1. Create Timestamp in a TurboCAD drawing using Excel
2. Coordinate system tip
3. Workplane by facet
4. Use degenerative faceting
5. Save selection
6. Camera tips
7. Small speed boost by changing the Undo buffer
8. A few keyboard short cut combinations

You need a copy of Microsoft Excel to accomplish this.

Create an Excel worksheet and insert the function that displays the current system date into cell A1 [=TODAY()]. You can have various options on formatting the date to your liking. Save the file in a convenient location. I saved it as TODAY.XLS in my DRAWINGS folder.

Select the cell A1 and use the COPY command from the Excel Edit menu.

Start TurboCAD with a new or existing drawing. From the TurboCAD Edit menu, select Paste Special. Choose Paste Link and then press OK. Save your drawing. Your drawing now has a date that automatically gets updated every time you open it.
Do all your formatting within Excel as far as font, text size, etc.

Also try  =NOW()

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TurboCAD lets you change coordinate systems at any time while you are working. If you are drawing the outer wall of a house, for example, you may want to start the first wall at an absolute location in the drawing space, so you would use absolute coordinates for the first point. Each successive wall, however, would be defined by its length and angle relative to the first wall, so you might use polar coordinates for the remaining points.

Tip: Advanced users can "force" TurboCAD to use a coordinate system other than the current system while working in the Coordinate Fields. If you precede a coordinate with a $ sign, it will be interpreted as an absolute coordinate; if you precede it with an @ sign it will be interpreted as a relative coordinate; if you precede it with a > sign it will be interpreted as a polar coordinate.

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Menu: Workspace|WorkPlane|ByFacet

You can customize the WorkPlane position in model space using the By Facet option.
When you select this option TurboCAD attaches to your mouse cursor a three-axes indicator of UCS (User Coordinate System):

With one or more drawing views (Plan, Front, Isometric, etc.) on your screen, move your mouse onto a view and then click the desired facet in the current scene. As a result, TurboCAD turns the WorkPlane so that it becomes placed on the X and Y axes of the facet’s coordinate system.

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Available in TurboCAD Professional only.

Tip: Use the degenerative faceting whenever your drawing contains a significant number of 3D entities. This mode of faceting lets you considerably reduce the time that TurboCAD needs to load the drawing file. For files of dozens of megabytes, the reduction may be more than ten times. Yet, in this case switching from a wire frame representation of drawing to its rendering can go on several times slower than a normal faceting takes place.

In the Faceter Mode control group you can select one of three types of faceting: Draft (default), Quality, or Custom.

Draft—The face faceting parameters can not be changed from the default settings.

Quality—The face faceting parameters can not be changed from the default settings, but the faceting representation is more accurate than Draft mode.

Custom—Allows you to specify face faceting parameters (surface tolerance, normal tolerance, and maximum edge length).

The Surface Tolerance is the distance between the facet and the part of the surface it is representing. By setting this faceting parameter refinement, you specify how accurately the facets represent the surface.

The Normal Tolerance is the angle between the surface normals at the two adjacent nodes of a facet (it is actually the normal deviation). By setting this parameter, you specify how accurately the facets represent the surface and the quality of rendering. Use of the normal tolerance control is preferable because it is usually independent of model size.

Note: Rendering is the process of creating a photorealistic (shaded) image of three-dimensional (3D) object (model).

The Maximum Edge Length specifies the limit for the facet edge length. This is the only way to subdivide facets further in planer faces.

Faceting is used by the rendering tool, and faceting refinements may have a significant impact on the rendering process. Tighter facets produce a smoother rendered surface, but slow down the rendering process. Looser facets produce a rougher surface, but speed up the rendering process.

Often the quality requirements to the 3D object representation permit to simplify faceting, significantly reducing a number of edges and even apply a degenerative faceting using a reduced number of edges without generation of facets at all. To enable the degenerative faceting, ensure that the Degenerative Faceting checkbox is marked, see image above.

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If you have a selected area in your drawing the Save control group appears in the dialog. These are the controls:

Drawing - To save the whole drawing.
Selection - To save the selected area only.

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The General tab provides you with a number of the camera properties controls.

Camera Centered - Marking this checkbox causes the camera to turn around its own center when you use the following commands: Camera Turn Up, Camera Turn Down, Camera Turn Left, Camera Turn Right. When this option is disabled, TurboCAD causes the camera to turn around a target point whose coordinates are defined in the Target Point control group.

Scroll Speed - Use the slider of this control to adjust a speed of the camera’s translation.
Three sets of controls – Position, Target Point, and The Up Vector – comprise the Coordinate group allowing you to define the values of the X, Y, and Z coordinates for the camera, a target point, and the Up vector of the camera. These values are shown with respect to the current UCS (User Coordinate System).
Position - Use the controls of this group to specify the physical location of the camera. You can enter values of the camera coordinates for three axes – X, Y and Z.
Drawing Center (camera location)—With the help of this pushbutton of the Position control group you can place the camera in the center of the current drawing (3D scene).
Target Point - Use the controls of this group to turn the camera’s line of view ("line of sight") towards the physical location of the point that the camera must look at. You are free to choose a target point. To do this, enter values of the target point coordinates for the X, Y, and Z axes.
Drawing Center (target point’s location) - Using this pushbutton of the Target Point control group you can make the target point coincide with the center of the current drawing (3D scene).
Graphic in Front of Camera - This pushbutton helps you choose from a number of objects in the current scene an object which is the nearest to the view center and attach the target point to this object.
The Up Vector - The data entry fields of this control group allow you to specify which way has to be up for the camera.

To add a button to a toolbar for Drawing Center and Graphic in Front of Camera

Go to OPTIONS, TOOLBARS AND MENU, CUSTOMIZE

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To give a small speed boost to operations in TurboCAD reduce the UNDO BUFFER from 100 to smaller number of your choice

1. Got to the IMSI/TCWP80/PROGRAM folder and locate the tcw80.ini file and save a copy of it.
2. Open the tcw80.ini file with Notepad and go to EDIT, FIND for "UNDO" you'll see the line $UNDOBUFFERS=100
3. Change the number 100 to 40, 30 (your choice) but it is not recommended to go below 20.
4. Save the *.ini file in Notepad and restart TurboCAD

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• You can press <Ctrl>+<E> to go to the Inspector bar.
• You can press <Ctrl>+<R> to go to the Coordinate Fields.
• You can press <Ctrl>+<D> to go to the drawing area.
• You can press <Tab> in the drawing area to move to the first field of the Inspector bar.
• You can press <Ctrl>+<Backspace> (Zoom Extents) to see the largest possible view of your entire drawing.
• You can press <Shift>+<Backspace> (Full View) to see the largest possible view of the your drawing's printable area.
• You can move a selection using coordinate entry. First click the Reference Point, enter the coordinates of the target location, then press <Enter>.
• Use the <V> key to snap a vertex.
• To zoom in or out centered on the mouse, you can press <+> or <-> on the numeric keypad.
• Use the <C> key to snap to the center of an arc or circle.
• You can temporarily activate Ortho mode by holding down the <Shift> key while drawing or editing.
• You can hold down the <Shift> key while dragging resize handles to constrain proportions.
• You can hold down the <Ctrl> key and click on a selection's reference point to move the reference point to another location.
• When the mouse is directly over a reference point, the cursor turns into a 4-directional pointer.
• Use the <D> key to automatically pick up the reference point of a selected object for repositioning.

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