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GTWorks Enhancements in year 1998
- Modify Entity View of Display has been added as menu
5.14. This menu allows for restricting an entity to be displayed only its view of
definition, versus being displayed in all views. - January 4, 1998
- The software is now up to 10 times faster when reading
parts and drawings, and part merge - January 4, 1998
- The software is now up to 10 times faster when saving
parts and patterns - January 4, 1998
- The software now supports loading parts and patterns
by double clicking on the files in Windows Explorer - January 5, 1998
- The software shading module (menu 5.10.8) is now
functional. The shading functions are designed for a 256 color video setting, but they
also display images correctly in 24 bit color. Using 16 bit color will compromise the
image display. To print a shaded image, use menu 5.10.8.5 to create a Windows bitmap file
on the harddrive. Then use another Windows application such as Paint to route the image
file to a printer - January 20, 1998
- A problem with auto max-mining of a multi-view layouts
or in views greater than number 1 has been corrected - February 11, 1998
- The aiuse Application Interface function has been
changed so that pressing the REJECT function key returns an AI code of 2039 which is
consistent with the normal behavior of the main program - February 11, 1998
- The DXF translator output now includes Z values for
all coordinates even if the value is zero - February 17, 1998
- Output of lines in the DXF translator is now correct
for 3-D models - February 17, 1998
- The DXF translator now outputs 3D curves geometry
correctly when the GTWorks part (drawing) file is saved with the current work view greater
than view 1 - February 17, 1998
- The DXF translator output messages have been improved
for the case when the current values in the startup.mf file are too low - February 17,
1998
- The DXF translator output has been improved to include
machining curves (as grouped lines) and all surfaces (as 3D faces). Previously
surfaces of revolution and tabulated cylinders were supported - February 17, 1998
- The tolerance value to determine when coordinates are
coincident has been decreased. This allows small coordinate value DXF polylines to
be input - February 17, 1998
- The IGES translator (file gtwpre.exe) will now read
IGES ASCII formatted files that have only a carriage return character separating the
different lines of data. Both translator files (gtwpre.exe and gtwpost.exe) have
been decreased in size by approximately 30 percent - February 19, 1998
- The DXF and IGES translators have been decreased in
size again (most likely the smallest size possible) - February 25, 1998
- Support has been added to the Application Interface
default libraries for DEC Fortran (file ai.exe). The DEC Fortran compiler appears to
be one of the best replacements for Microsoft Fortran which has been discontinued.
Use directory libftn2 for the default DEC Fortran project files - February 25, 1998
- The DXF and IGES translators have been updated to
correct for a few omissions that resulted in the effort to decrease the file sizes - March
11, 1998
- The DXF translator has been improved to match the
normal DXF standard colors of red, green, blue, cyan, yellow and magenta without using a
user defined map file - March 11, 1998
- Color support has been implemented for
printing/plotting, activated by Menu 5.11.1.3. The modal file system.mf has a new entry
(68) and the modal file quick_plot.mf has a new entry (23) for color plotting control.
The quick plot modals menu (7.3.2) has a new entry (15. PLOT USING) for color
support. See the latest on-line help for detailed documentation - April 1, 1998
- The button box sizes are now user definable. Menu
1.16.2.3, Define Button Layout, has two additional entries, Button Width and Button
Height. The modal file interface.mf has four additional entries, 24 - maximum number of
rows, 25 - number of buttons per row, 26 - button width, and 27 - button height. See the
latest on-line help for detailed documentation - April 1, 1998
- The Mouse Button Definition can now be change from
inside the GTWorks program. The Interface Modals menu has one additional selection,
Menu 1.16.1.11 - Mouse Button Definition. The two selections are 1. [,C,] and 2.
C,[,]. The Mouse Button Definition entry in the modal file interface.mf has been
moved from number 24 to 28. See the latest on-line help for detailed documentation - April
1, 1998
- Selecting the System Storage Defaults menu (6.6) will
display a Windows style file dialog box when using the "-w" option on the
GTWorks program target line - April 1, 1998
- Data Verify All With Pen Number N is a new menu (14.7)
- April 1, 1998
- Percent Complete messages are now displayed for Part
Load, Part Save, Auto Max-Min Generation, Rebuild Neutral Display File, Zooming, Part
Merge and Plot File Generation - April 1, 1998
- The GTWorks menu text size is now user definable. The
Interface Modals menu has one additional selection, Menu 1.16.1.12 (Font Size) for height
and width. The modal file interface.mf has two additional entries, 29 - font height, and
30 - font width. Values of zero mean use the system default font size. See the latest
on-line help for detailed documentation - April 1, 1998
- Periodic Filing has been implemented as Menu 1.2. The
filing interval is user defined in minutes and the user specifies the file name for the
intermediate saves. To permanently saved the drawing at the end of a design session,
save the part using Part Save (Menu 6.1.1) - April 1, 1998
- When installing updates to the software, The GTWorks
setup process now modifies your current application modal files and simply adds any
additions to the file rather that replace the complete file with the data included in the
update - April 1, 1998
- A preliminary viewer for displaying and printing GTWorks parts and drawings
(unprotected and runs on Windows NT or 95) has been added. To run the software,
start an MS-DOS command prompt, move to the directory where the viewer has been loaded,
and enter the command: "viewer -w". - April 3, 1998
- A correction has been made for writing DXF files to correctly process 2D Splines
that have been defined in views other than 1 - April 7, 1998
- A correction has been made to the installation of the new Viewer to make the file
swfile default to directory c:\GTWorksViewer and add the text fonts. When the
Viewer is finalized, the setup process will correctly update the file swfile to match a
user's choice of installation directory. If the user chooses a different
installation directory other than the default, the file swfile must be edited by hand -
April 7, 1998
- A correction has been made for the last full production release on April 1, 1998
for selection entities. The selection menu would prematurely exit if you used the
Operation Complete Key (] or right mouse button) to answer YES or NO to confirm the
entities just selected. This problem was a side effect of enabling single selection of
entities by Sequence Number, Pointer or entity name - File gtw.exe April 10, 1998
- The IGES input translator (program gtwpost.exe for reading IGES files) has been
updated to skip ruled surfaces with only one base curve specified (e.g. Catia problem) and
continue without interruption - April 10, 1998
- The IGES translators (gtwpost.exe and gtwpre.exe) have been updated to accept
absolute and relative pathnames for the file names that the user is prompted to enter -
April 17, 1998
- When using Advanced Shading (Menu 5.10.8), the message for Tessellating Surfaces
has been changed to Tessellating 1 of N Surface(s), etc. to provide the user a clearer
understanding of the time required to pre-process the data before shading can proceed -
April 19, 1998
- When creating a picture file of a shaded image (Menu 5.10.8.5) and using the -w
option when running GTWorks, improvements have been made so that changing directories to
specify the output file name, or moving the dialog box with the mouse will not loose the
shaded image underneath - April 19, 1998
- The IGES input translator (program gtwpost.exe for reading IGES files) has been
updated to handle text strings that are longer than 132 characters (now 20,000) - April
21, 1998
- A revision has been made to the AI call aiuse3 for better handling of the 2038 and
2039 status codes - April 23, 1998
- A correction has been made for the Point function - Intersect 2 Curves to prevent
random program aborts under Windows 95 - April 27, 1998
- A correction has been made to the AI function aimtxt for the replace text option -
April 29, 1998
- A correction has been made to the DXF translator during reading of a DXF file to
maintain the current depth at zero if not otherwise specified by the geometry being
processed - April 29, 1998
- A new entry has been made to the interface.mf file to allow user suppression of the
new percent complete messages. The new entry is item 31 with a value of 0 to display
the messages and 1 to suppress the messages. Message suppression can be desirable
when writing External Access programs - May 11, 1998
- A case of incorrect processing of a user defined NC APT word file has corrected.
The scenario was for the user to load a word file using Menu 17.1.13 (Load APT Word
File), then save the NC Modals (Menu 17.1.18) and finally load the NC modals file just
saved (Menu 17.1.18) - May 12, 1998
- Zero Z Coordinates (Menu 13.18) modifies the basic GTWorks entities (points, lines,
arcs and circles, conics, 2D splines, point sets, strings, arrays, all text based
entities, centerlines and crosshatching) and sets their Z coordinate values to zero.
This function is useful if inadvertently the user changed the DEPTH while creating
a drawing or have imported IGES, DXF or Series 7000 .g1 files whose entities are not
exactly on the zero Z plane. Functions such as fillet, chamfer and intersection of 2
entities depend on the selected entities being on the same plane for 2D drawings - June
25, 1998
- An Undo/Redo function has been added that supports points, lines, arcs and circles,
conics, 2D splines, composite curves, point sets, strings, arrays and groups. The
current support includes adding entities, deleting entities, blanking, changing of entity
attributes (e.g. color, pen, level, fonts, etc.), translation, mirroring, and the point,
line and arc menus. The undo function is activated by pressing the U key on the
keyboard. When you are in the process of selecting entities, the Undo key is
disabled. CTRL U is the redo function. There is no limit to the number of undo
or undo operations that a user can perform, even past the last part or drawing save.
When the working storage is cleared or a new part or drawing is loaded, the
undo/redo data is cleared and the undo process reset. More support is being added
daily. Please Email GrayTech with any problems using this new important feature -
June 25, 1998
- An error with clearing work storage with the new Undo/Redo capabilities has been
corrected - June 30, 1998
- The Undo/Redo function has been improved. An error have been corrected for
processing very large groups and deleting large crosshatching entities. Support has
been added for all entities types. If you encounter any situations where it appears
that the Undo/Redo function does not work properly, please contact GrayTech.
GrayTech is continuing to check out out all menus for any omissions with this new
functionality - July 17, 1998
- Two new utility programs have been added to the IGES translators for batch mode
processing. There is a readme file included in the new update which explains how to
setup and run the translators in batch mode and any restrictions that apply - July 18,
1998
- Two new utility programs have been added to the DXF converter for batch mode
processing. There is a readme file included in the new update which explains how to
setup and run the converter in batch mode and any restrictions that apply - July 18, 1998
- The ai1.dll and ai3.dll runtime libraries have been updated for those users who
have their own applications built into GTWorks (aihooks.dll) to reflect the removal of the
aiatfunfo routine (made obsolete by the new Undo/Redo capabilities) - July 22, 1998
- The Undo/Redo functions have been enhanced to support menus 1.8, 5.14, 12.8, 13.14,
13.16.1-2, 16.10.3-5 and 16.15.1.1 - July 22, 1998
- The Undo/Redo functions have been corrected to properly handle NURBS surfaces with
very large data sets and entity names - August 6, 1998
- The on-line help has been updated to include the Nesting application module and the
FEP Flow Analysis module - August 7, 1998
- European text input for all text based entities is now supported. The user
may enter the special characters from their country keyboards, or enter the ALT sequences
from the numeric keypad, identified under the computer system character map function.
The Times New Roman character set is the default character definition that GrayTech
is using to update the GTWorks fonts. Very shortly the standard GTWorks font will be
posted with the new character support. Thereafter, the remaining fonts will be
steadily updated. - August 11, 1998
- Several of the NC modals feedrates and spindle speeds can now be updated
immediately with the AI function aismf when the user is already in a milling or lathe
sequence - August 11, 1998
- An update was made to the Application Interface libraries (file ai.exe) to correct
an omission when using the Microsoft PowerStation Fortran libraries - August 17, 1998
- The Undo/Redo functions have been enhanced to support Attribute Management data -
August 19, 1998
- The Undo/Redo functions have been enhanced to properly support generation of Cones
and Cylinders - August 11, 1998
- Older Series 7000 data files that may have excessively large numbers stored as the
Z Depth value for lines and text (> 1.0e250) can now be loaded and used without the
GTWorks software crashing - August 19, 1998
- The IGES and DXF translators have been updated to process older Series 7000 data
files that may have excessively large numbers stored as the Z Depth value for lines and
text (> 1.0e250) - August 19, 1998
- An omission with the Undo/Redo functions regarding Attribute Management data has
been corrected - August 24, 1998
- An error when deleting very, very large cross-hatching entities has been corrected
- September 2, 1998
- A problem with the Undo/Redo function not releasing all of its needed memory when
clearing work storage has been corrected - September 2, 1998
- The first step toward improved 3D rendering has been implemented within menu 8.10,
based on the Microsoft Direct3D library. An OpenGL implementation (and later
Fahrenheit) is planned for the future. Once the user builds a surfaced model, select
menu 8.10 to start a new window and pan the model using the first mouse button, rotate the
model with the right mouse button, and click and hold both the left and right mouse
buttons (or use a mouse thumb wheel) to zoom in and out. If you rotate the model and
release the right mouse button in the process, the model will continue to rotate.
Additional menus for view control, color selection and rendering options are at the top of
the rendering window. At this moment, you will need to press Alt PrintScreen to
capture the shaded image onto the clipboard and then paste it into MS Word, etc. for
printing. Suggestions for enhancements are welcome - September 2, 1998
- An error when creating a pattern with entities that point to attribute data which
does not exist has been corrected - September 10, 1998
- An export option (STL formatted file in ASCII) under the File Menu in the new
Direct3D rendering option has been implemented (release 14.1.0 60). At the present
time, both sides of a surface are output so the model may be doubly defined in the target
system. Shortly the option to only display and output the front side of a surface
will be implemented - September 21, 1998
- The new Direct3D rendering option now allows the user to only display the
"outside" of surfaces (View->Display Surface's Reverse Side) (release 14.1.0
63). The user must check the unit surface normals of all surfaces (menu 15.3.2) to
make sure all surfaces in the part point to the outside - September 29, 1998
- When using the Direct3D rendering option the user can revert back to displaying the
original colors of the part if the user has previously changed the global display color
(release 14.1.0 63) - September 29, 1998
- An unnecessary warning message has been removed from advanced rendering and
Direct3D rendering for the user to change a surface's display paths for better trimmed
surface processing (release 14.1.0 63) - September 29, 1998.
- An error that previously lead to software termination when using advanced rendering
or Direct3D on large parts with multiple trimmed surfaces has been corrected (release
14.1.0 63) - September 29, 1998
- A new menu has been added to the Direct3D viewing initialization to globally change
the surface display paths for all surfaces (release 14.1.0 63). With this option,
the user can create test models quickly to review unit surface normals and check display
performance versus the number of facets for the model - September 29, 1998
- The GTWorks DXF converter has been enhanced to output arcs and circles in 3D space
instead of converting the data to 3D linear strings (machining curves). The
converter has also been enhanced to properly read in arcs and circles in 3D space -
October 3, 1998
- An error in rotation of centerline entities in 3D space has been corrected (release
14.1.0 71) - October 14, 1998
- A saving error with the message "not enough data in buffer" has been
corrected (release 14.1.0 71) - October 14, 1998
- An AI programmer's call to routine AIUSM will now immediately display the user
defined text message because a Win32 flush graphics call has been added to the routine
(release 14.1.0 71) - October 14, 1998
- Drawings (parts) will now load faster because the routine that checks for invalid Z
coordinate values upon opening of the part file has been improved (release 14.1.0 71) -
October 14, 1998
- The Undo function now properly supports pattern inserts and part merge (release
14.1.0 71) - October 14, 1998
- The auto max-min function now works properly when loading and displaying for the
first time a part file translated with either the DXF or IGES translators (release 14.1.0
71) - October 14, 1998
- Saving of the button definitions (menu 1.16.3.2.1) now results in a much smaller
file for video settings of greater than 256 colors (release 14.1.0 71) - October 14, 1998
- The IGES output translator (file gtwpre.exe) has been improved to output lines to
show the text bounding box for basic dimensions - October 15, 1998
- General Labels now support up to 9 leaders per label (Drafting release 14.1.0 16) -
October 19, 1998
- The IGES and DXF translators have been updated to support 9 leaders per label -
October 19, 1998
- The Convert13 translator for Series 7000 *.g1 files to GTWorks *.gx files no longer
reverses the names of runtime variables - October 24, 1998
- The Convert13 translator for Series 7000 *.g1 files to GTWorks *.gx files can now
process subdirectories as well as all files in the current directory - October 24, 1998
- The drawing or part name that the user is working on is now displayed in the
GTWorks window banner (release 14.1.0 76) - October 24, 1998
- The software will now start up using the last used window size from the previous
design session (release 14.1.0 76) - October 24, 1998
- The system will prompt the user for exit confirmation if the user selected the
close button (X) in the upper right corner of the GTWorks window. This message will
also appear if the user selected the pop-up menu from a window edge and then selected the
close option (release 14.1.0 78) - November 5, 1998
- Third party applications are now supported for users and developers to add
specialized functions to the GTWorks system. The user would select a third party
menu from menu 5.15. Developers should refer to the Third Party Developers section
under the Miscellaneous book of the revised on-line help (release 14.1.0 78) - November 5,
1998
- The on-line help has been updated to include all of the enhancements to the
software during the past 6 months (release 14.1.0 78) - November 5, 1998
- The function keys F4 and Shift F4 now function (release 14.1.0 83) - November 14,
1998
- The keypad is now only displayed if numerical input is desired (release 14.1.0 83)
- November 14, 1998
- All ASCII data in the decimal range 130 through 255 can now be entered for text
( though ÿ) (release 14.1.0 83) - November 14, 1998
- The s7kfst.pf font file has been updated for character data up through decimal
value 255 (ÿ) (release 14.1.0 83) - November 14, 1998
- The on-line help for character set examples in the drafting book (GTWorks fast
font) has been updated (release 14.1.0 83) - November 14, 1998
- The IGES translators have been reposted to the Web site to remove a problem with
the last update on November 5, 1998 that resulted in an IGES output file that only
contained the Start and Global sections - November 24, 1998
- The IGES translators have been updated to support all printable ASCII text
characters (decimal 32 though 255) - November 25, 1998
- The DXF translator has been updated to support all printable ASCII text characters
(decimal 32 though 255) - November 25, 1998
- The GTWorks Viewer program has been updated for Year 2000 compliance and to support
the new Direct3D shading capabilities under menu 1.14 - December 1, 1998
- Rubberbanding lines (menu 10.3) and arcs (menu 11.4) now work properly if a local
coordinate system has been defined and is activated (release 14.1.0 89) - December 15,
1998
- A new AI routine has been added (AIGTSC) to get the trimming curve data for trimmed
surfaces. The latest ai.exe file must also be downloaded and your AI applications
rebuilt in order to use this function (release 14.1.0 89) - December 15, 1998
- During output of Numerical Control CL file data, the first prompt is now the vendor
selection for the expected postprocessor. This allows a default file extension to be
used for the file listings in the subsequent file open box. The default file
extension for Auto-trol GPost is .asc, the default file extension for ICAM is .cam, and
the default file extension for IntelliPost is .np. The binary file output (.nc file)
is only used for intermediate toolpath output processing and will normally be deleted upon
completion (release 14.1.0 89) - December 15, 1998
- The default file extension for Numerical Control CL file output for IntelliPost is
.asc. (release 14.1.0 92) - December 16, 1998
- An infrequent program crash when operating under Windows 95 and selecting Enhanced
Plot II and either an HPGL or HPGL/2 formatted output file has been corrected (release
14.1.0 92) - December 16, 1998
- A traceback feature has been added to GTWorks. In the event of a program
abort, the software will display a more detailed message to the user and create a
gtwlog.txt file containing debugging information for GrayTech to more quickly locate the
source of the error in the software. This traceback function tries to output into
the log file the routine that the software was calling at the time of the crash, and as
many of the calling routines as possible (release 14.1.0 96) - December 20, 1998
- The traceback feature has been improved to handle errors and tracebacks that occur
or proceed through the C and C++ code of the program. Previously the traceback was
limited to Fortran source code routines (release 14.1.0 97) - December 27, 1998
- The traceback feature has been added to the IGES and DXF translators - December 28,
1998
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