DESIGN CENTRE The heart of Civil Designer. Based on the AllyCAD Graphical Engine.

What is Design Centre?

Design Centre is the heart of the system and contains the AllyCAD Graphical Engine and the Topographical Engine. It allows you to create new drawings with supporting digital terrain modelling (DTM) data.

Why Choose Design Centre?

IMPORT SURVEY DATA

Design Centre lets you read in and reduce survey data from various sources. We support a number of data logging programs and total stations. The terrain database has a theoretical limit of two thousand million points. Actual capacity will depend on available disk space. Data may be allocated into one of 128 terrain surfaces or road layers.

CREATE DIGITAL TERRAIN MODELS (DTM)

You can create a digital terrain model from the raw coordinates with full control over the break and feature lines on the site. If you want to remove the background clutter simply filter the points display to show only certain points and break lines. When you use the interactive graphical functions to manipulate the data the contours will be updated as you change the break or feature lines.

CUSTOMISE YOUR SETTINGS THROUGH PROJECTS

Jobs are saved as projects that allow specific defaults and setup information to be saved. Projects are based on a specific hemisphere, map projection and datum / ellipsoid.

INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH CAD FUNCTIONALITY

All design options take place in the integrated industrial-strength 2D production CAD which can natively use DWG/DXF/DEX drawing formats. All output is directed to a CAD window for preview and enhancement. The CAD functionality allows you to add annotations or details to the final drawing. Full TrueType font support and definable line widths means that you can create professional drawings without an expensive CAD system.

INTELLI-LINE BREAK LINE GENERATION

Intelli-Line break line generation allows you to use cheap computer time to define the model features instead of slow and painful manual breakline definition. Thereafter fill in the rest of the site in a matter of seconds. Alternatively use the lightning fast triangulation option for more uniform sites.

GENERATE CONTOURS AND CALCULATE SURFACES

You can generate contours with user-defined intervals, highlighting and labels. In fact, you can even display contours of multiple surfaces simultaneously. You can also calculate the volume of a single surface or the difference in volume between any two of your 128 surfaces.

ADD IN ORTHOPHOTOS OR CADASTRAL BACKDROPS

Add multiple large geo-referenced bitmaps such as orthophotos or a cadastral backdrop to view the spatial relationship of your design to other manmade or natural features. Large bitmaps can be handled quickly and redraws are handled in no time.

CREATE FINAL DRAWING WITH THE PLOT EXPERT

The Plot Expert takes all the hassle out of creating final drawings. No longer do you have to cut and paste your design into your title block. Our flexible sheet files allow the precise placement of all the design elements in your title block.

INTEGRATION

You can view data from other modules on your plan display using a single interface due to the seamless nature of the software. The display is also completely configurable and may be customized to suit individual needs.

Back to top

CAD Functions of Design Centre

 

	GENERAL
• Use standard or custom paper size • Cartesian or Surveyor coordinate systems • Southern or Northern Hemisphere survey coordinates • Place the origin point anywhere on the drawing • Change drawing scale at any time • Metric, Imperial or user-defined units • 65,000 layers with layer names of up to 31 characters • 256 pens (colours) • Custom line styles such as fences, rail and telephone lines • Undo/Redo up to 1000 levels • Exceptionally fast zooms, pans and redraws • Single key magnify, de-magnify, pan and redraw.
GEOMETRY • Geometry (construction) entities allow the precise layout of complex   shapes • Create an outline from composite construction entities with a couple   of clicks. • Convert existing entities to geometry entities • Draw construction lines, arcs, circles • Perpendicular bisector between two points or through a point   parallel to an existing element   DRAWING ENTITIES • Points • Free and chained lines • Sketch lines • Polygons / Polylines • Arcs / Circles (in a variety of forms) • Ellipses / Elliptic arcs • Arrows   BITMAP HANDLING • Display multiple large bitmaps with fast zooms and pans • Handles JPG, TIFF, BMP, ECW, GIF, PNG, MrSID • Supports TFW, LOG and HGR geo-referenced bitmaps, SID referenced bitmaps • Handle JPG, TIFF and BMP, MrSID • Bitmap Editor manages displays of multiple bitmaps   EDIT FUNCTIONS • Cut and paste using the Windows clipboard • Select by a mouse click, an enclosing rectangle, a crossing    rectangle or an enclosing polygon • Double click to edit any entity • Move and rotate selected entities with a simple click and drag   operation • Copy and move selected entities • Rotate and scale selected entities about any point • Move selected entities to the front of or behind other entities • Move or copy selected entities to another layer • Linear or radial repeat of selected entities • Trim or snip away entities • Divide and extend arcs and lines • Join two lines • Fillet two lines or arcs with a specified radius • Chamfer two lines by offset / offset or offset / angle • Snip all items inside or outside a box or circle • Snip all items inside a polygon • Remove duplicate entities, unused layers and blocks   HATCHING • User-definable hatch patterns • Solid fill with 16 million colours • Includes ANSI standard and monochrome land-use symbols • Auto perimeter tracking with rectangular, circular and polygon   islands   TEXT • Select any TrueType font • Select font colour • Rotate single lines or paragraphs of text • Choice of 15 text origins including decimal point • Text balloons and bubbles • Frame around text • Solid fill behind text   DIMENSIONS • Define dimension parameters such as pen, witness lines, arrow    style, font • Type over dimensions to change the size of drawn parts • Associative dimensions with tolerances • Horizontal free, chained or running dimensions • Vertical free, chained or running dimensions • Slope dimensions based on dimension points or specified angle • Arc or circle radius / diameter • Arc length • Angle between two lines or three points • Survey dimensions with distance and/or bearing   JUMPS AND SNAPS | • Point • End of line, arc or circle • Tangent to circle • Perpendicular to a line • Mid-line or at any ratio along the length of the line • Mid-point or at any ratio between the points • Intersection of any combination of entities • Absolute or relative to a known position • Absolute or relative polar (distance and bearing) • Lock cursor to any angle, line, geometry line or isometric angle • User-defined grid • DTM point • Design Entity reference   INPUT • Import, scale and position drawings in the current drawing • Read AutoCAD 2008 DWG/DXF, Caddie CEX, ArcView SHP and   ASCII files   OUTPUT • Write AutoCAD 12 through 2008/LT DWG/DXF, Caddie CEX and    ArcView SHP files • Print any part of a drawing at any scale to CAD or directly to   printer/plotter with user-defined line thickness and colour   DIGITIZER SUPPORT • Support for most popular digitizers as well as a generic ASCII input   stream where you configure your own format • Map any button to any CAD function • Accurate scaling from tablet to drawing coordinates • Use the digitizer at any time interchangeably with the mouse   Back to top       DTM Functions of Design Centre   INPUT • Import ASCII data in fixed column or delimited formats • Import ASCII data in serial or breakline string format • Import Stardust BLK files • Convert DXF text entities to survey points and heights • Convert 3D DXF lines into survey points with heights and break lines • Import ModelMaker TOT files as well as CDM (Civil Designer ModelMaker exchange) which facilitates the easy flow of information between these two packages. • Tache field book:    • create and reduce    • load, save and list (Stardust, Booker, Logger, Wild, Geodos, Sokka)    • reduce • Traverse field book:    • create and input    • load, save and list data (Stardust, Booker, Logger, Wild, Geodos, Sokka)    • flat traverse    • slope traverse   SURVEY CALCULATIONS • Joins • Polars • Coordinate transforms of single or multiple points • Rotate points • Move points in X, Y and Z • Move points between surfaces • Delete single or multiple points • Remove duplicate points • Screen out points that are close together • List points in various formats • Unit and coordinate conversions   Graphical Calculations • Joins • Polars • Calculate plan and slope areas   Digital Terrain Model • Unlimited model size with 128 surfaces • Optimized 32 bit engine for fast access and redraws • Filter the points display to remove background clutter • Intelli-Line break and feature line generation • Lightning fast triangulation with feature lines • Edit break and feature lines with auto crossing line removal • Model validation function checks for duplicate points, un-connected    points and crossing break lines • Dynamic contour update as breaklines are changed • Generate contours with user-defined: • pen • line type • interval • highlighting • labels • smoothing • Display contours of two surfaces simultaneously • Slope shading in user-defined categories and colours • Height shading in user-defined categories and colours   Output • Export data in fixed column or delimited ASCII file format • Generate plans with points identified by: • name • height • circle • symbol • Grid lines • Contours with labels and highlighting • Slope shading • Height shading Back to top