Altiva Software Incorporates U.S. National CAD Standard™ into CADconform

November 17, 2006 (Houston, TX) – Altiva Software announced it has incorporated the complete United States National CAD Standard™ (NCS) V3.1 into the latest release of CADconform®, its software product that promotes and enforces 100% conformance to CAD standards.

The complete NCS is included, at no additional charge, for all U.S. customers purchasing version 6.2 of CADconform for AutoCAD® or for MicroStation®, which are the 2 most widely used CAD drafting software packages. CADconform is an add-on to these two drafting packages, and works seamlessly between them to provide a single, comprehensive CAD standards solution. With CADconform, users can draft with and check against multiple sets of CAD standards and automatically correct drawings to enforce conformance to standards.

Version 6.2 contains the complete NCS including: the AIA CAD layer names, drawing set and sheet organization, drafting conventions and notations, plotting guidelines, extensive symbols library, and thousands of terms and abbreviations. Also included are the MicroStation and AutoCAD resource files and discipline-specific drafting menus.

"We are the first and only vendor to have successfully incorporated the complete NCS into a CAD standards application," explains Altiva Software CEO Philip Hurlston. "Because we are the only company dedicated to 100% CAD standards conformance, our CADconform functionality includes the ability to easily build and manage sets of CAD standards. Incorporating the NCS into CADconform required no special programming. Users purchasing v6.2 of CADconform will get the NCS as an added bonus for no extra charge."

The NCS, first published in 1999, was developed by committee and initially based on industry documents from the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS), the Construction Specifications Institute (CSI), and the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Other groups and pertinent documents have been included in later issues; the latest version, 3.1, was published in January 2005.

In July 2005, the 3 groups invited software vendors to incorporate the standard – which existed only as a large printed manual and PDF file – into an appropriate software package, to make it easier to use and check against the standard as part of the drafting process.

For more information about the United States National CAD Standard, see http://www.nationalcadstandard.org.

CADconform® is a software add-on that works seamlessly between AutoCAD® and MicroStation® to promote and enforce 100% conformance to CAD standards. It is the only product of its kind that provides an encrypted, tamper-proof electronic seal ensuring data integrity and user confidence.

Properly enforced CAD standards provide strategic business value including: re-use of intellectual property stored in drawings, better interoperability and project management, and significant cost-savings and contributions to HS&E.

Altiva Software is the only company dedicated to 100% conformance to CAD standards. It is headquartered in Houston, Texas, with offices in Germany and Australia.

Visit us on the web at www.altivasoft.com.

CADconform is a registered trademark of Altiva Software, Inc. AutoCAD is a registered trademark of Autodesk, Inc. MicroStation is a registered trademark of Bentley Systems, Inc.

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