rProcess Designs

Case Study Details

Migration from AutoCAD® to BricsCAD® for Residential SolarPV Design

Executive Summary

A U.S.based residential solar EPC migrated its design workflow from AutoCAD 2024 to BricsCAD Pro to reduce licensing expenditure and accelerate quoteturnaround times. Within three months the firm reduced average design time per 8 kW roof by 48 % and cut CADrelated OPEX by 51% while maintaining drawing quality that satisfied both utilityinterconnection and buildingpermit reviewers.

Migration Approach

Phase Duration Key Deliverables
1 — Environment Setup
Week 1
BricsCAD installation, CTB/STB translation, workspace aligned to “AutoCAD Classic” for continuity
2 — Standards Transfer
Week 2
Layer schema, title blocks, sheetset templates, plot styles validated in BricsCAD
3 — Process Automation
Weeks 34
Development of five core AutoLISP routines (see Section 5) and Gitbased sourcecontrol workflow
4 — Validation & Rollout
Weeks 56
Regression testing on 25 legacy projects, staff training (8 hours), formal golive checklist
Total active migration effort: 117 personhours.

Technical Focus: Leveraging AutoLISP in BricsCAD

BricsCAD executes AutoLISP natively, enabling the team to refactor existing AutoCAD scripts and develop new tools without the overhead of .NET or VBA. Highlights include:

Routine Functionality Time Saved / Job
ROOF_OUTLINE.LSP
Consolidates roof polylines, heals gaps, converts to REGION for area reporting
20 min
PV_LAYOUT_GEN.LSP
Autonests modules respecting setbacks; supports portrait/landscape switching
35 min
STRINGER_SCHEDULE.LSP
Calculates string size, conductor gauge, and exports BOM to CSV
10 min
COORD_TRANSFORM.LSP
Converts WGS84 GPS to local stateplane coordinates for permit plans
8 min
PDF_PUBLISH_BATCH.LSP
Publishes full sheet set to vector PDF with projectID filenames
5 min

All LISP code is versioncontrolled, peerreviewed, and documented in a Markdown knowledge base, fostering continuous improvement.

Results After One Quarter

KPI PreMigration (AutoCAD) PostMigration (BricsCAD) Δ
Avg. design time / 8 kW roof
3 h 40 m
1 h 55 m
48 %
Rework incidents / 20 jobs.LSP
7
2
71 %
Annual CAD cost / designer
$3,250
$1,580
51 %
Quotetocontract conversion
22 %
28 %
+6 pp
Employee toolsatisfaction (110)
6.1
8.3
+36 %

Payback on migration costs was achieved in under five months.

Challenges and Mitigations

Issue Root Cause Resolution
Plotstyle colour drift
CTB mappings 1019 misaligned
Onetime CTB remap script; QA signoff
Dynamicblock parameter loss
AutoCADspecific custom grips
Rebuilt as BricsCAD parametric blocks
Designer change management
UI differences
Deployed familiar workspace; phased ribbon adoption over two weeks
Niche plugin availability
Two specialty tools not yet ported
Retained single AutoCAD seat for edge cases; replicated 80 % of features via LISP

Lessons Learned
Automate early. Even basic LISP removes repetitive tasks and builds organisational trust in the new platform.
Treat CAD assets as code. Gitbased versioning and pullrequest reviews improved script reliability.
Maintain a fallback. Keeping one AutoCAD seat reduced migration risk and aided comparisons.
Train with live projects. Adult learners absorb new workflows faster when training material matches tomorrow’s deliverables.

Forward Roadmap
Python API adoption for heavy data processing and GUI enhancements.
Automated shadeloss estimation integrating LiDAR and heliodon libraries.
Oneclick permitset generation via SheetSet Manager scripting and digital stamping.

Conclusion
The transition to BricsCAD delivered quantifiable efficiency gains and cost savings while empowering designers to extend their toolset with AutoLISP. For residential solarPV enterprises seeking scalable, costeffective CAD workflows, BricsCAD presents a pragmatic alternative to AutoCAD—with rapid ROI when coupled with disciplined scripting and changemanagement practices.