GstarCAD8 Product Launch – A 2013 Asian Odyssey

CHAOYANG, China - May 15, 2013 - PRLog -- As product launches go, though, this one was particularly unique and made the long journey worthwhile. But first, a little company background for those who may not be familiar with GstarCAD.

According to company statistics, the market share rate of GstarCAD platform and extended application software puts it in first place in terms of legitimate CAD seats in the Chinese market. GstarCAD claims a customer base of more than 200,000 architects, engineers, and designers from more than 70 countries.

While desktop applications remain the most important GstarCAD presently, cloud-based design applications will become more important over time, much as they will with virtually all competitors.

GstarCAD8 Product Launch Event

Like most other CAD product introductions, there were plenty of lights and loud music as a prelude to the product launch festivities. Really, it was like a game show complete with an emcee who got the crowd worked up before and during the introductions of GstarCAD executives, several of whom gave short talks about the new product and star of the show – GstarCAD8.

First on the stage was Lu Xiang, GstarCAD’s President. He said that GstarCAD8 was three years in development, and the company resisted a lot of temptation to over-extend itself with this release. The goal this time around was to focus on independent R&D and a high-quality finished product.

Next up was Yu Cike, Director of National Copyright Department, who voiced his concern about copyright and IP protection for GstarCAD. I took this to mean a concern about software piracy, a universal problem. He said that legal copies of software are essential for maintaining pace of innovation, and a good ecology for the software industry is absolutely required because three million people are engaged in design in China. He promised that he will work with other countries to ensure integrity of the software industry and IP protection. These were surprising statements and I’ll be interested to see if this effort actually works beyond words.

Wang Ziniu, Secretary General of China Exploration & Design Association, echoed what others had said regarding the quality of domestic CAD products that is improving, as well as their acceptance in the world market. He said his Association is paying greater attention to information technology, including software development and IP rights. Serving the design industry is vitally important for the future of software industry as a whole. He said real software requirements must be met, and domestic development must increase so China doesn’t depend/rely so much on foreign development, sales environment, and brands.

Liang Jiang, Vice President of Gstarsoft, introduced the company’s newest platform product – GstarCAD8. He started by saying that CAD software development began in earnest in China in the early 1990s. Early on, Chinese CAD developers realized they lagged the competition by years, so they began the playing the game of “catch up.”

GstarCAD8 is the result of three years of development by hundreds of developers. GstarCAD sets itself apart from the competition by realizing that their CAD platform must perform by itself, but also allow for easy vertical market development by third parties through its open API.

Improvements in GstarCAD8 were due in large part to its structure that influences stability greatly with interdependencies. The structure is analogous to a modular honeycomb, where it is easier to detect and resolve problems with the software during development, while improving working efficiency through parallel dispatching technology and optimized with advances in multicore hardware

GstarCAD8 offers a non-switching user interface that is easier for users to switch between different ribbon/classic interfaces instead of having to restart the program. Users can change views, visual styles, viewports and other settings. The UI also has a familiar Command Line for those who are inclined to use it.


GstarCAD8 improved its multiple viewport. In order to save more work space, every viewport doesn’t show the title bar as it did in previous versions. In addition, one viewport can be subdivided to display more views.

GstarCAD8 has adopted Unicode to write and compile programming and is able to open drawings that contain multi-language texts or without the system default language, in order to satisfy across-languages, text conversion, and processing requirements.

Compared to the previous version of GstarCAD, one of the major the innovations of GstarCAD8 is its core architecture and associated performance improvements. This platform makes its graphic speed and user operation 3-5 times faster while memory usage is around 40%-50% less than previous GstarCAD versions. The performance, stability and compatibility are all improved, because of the new core architecture.

Gstarsoft is starting to move away from strictly a traditional single-machine design process to a more collaborative one across different computing platforms. The company has found that this is an excellent opportunity for cloud computing and a browse environment. This new design environment is why Gstarsoft has released versions of its software for mobile devices called GstarCAD MC (Mobile Client) that runs under iOS and Android. GstarCAD’s GRX API provides software written for AutoCAD’s ARX API that can run on either without changes to the code.

GstarCAD8 integrates with GstarCAD MC and GstarCAD WEB. Now, .dwg files can be input into GstarCAD MC, that enables designers to browse, edit and share .dwg files. GstarCAD WEB is a cloud application of GstarCAD development, where creating and editing .dwg files can be accomplished via web browser without CAD software. It will be integrated with GstarCAD’s Documentation System to become a coordinated CAD system based on cloud storage and mobile Internet.

The Standing Vice President of Gstarsoft, Liang Haixia said, “GstarCAD8 is a milestone in GstarCAD’s history, it is also a major accomplishment of our 20 years’ of research and development. Gstarsoft expects the release of GstarCAD8 as a starting point to raise our position in world design markets and to provide more powerful support for the construction and manufacturing industries.”

Final Thoughts

The launch of GstarCAD8 is a real milestone for the company, and continuing economic reform in China has benefitted the company greatly. GstarCAD8 improves the company’s CAD platform for the immediate future, and provides more options for the company down the road.

The company has big plans, and as it says, the 8 in Gstarcad8 sideways is infinity, meaning its future is unlimited. That’s a lofty claim, but the company does look poised for seizing some major opportunities.

For more information about GstarCAD8, visit http://www.gstarcad.net.

         (Reprinted from AECCafe by: Jeff Rowe)