It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the concept of Bricsys, a .dwg-based CAD provider from Gent, Belgium. The unrelenting passion of Erik De Keyser, a longtime CAD entrepreneur, has revolutionized construction technology. This passion can only be described in superlatives, which drove him to lay the cornerstone of Bricsys in 2002. In an era where Autodesk’s AutoCAD™ has long enjoyed the lion’s share of the 2D CAD market, Bricsys is bringing a change for the better– with full 2D, 3D, and solids modeling in .dwg.

Founded along the lines of providing low-cost alternatives to AutoCAD, the company has placed its wager on CAD applications that support the .dwg file format. Bricsys leveraged their early position in the IntelliCAD Technology Consortium (ITC). Today, Bricsys are a founding partner of the Open Design Alliance (ODA). Bricsys provide .dwg-based 2D CAD features coupled with time-saving tools and 3D Direct Modeling. “BricsCAD stands unique as the only CAD system to deliver a seamless BIM workflow inside of the industry-standard .dwg file format,” said De Keyser, CEO of Bricsys. Having added smart behaviors and real intelligence to .dwg-based CAD, Bricsys is poised to take their products to new heights, offering features that surpass any other AutoCAD alternative.

Unlike the industry leader, Bricsys offers a flexible licensing program without forced subscriptions. Leveraging its expertise, Bricsys has reverse engineered the AutoCAD application programming interfaces (APIs) so that application developers only need to recompile their code to run AutoCAD-based applications on BricsCAD. “We gave application developers one source code stream. This concept has been showing good success, as today we have 1,200 applications running on BricsCAD,” adds De Keyser.

BricsCAD BIM is Industry Foundation Class compliant, a shared file format that allows seamless interaction between BIM products in the AEC (Architecture, Engineering, and Construction), GIS, civil, and mechanical CAD markets. For a common collaboration platform for BIM, Bricsys has built a cloud platform called Chapoo that acts a model server for collaboration. Moving BIM to the cloud supports document management, task assignment, process automation, and real-time communication in a single, global platform.

The technology Bricsys provides, says De Keyser, is well complemented by seamless support and services. The company sells products both online and through local partners, and is active in over 80 countries. Bricsys has completely automated their demo download and product support facilities, automatically connecting users to their nearest distributors. Bricsys and its partners provide free and unconditional product support for all user queries, even during the 30-day free trial stage.

Bricsys is at the forefront of providing collaborative construction technology solutions to various leading organizations. Customers include BHF, Tyco, and Integro. De Keyser recalls an instance when Bricsys assisted a leading construction company involved in dredging projects across the United Arab Emirates. The client required an efficient collaboration system that could support BIM and .dwg file formats. BricsCAD’s innovative technology with seamless 3D direct modeling assisted them in completing the design process, while offering simple collaboration between the design, construction, and management teams.

Bricsys has built a sterling reputation among its customers. As the Bricsys team gears up for their Bricsys 2017 Conference in Paris this October, their focus is on further streamlining their offerings for delivering the best-in-class user experience to their clients.