reliable way to register COM servers, and that’s doing it at install time under elevated privileges. ...

October 11, 2011 · 3 min · Owen Wengerd

OpenDCL 6

You may not have noticed, but AutoLISP is still alive and kicking. This is evidenced by the growing community of developers and hobbyist programmers using the latest release of OpenDCL, the free graphical user interface library for AutoLISP applications. If you’re not familiar with OpenDCL, check out the newly released OpenDCL 6.

August 5, 2011 · 1 min · owenwengerd

BRX on Linux: Getting Started

When I heard that Bricsys had shipped Bricscad for Linux, I was anxious to get to work on supporting the Linux platform. The first order of business was getting familiar with Linux. For that, I chose Ubuntu 10.10 32-bit running on a VMWare Workstation 7.1 virtual machine hosted on my Windows 7 64-bit workstation. ...

April 10, 2011 · 3 min · Owen Wengerd

Deelip Menezes Predicts a Cloudy Future

I had the good fortune of hearing Deelip Menezes deliver the keynote address at the Bricsys 2010 Conference in person. If you missed it, check out the video now at the Bricsys web site. The question and answer session after the speech is an excellent harbinger of the discussions to come if Deelip is correct in his prediction about CAD on the cloud.

June 28, 2010 · 1 min · Owen Wengerd

Bricsys 2010 Developer Conference Post Mortem

I am back home after a whirlwind trip to the Bricsys 2010 Conference. I’m very happy to be back to Ohio food and my own bed. It was a great experience and well worth the trouble. I’ve written before (and here) about the problem with food at conferences, and this one was no different. Unfortunately, there are no Burger Kings in Belgium, so the problem was compounded. I was excited when I saw a restaurant touting “American Food”, unfortunately it was “American Food as Europeans Imagine It”, which is not American food at all. ...

June 11, 2010 · 3 min · Owen Wengerd

Belgium Bound

Bricsys asked me to give a short presentation about OpenDCL to developers at their Bricsys 2010 Conference in Bruges next week. I’m looking forward to meet keynote speaker Deelip Menezes and other familiar names in the CAD community, and of course planning to learn more about the ever evolving Bricscad platform. ...

June 6, 2010 · 1 min · Owen Wengerd