Has anyone tried out LD Assistant recently?

Hey guys,

So I've been trying out CAD programs, and have always been int rigued by LD Assistant. If the website has anything to say about it its a heck of a program, but its REALLY hard to tell for sure. Just looking for an independent review. I'm going to call them later today and see if I can demo it too.

Before ya'll say anything, I have been trying out WYSIWYG on a friends computer, and its kind of driving me nuts with some stuff. I used Vectorworks a bunch a few years ago, so its the current forerunner.

The main thing I really like is that LD Assistant seems to have the best reports. You can do cable paths with it, and it will print out a 3d schedule per batten/truss that makes it super clear how to hang stuff. This is what I'm talking about...

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Sorry....seems like I'm selling it, but I truly am not. The website just seems vaguely sketchy, and I'm not aobut to give them $3k just to try the thing out without hearing some positive stuff about it.

Thanks,

Josh
 
I have never used it, nor seen plots generated by it (which, given how many plots I've seen in a variety of settings, says something to me right there...) but the website looks full of weasel words and marketing speak. Vectorworks/Lightwright combo is the industry standard for a reason.

Stage Lighting visualization
Connect LD Assistant to ETC or JANDS Vista and other lighting consoles using Art-Net and say good bye to DONGLES forever. No setup needed to connect your ETC console With sACN, you just plug your LD Assistant computer into the same network as your console and away you go.

Pre-Visualization
LD Assistant comes with built-in support for 64 DMX-512 Universes, and can both send DMX and receive DMX through a dongle. Lighting consoles and lighting systems can be connected using Pathport Ethernet, Art-Net Ethernet, Art-Net Parallel, LD-Net USB, ENTTEC Ethernet, ENTTEC Open USB & Pro USB dongles. Once a plot has been created, the design is opened (with one button click) in LD Control, a real-time visualizer for pre-cueing and testing designs. Save thousands of scenes and cues within a single DWG file. Create AVI movies with the push of a button.

So... Dongle or no dongle?

The same 2D & 3D tools found in LD Assistant are used by 11,000,000 designers and architects to create their working drawings. Changes to your 2D plan will automatically be reflected in your 3D model and in the schedule.

11 million users? It must be good! Oh wait..

LD Assistant uses Autodesk’s AutoCAD DWG file format. DWG is the native format for AutoCAD software and AutoCAD-based products. Autodesk owns, develops, and iterates the DWG file format. With eleven million users and over a billion AutoCAD DWG files in existence, no wonder other CAD software companies want you to believe that they can import and export to DWG without any problems!


Not impressed..
 
Yeah....those are the concerns I have too. The 11 million users thing is probably Autocad, not LD Assistant. Autocad is certainly the industry standard for Architecture and Engineering, but this LD Assistant thing is just a plug in for it and the only review I can find are pretty clearly of the Advertorial type.

I'm still willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but all indications point towards it being kinda flakey. The prices have skyrocketed from when they debuted (its over twice as expensive now), so any advantage they had is slipping away too.

Thanks for you input, still hoping to hear some first hand accounts.
 


This right here is very suspect too. ArtNet is a very different protocol from sACN. ETC consoles can do both, but this is a strange way of putting it.

I agree. This is worded very strangely.

I had a supervisor who used this program and he seemed frustrated a lot.
It looks fine when finished, but getting there seems to be a pain.
 

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