Based on 5 Years of Development, ARES Combines Exceptional Performance with AutoCAD Compatibility, Easy-to-Navigate UI, Full Customization and Native Availability on Windows, Mac & Linux

Graebert™ GmbH (Berlin) – one of the pioneering companies in high-performance CAD solutions for desktop and mobile devices – today announced ARES™, the industry’s first native cross-platform CAD solution. ARES provides both industry compatibility and the highest-performance features and capabilities for mission-critical design workflow.

ARES uses a common design interface and is the first CAD solution to run natively across Microsoft® Windows®, Apple® Mac® OS X and Linux®, while also being optimized for specific operating system features and capabilities. ARES also includes innovative and powerful features such as built-in VoiceNotes for created files, 3D modeling support via the latest ACIS libraries and more.

Upcoming versions of ARES will be available for Microsoft Windows Mobile® devices – both Apple iPad® and the Google® Android® operating system are under active evaluation for porting as well. ARES will be initially available in 13 languages from the entire worldwide network of Graebert distributors and partners, as well as select OEMs.

ARES development has focused on a number of core benchmarks, with performance being a leading criterion: ARES is typically 3-5X faster in operations such as open and save than other CAD packages on any platform. With more than a year of intensive beta testing by more than 100 major corporations and leading CAD users, ARES is the end-result of more than 250 man-years of development (5 calendar years) from Graebert, one of the pioneers in CAD software development since 1983.

Graebert is well known internationally for leading mobile CAD solutions such as SiteMaster™ as well as having more than 500,000 estimated users of PowerCAD™, its previous-generation CAD product. The company has more than 50 active VARs and OEMs on six continents, and is working with these and new partners to distribute ARES worldwide.

“Several Fortune® 500 companies have been using ARES as part of our intensive beta test – to them, ARES really does represent the next-generation of CAD solution,” said Wilfried Graebert, Founder and CEO of Graebert, GmbH.

Using ARES, they have been able to create designs in far less time than with competitive solutions – the feedback has been identical – ARES is an impressive product that lived up to their demanding expectations.

Key features of ARES:

• DWG native format – Graebert is a founding member of the Open Design Alliance and sits on the Board of Directors. ARES supports DWG Import (2.x -> 2009), Export (12->2009) and DWG 2009 Native format (DWG 2010 support coming in 2nd Quarter, 2010)
• AutoCAD-compatible command line and scripts
• More than 400 new commands
• Drawing recovery
• Latest ACIS 3D modeling support
• I/O Support for DWG 2.5 -> 2009, DWF, SAT, WMF, SLD, ESRI & SHP
• Exceptional print capabilities, including PDF, Raster & SVG
• UI optimized for each native operating system as well as an XML-based, fully customizable UI with a built-in designer
• Widest range of programming I/O support, including Lisp, C, Delphi, COM, .net (C#, VB.net), C++ and VSTA

Pricing and availability

ARES will ship in two different price configurations – ARES (£495) and ARES Commander Edition (£995).

The two products are identical with the exception of programmability and 3D support, which are found only in ARES Commander Edition. Both ARES and ARES Commander Edition for Microsoft Windows are available immediately as trial downloads from www.graebert.com – the Mac and Linux versions are currently part of a closed Beta process (request an invite at www.graebert.com) and are expected to ship in the 2nd quarter of 2010.

About Graebert

Paralleling the rise of the personal computer, Graebert GmbH (Berlin) has more than 30 years expertise in delivering high-performance, affordable solutions for both the PC and mobile CAD markets. Graebert’s award-winning products are fully compliant with industry standards and have been mission-critical for customers ranging from the largest Fortune® 500 companies to individual architects.

In 1999, Graebert GmbH recognized the need for professional CAD in the growing market of mobile devices and developed PowerCAD CE, the first professional and fully functional 2D and 3D CAD System for Windows CE™. The company’s award-winning SiteMaster™ solution has measured thousands of public and private facilities throughout Europe, Asia and North America.

ARES, SiteMaster and Graebert are trademarks of Graebert, GmbH. All others trademarks and registered trademarks previously cited are the property of their respective owners and are hereby acknowledged.

Editors note: Logos, screenshots and additional data are available from the Graebert PR contact

For further information please contact: Mobile CAD Surveying Ltd – +44 (0) 844 567 2609 or Buy here
Watch a Video Review

Steve was like a lot of people working a trade in the Construction Industry, due to the economic climate he was out of work more than in it. One day he saw an advertisement for Sitemaster Software, this piqued his interest as it was something allied to building that he knew and as he already carried out his own surveys for estimating purposes he thought that the added bonus of being able to draw up accurate floor plans would give him another opportunity to earn a living doing something he already had an interest in and which could help in his normal job when things picked up. Sort of kills two birds with one stone!

So what did he have to loose, he sent off for more information and agreed to a FREE NO obligation demonstration. What Steve witnessed was professionally-finished building floor plans, area estimates and inspection drawings using a Bluetooth handheld laser talking directly to the software held on a UPMC (Ultra Mobile PC) tablet, he saw that there was no longer any need to take measurements using tape measures, no need to write any notes or draw pencil sketches anymore, the dimensions are instantly inserted into the drawing programme and it draws the lines in real time – On Site!

Steve stated at the time: “I have experienced first-hand the immediate gains that Sitemaster Building software can provide to construction and building information mangers in terms of accuracy, speed and cost-savings.”

He was told of how this software had been instrumental in saving time and costs on many projects around the world, “On a recent service project, I was contracted to verify a commercial lessee’s office square metreage and was able to determine irrefutably that they were being overcharged by more than 25 square meters on their contract.” Quite a rental saving over a period of a few years. It is obvious that where commercial office space commands a premium, the cost-savings to the lessee will be significant over time and positively impact their cash flow each month” Just one of the ways this software can be used effectively.

Building Talk recently commented “Sitemaster Building is an amazing application, and is generating a lot of interest in the marketplace.”

Steve was so impressed by what he was shown, that he decided to buy there and then and take up the optional offer of a days training. This was carried out in due course and Steve immediately put this software/ kit to good practice. In fact he was in touch with some old clients who gave him work from time to time, construction work, but they had none available just now, so he offered his services as a surveyor and offered to draw up floor plans of some of their property portfolio, he knew through the grapevine that they needed this due to recent changes in legislation, the two negotiated a price and off Steve went to start his first proper floor plan survey. The first building he worked on took him some time, he was after all learning as he went along, but by the time he started the second project he had ironed out all the queries and problems he was having and with the help of the training he had received and the telephone support from the company, he was well on his way.

He was now starting to produce finished floor plans much quicker and 700 – 800 square meters per day were not uncommon. He knew through experience that most surveyors/architects will hand sketch and measure maybe 500 – 700 square meters per day, and then spend at least another day back at the office drawing the floor plans up. Yet Steve on only his second project was walking off site at the end of the day with circa 700 square meters surveyed, measured and drawn and of course FINISHED!

It quickly dawned on him that there was a real opportunity here to offer this as a full time service and make some good money along the way. What started off as an attempt to try and earn a bit more money due to lack of construction work, had now turned into a possible future gold mine offering his services of providing finished, accurate floor plans quickly and efficiently both for his own clients and for others. He had now in effect gone from a pretty ordinary builder to a much sought after professional member of the construction industry, more or less overnight, he now charges his clients on a per square metre basis for most projects as he has now got to a point where he can produce nearly 1000 sq metres per day on a large project.

Of course producing accurate floor plans is one thing, but the Sitemaster Software is so good it also works out area, volume and perimeter calculations of rooms, it also automatically and in the background builds up door and window schedules, lists of radiators, plug points, and in fact anything else you collect along the way, the data collection feature of this programme is ideal for Asset and Facilities Managers.

Along with the floor plans, Steve now finds he can charge for providing door and window schedules, that for most traditional surveyors/architects can take hours or even days to produce, takes Steve seconds with the push of a button. The programme does this all automatically for him, his earnings are now rising exponentially as he finds more ways and new markets to put this programme to work for him.

Steve has since shown this to some of his fellow workmates on the construction site and comments:

Once people see Sitemaster in action and witness the finished results, they can’t believe they have been using a tape measure and paper for so long.

Architects, designers – anyone wanting to create as-built drawings can now complete the task in record time without leaving the clients site. Better yet, there is no need to send two people to a site and finished drawings can be generated up to 10 times faster than traditional measuring-tape and paper methods.

Profiled in a recent Microsoft white paper, Sitemaster is claimed to be the first system of its kind to automate the creation of wireless, laser-generated as-built floor plans, area estimates and building inspections for architects, appraisers, contractors, engineers, estimators, facilities managers, floor-planners, estate agents and other professionals involved in the design, construction and management of buildings.

Using a Leica Disto A6 handheld laser, Sitemaster facilitates instant on-site creation of detailed, AutoCAD-compatible drawings on a Bluetooth wireless Pocket PC, Tablet PC or laptop computer running Microsoft’s Windows mobility operating systems.

Sitemaster provides the missing link for thousands of potential clients.

Now it is time for you Construction Tradesmen who are maybe looking for other ways of earning a living, to try this for yourselves, why not? What have you got to loose? It worked for Steve, why shouldn’t it work for you?

For more on the Sitemaster range of products, please visit:

www.mobilecadsurveying.co.uk
Sales: 0871 789 2609
sales@mobilecadsurveying.co.uk

Isn’t it amazing to think that just five years ago virtually all surveyors took pencil and pad, tape measure or possibly a laser measuring device out into the field and spent several hours measuring up sites, buildings and all related detail before returning to the office to redraw the detail into their CAD package. Or is it? How much has really changed?

History

Productivity levels and therefore profit margins are a concern to all, but in an industry where so much process is manual there only needs to be one error in measurement, or error in reading a measurement and the entire dimensions of a building will be inaccurate. The result? A return to site to re-measure and then back to the office to amend the CAD drawings. This is a huge resource cost and ultimately vastly decreases profit margins, affects customer service and increases costs for both the supplier and the client.

Anybody connected with design, construction, engineering, facilities management, manufacturing, mapping, real estate and related industries will know what we’re talking about. Local authorities, hospitals, schools, surveyors, facilities management companies – any sector involved in the management of multiple and large buildings that require compliance with Health and Safety regulations, the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and those requiring Asset Registry services began looking at how to shorten the “field-to-finish” time and associated cost.

So, how far has the adoption of mobile CAD technology come, and how easy has it been to bring the construction industry into the 21st century? Has mobile CAD continued with what Blackberry started – and truly taken the technology out of the office and into the field?

In order to tempt the surveyor away from the traditional pen/paper/laser approach, any solution offered has to be quick, efficient and truly mobile. To persuade the money men it also has to offer a swift ROI – laser scanning options were seeing an increase in adoption a few years back but were still costly, and did not create the “as-built” drawings and floor plans in the field that would significantly cut design and planning time and cost.

The answer lies in incorporating handheld devices, software, Bluetooth and wireless technology – to produce a CAD drawing in front of your eyes. The measurements taken by laser meter and sent via Bluetooth into the software installed on the handheld device, produce a pictorial representation almost instantly. Human error is completely eliminated – the surveyor can see immediately if he has taken the measurement incorrectly. The solution also needs to offer the basics for internal building design, down to such detail as furniture if required, thereby producing a finished drawing in the field that can be emailed back to the office.

But doesn’t all this technology send the average surveyor running for the safety of his pencil and pad?

Admittedly the biggest challenge faced will be persuading all involved to undergo a complete culture change! From our experience this has been less of an issue in the USA, Australia an the Far East but across Europe those we see as potential adopters just don’t believewhat can be achieved by implementing Mobile CAD Solutions until they actually see it in action, so uptake has been slower simply because it is harder to get through the door in the first place.

And surely the age old excuse of months of training staff on CAD related technology and the affect this has on productivity gives the procrastinating client an immediate get out clause?

It certainly raises its head. They are most surprised when we can demonstrate that users can be up to speed with our system in 2 days, and producing plans of the same standard as using traditional methods within one week. This is a huge cost saving when we look at how quickly the drawing is produced – using the “point – shoot - drawn” principle within a week the surveyor can be measuring 400-500 square metres per day, make that 750-1000 square metres in 3-4 weeks and as much as 1500 square metres per day for super users!

The UK gives us a good example of this. To comply with government directives, many local authorities are facing a race against time to ensure they have accurate up to date drawings for premises like schools and nursing homes as well as offices – a race they can never win using traditional surveying methods.

So much information needs to be collected by a variety of people – fire inspectors and asbestos surveyors for example need large amounts of data; asbestos and water hygiene issues in older public buildings cannot be determined unless accurate measured surveys exist and are kept up to date. The fact that many local authorities do not have accurate, (or in some cases ANY), plans for many of their public buildings, is under the spotlight.

Fire regulations and new laws to improve access to buildings for people with disabilities have also raised the profile of property asset management in many parts of the world.

If we say the output is 100% accurate in half the time and at half the cost we’re pretty close. Productivity in simple terms is increased by 100% – the work is delivered in one day – therefore the profit is increased by 100%. Mobile technology has actually been proven to increase productivity by up to 1000% when compared to traditional design methods. And that’s not mentioning the less tangible increase in service level to the customer. A return on investment can be seen in some cases on day 1, but we say on average within 14-15 working days, including the cost of the hardware, software and training.

To illustrate; a subsidiary of T-COM measured and drew more than 1 million square metres - 13,778 rooms in 1,230 buildings across Germany. The target objective of the contract was not just measuring the exact area of the rooms with a tolerance of just 3% but also measuring mixed areas in just one “go”. The project was completed using a team of 25 in just 15 weeks.

And the future?

It is now possible to upload the finished drawing to a portal, and make it accessible from anywhere in the world, again increasing productivity by giving the client 24×7 global design capability at minimal cost.

Sector wise initial uptake by internal surveyors such as fire prevention, asbestos, asset management functions and disability access surveyors has been followed by planners and quantity surveyors needing accurate “lay of the land” drawings and external building representations in CAD. We see the internal surveying market continuing to increase, this is already evident in the USA, and the construction industry as being key in the future. Public services, as mentioned, and also utility companies and hospitals are all growth areas, plus banks in the USA as a result of ADA compliance. Geographically that change in culture is starting to happen across North America and Europe, and from Germany is spreading via the existing client base into Eastern Europe.

Mobile CAD Surveying Ltd are the UK’s main and Graeberts preferred dealers of the Graebert suite of software in the UK. For more information on the Sitemaster Building software or Software and Hardware Bundles, please call us on 0844 567 2609 or email us at sales@mobilecadsurveying.co.uk

You can also download a FREE trial of the software here and also Book a FREE Demonstration