Changelog 2017

Version 4.0.19 - 14th December 2017

New Feature - Export Stand PDFs

This huge time saving function automatically creates PDFs of individual stands on your floorplan so they can be sent out to clients. For more information and help with this function click here.

New Feature - Enhanced Company Name Information

It is now possible to enter much more information for companies entered onto your floorplan. This extra data also links with Floorplan Live.

NOTE: This function is work in progress and other parts of EFD will be enhanced to accomodate this extra data such as importing the extra data from a spreadsheet etc.

Improvement

When using the 'Inspect Floorplan' function, you can now highlight all blocks that are not on service ducts at the same time.

Improvement

If names are UN-ticked in the stand details dialog (making them not visible on a stand), they now show in the Stand List so they are searchable.

Bug Fixes

  • A few bugs have been squashed when using custom symbols and exporting them with the component calculator.
  • Stand components did not appear in the exported Block Plan PDF if layer 'Untitled' was switched off when you closed the drawing down.
  • Sometimes, pages in the Block Plan PDF were chopped off or rotated incorrectly, not any more.
  • If you used Diameter or Radial dimensions on your floorplan an error would occur when uploading to Floorplan Live.
  • When importing stand information from a spreadsheet and you use the 'Compare Stand Area' option, if 'm2/ft2' was used on your floorplan the comparison would say that all the areas were a mismatch; the 'm2/ft2' is now ignored so the comparison works correctly.

Version 4.0.11 - Released 1st August 2017

New Feature - Anti-rotate Symbols

Previously, when you rotated an inserted venue symbol which contained other symbols such as toilet symbols, these toilet symbols would rotate with the venue and make them the wrong way up. This new feature allows you to set those toilet symbols to not rotate so they always stay the right way up.

An example of this is South Halls at Excel, when these are the correct way up the entrance is at the top but most people like the entrance at the bottom, so the whole hall has to be rotated 180 degrees, which meant all the venue text and symbols were upside down, this new feature keeps the text and symbols the right way up.

An additional benefit of this is that those who use inserted venue symbols will not have to have multiple copies of the venue symbol at different rotations just so they have the symbols the correct way up, which means that when you get an update to the venue outline itself, you only have to update one drawing.

Although not everyone uses Inserted Venue Symbols, this latest update must be installed if you want to use the venue templates supplied here or from other EFD users such as contractors.

Bug Fixes

Some minor bugs have been squashed.

Version 4.0.9 - Released 24th May 2017

New Feature

Any symbols, when configured properly can now be exported along with the Shell Scheme components. These can also be exported in phases so you could have just shell scheme showing on phase one (page one), and then the next phase could show electrics and furniture for exactly the same block.

Additional to this you can also add block numbers to each block on your plan, making it easier to marry up the PDF block plan with the main plan, rather than using stand numbers which can be hard to see.

Bug Fix

On some plans that were linked to Floorplan Live, PDFs with 'Include Layer' ticked in certain Views were not exporting with the layers showing, they now do.

Version 4.0.6 - Released 19th April 2017

Improvement

You can now toggle the Auto Calculate Pillar Areas for multiple stands in one go. Select the relevant stands then change the Auto Pillar Calc in Properties Explorer as highlighted below:

Change

The decimal places for Auto Calculated Pillars has been reduced to 2 in the Stand Details box as shown below. Previously this figure was shown to 3 decimal places.

Version 4.0.5 - Released 14th March 2017

New Feature - Align to Grid

This function allows you to move your whole floorplan onto the grid with one click. Layers do not need to be switched on or unlocked for this function to work.

New Feature (Floorplan Live related) - Reposition Drawing

This new function allows you to reposition your drawing, making sure your drawing is compatible with Floorplan Live.

Change (Floorplan Live related)

The Upload, Download and Enable Link functions for Floorplan Live that used to be on the FILE menu have now moved onto a new ribbon menu called FLOORPLAN LIVE:

Version 4.0.1 - Released 27th February 2017

Version 4 now has a new splash (start) screen and new file icons!

New Feature - Inspect Floorplan

A new function has been added to Inspect your floorplan with just one click. It highlights the problems listed below and then allows you to fix them on the fly.

The below checks are also initiated when you close your drawing.

  • Overlapping stands - Detects when stands are on top of each other and selects them for you.
  • Duplicate stand numbers - Finds duplicate stand numbers and highlights them.
  • Gangway dimensions below a certain width (settable) - Gangways below a minimum width are detected using the gangway dimensions you have added to your plan, if you have placed these incorrectly then the gangway detection may not work as expected.
  • Stands not joined correctly - If you have imported a plan from another source, stands may not have been drawn correctly, this function will detect those so you can then fix these using the new Tidy Stand Boundaries Function described below.
  • Stands not on Service Ducts - This highlights stands that are not on top of a service duct.
  • Stands within a Keep Clear Area - This highlights stands that are within a Keep Clear Area.
  • Stands within a Restricted Height Area - This highlights stands that are within a Restricted Height Area. Note: Stands must have a height set for this function to work, which is now achievable (see below).
  • Stands with walls running through Pillars - This highlights stands that have walls running through Pillars.

Note: Service Ducts, Keep Clear Areas, Height Restricted Areas and Pillars must be made intelligent for the Inspect Function to work (see below).

New Feature - Venue Intelligence

New functions have been added to help you make Service Ducts, Keep Clear Areas, Height Restricted Areas and Pillars intelligent. Once these items have been made intelligent you will then be able to use the Inspect Tool (described above) to check that your floorplan is all correct. Stand areas (sqm) will also be calculated automatically if pillars exist on the stand.

Note: The previous Service Duct detection tool has now been removed and any service ducts that were marked using the previous system will no longer work, they will have to be recreated using the new function.

New Feature

Stand Heights and Height Restrictions are now exported to the Meterage Report, highlighting any stands in Red that are in a height restricted area and who's height is more than the height restriction.

New Feature - Tidy Stand Boundaries

It is now possible to fix stands that have not been drawn accurately or are not joined correctly, this can occur when plans from other contractors are imported.

New Feature - Stand Heights

You can now set Heights for individual stands. This setting works along side the Restricted Height Detection mentioned above.

New Feature

You can now Combine Hall Boundary/Gross Areas.

You can also convert Hall Boundary/Gross Areas into a Polyline. This can be useful when you need to manipulate a hall boundary with more complexity, such as splitting one in half. A dedicated function for splitting Hall Boundaries may be added in a future update.

New Feature

The Fill Options for Stands, Zones and Gross Areas has been updated so you can now grab a colour from your screen. This is very useful for when you want to match a colour from your logo to a stand, zone or gross area for example.

Additional to the above, you can now also set the colour of a Stand, Zone or Hall Boundary by selecting an existing colour already used on Stands or Zones.

Improvement

You can now specify whether Stand Line Colours and Stand Line Visibility are exported to a PDF/Image file per View. These 2 new options work the same as the current option to specify whether Stand Open Sides are shown.

Improvement

The Font selection drop down box for text has been improved to show the fonts more clearly and with an increased speed. You can also start typing the font name in this list to find the font you want more quickly.

Improvement

EFD loading time has been increased by 40%. Note that the loading time will also depend on your internet connection speed as it uses this to check your licence.

Improvement

Compatibility with Floorplan Live has been improved with increases in speed while uploading.

Change

The Visual Settings dialog box has been updated to accommodate some of the improvements above.