What's New in Package Designer 17 |
Drafting |
Construction guides Construction guides can be applied to objects dividing them into separate sections while keeping the objects whole. The guides serve as anchor points to which additional drafting can be done to discrete sections of the original object.
Notes to dimensions Notes can be added to dimension lines displaying relevant information — for example, dimension expressions (names) and values.
Design processing-related defaults in new drawings For new drawings, defaults have been introduced for some of the properties that bear on the processing of designs. Each time a new drawing is created, defaults are loaded for:
The direction of the design's flute (or grain).
How dimension lines are to be scaled during exporting or printing out of drawings.
Which the view sides will be in 1up and layout drawings.
Since these properties can be customized for each individual drawing, a functionality can be opted for that ensures that the set defaults are applied also on previously created files for which the respective properties have already been set.
Scaling patterns for the export/printing out of dimension lines During the exporting or printing out of dimension lines, a scaling pattern can be set that ensures that exported/printed out dimension lines are proportioned so as to ensure visual coherence on the target media.
Exporting/printing out numeric values in dimensions During the exporting or printing out of dimension lines, an option has been introduced for exporting only the numerical values of dimension lines.
Construction guides Construction guides can be applied to objects dividing them into separate sections while keeping the objects whole. The guides serve as anchor points to which additional drafting can be done to discrete sections of the original object.
New dimension type Notes can be added to dimension lines and display any information about the dimension that you may find relevant, among them dimension expressions (names) and values.
Free-shape area selection A mode of selection has been introduced that lets you define an irregularly shaped selection area. The mode — lasso selection — comes in handy while selecting objects positioned at places that are hard to select by using the standard, rectangular-area selection mode.
Single-click selection An alternative mode of selection definition has been introduced that takes place by a single click. In this mode, selection is done as you (1) click, (2) drag to define a selection area, and then (3) release the mouse button. To turn on the mode, on the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the View tab; then select the Single click select mode check box.
Selection Presets A functionality has been introduced for setting selection patterns. You can set custom patterns for selection — by specific style, color, object type, layer characteristics, and other attributes — and then save these patterns for future use. When you need a specific selection pattern, you just select it from a menu, and the selection takes place automatically.
Point-to-point alignment Alignment can now be done between discrete points: (1) Click a point belonging to the object that you want to align to another object, and then (2) click to a point on the second (reference) object. The first object is aligned to the second object. The mode is especially useful in the manual alignment of layout 1ups.
Enhanced detecting of relations in arcs drawing When you are drawing arcs, the program detects relations between (1) the second point and the x- and y-axes and (2) the third point and the first point.
Disabling relations detection for grouped objects During drawing, grouped objects can be excluded from the detection of relations. The group of objects remains visible on the screen and can be moved around, but while other objects are being drawn with the detection of relations turned on, no relations are being detected for the grouped objects. The functionality is mostly useful when you do not want to see the constant appearance of multiple relations-detecting axes for grouped objects with irregular shapes and multiple angles. The functionality is available when you right-click a set of grouped objects and check the Skip while detecting relations on the context menu.
3D |
Overall dimensions End to end dimensions can be placed for a 3D model, which give an idea about the model's actual size.
3D PDFs can be imported as internal objects Imported 3D PDF models can be used as external 3D objects that can be inserted into folding sequences. NOTE: To qualify for importing, a 3D PDF must be saved as a still scene. This prevents any folding steps from being played back when the 3D object has been inserted into the hosting 3D model.
Layout |
Flute symbol visualization Layout drawings can now display the symbol indicating the direction of the flute. Turned on by default. If the functionality has not been turned on but you need to see the flute direction in a print drawing, you can turn it on specially for the print drawing.
Printing and design frames |
Displaying the flute direction A functionality has been introduced that lets you make the flute direction symbol appear in a print drawing. The functionality lets you see the flute symbol even if you have opted for hiding it in all other drawings in the project.
Presenting external objects Imported external objects can be featured as separate items in print presentations. While a print presentation is being defined, the external objects are assigned to the areas predefined for 3D drawings.
Predefined area reference for external 3D objects in formulas In formulas, external 3D objects can now be referred to by the name of the predefined area in which they will appear.
Cost Estimator |
Formula for displaying names of selected selection type entries Formulas have been added that display the names of the selection type entries rather than their values.
Cost model formulas for displaying the front or rear side of drawings Formulas have been added that extract data about the front and the rear sides of drawings. The formulas let you choose between displaying the side with letter strings (Front or Rear) or as numerals [0 (front) or 1 (rear)].
Cost model data storage Operational data relevant to a project and entered in its cost model can now be stored and retrieved later when the project is reopened. This data can also be shared on a network so multiple users working on the same project can access it.
3D parts and external objects Formulas have been introduced for extracting data about the number of parts and external objects in assembled 3D folding sequences.
CAM |
Default processing side in new jobs When a CAM drawing is created, a default can be set for which side of the drawing will load as processing side. The options are Front, Rear, Diecutting, and Counterdiecutting.
Other features |
Scripts and COM automation Scripts can be used for tasks related to COM automatization. The program produces an API (Application Programming Interface), a collection of functions and data structures that can be used through external software systems.
Customized width of the parametric components browse window Users can now set their own width for the browse window in which parametric components are selected.
Scaling of object widths after export and printing When objects are exported or printed out into areas different from the original areas (larger or smaller), the object style widths are scaled relative to the target areas.
Sheet-/Dieboard-locking defaults After sheets and dieboards have been placed, they can be locked by default. This affects the alignment of the objects: they are aligned within the sheet or dieboard without the sheet or dieboard to automatically center itself relative to them. When the functionality is being used, relevant commands are available on the context menu.
Overall dimensions exclude production-neutral objects Objects not related to production processes are not taken into account when overall dimensions are applied. Such objects are, for example, the fiducials placed in 1up drawings to indicate the camera guiding points in CAM jobs. Normally the production property of these objects is set to Auxiliary.
Enhanced image management Image optimization can be done to images after they have been placed into drawings: (1) they can be cropped to fit designs' sizes and (2) their bit depths can be reduced (downsampled) to consume the right amount of memory required for the task at hand. This is applicable, for example, for screen-only representations, when the quality of a data-rich image can be reduced while ensuring optimal 3D representation and conserving system resource (memory).