EASTON, Pa. — Victaulic, a global manufacturer of mechanical pipe joining systems, announced various launches and upgrades for its suite of Autodesk® MEP software offerings.

• Victaulic Tools for AutoCAD® (VTFA) is an all-new, free tool that provides AutoCAD users the same classic routing features and drawing productivity gains that were previously only available in the Victaulic Tools for Revit platform. This add-on provides toolsets engineered for civil, industrial, plant, or mechanical projects and includes features to simplify pipe routing, procurement, and exporting bill-of-materials.

• The new “Project Mentor” tool is now available in Victaulic Tools for Revit® (VTFR).

The new feature – likened to a “spell-check” for modelers – enables users to create custom rules that help improve model accuracy and data transfer reliability. Find missing parameter data, identify incompatible components, and automatically highlight any issues within the model with a few clicks.

•Victaulic has revamped its website for software offerings, which now includes a new customer support forum. The online community will serve as an added resource for customers, helping to facilitate direct and open conversation between Victaulic and software users and providing the opportunity for a self-serve support system. Visitors can view previous questions and answers as well as post new questions they may have on the VTFR or VTRA software, which can be answered by a Victaulic expert or fellow users.

“We recognized customers are modeling Victaulic in the AutoCAD platform; in fact, many have asked us specifically for a tool like this,” said Mark Gilbert, vice president at Victaulic. “The fact that we can offer this for free to the industry is something we are incredibly proud of. We believe it shows our commitment towards supporting customers no matter what medium they are working in.”

“We saw that customers were downloading individual AutoCAD blocks from our software library, sometimes at a higher rate than they were downloading Revit families,” said Kenneth Verlinden, Victaulic’s virtual design and content manager. “We created a way to repurpose some of those modeling shortcuts we developed for Victaulic Tools for Revit and apply them to the AutoCAD platform.”

“Model based estimation is a cornerstone of how Victaulic approaches our projects and now more than ever ensuring alignment to budget is critical,” said Ralph Schoch, Revit technology and internal support manager at Victaulic. “To know that estimates are based on exact measurements of materials from the design is a critical first step to ensuring project success.

That is why we continue to develop new tools and updates, such as the “Project Mentor” to help BIM modelers ensure their designs are accurate.”

For more information, visit www.victaulicsoftware.com.