The Leica DISTO transfer has been available now for a while on both AutoCAD and BricsCAD.
With the advent of the new cheaper Bluetooth Distos (3aBT) which includes this free tool I would expect far more surveyors to be investigating the transfer of measurements direct to CAD whilst on site.
So, what is the difference between this free tool and DistToPlan (which of course is not free)? I will compare like with like. The Leica tool is only a communication agent so I will compare this with the DistToPlan agent.
Configuration:
DistToPlan works with any Bluetooth driver by default. All that is required is to select the virtual com port ( ports 1 to 8 ) and connection will be established. With the Leica system, if the the bluetooth driver is neither the Broadcom or Microsoft drivers an additional configuration program must be run to allow manual connection to be established. If the correct drivers are installed the Leica software will automatically find the Disto.
The DistToPlan agent is an external EXE, selecting the settings enables the CAD Platform to be selected (AutoCAD, Bricscad or InteliCAD). In addition DistToPlan my be customised to send the measurements to almost any Windows application. Only AutoCAD® versions from 2004 and BricsCAD® versions from 9.3.5 are supported by the Leica PlugIn.
In Use:
The Leica system allows customisation of the Disto device such as units remotely which DistToPlan does not.
Both applications transfer the measurements direct from the Disto to the CAD command line as if they were typed. The main difference is that DistToPlan also stores the previous measurements (and angles, see below), meaning that the command in CAD need not be active as you measure, it is possible to measure the room and then sit at the laptop picking the correct dimensions for each line.
With the 2nd fn key pressed on on the Disto, both systems allow the angle of the line to be controlled from the Disto whilst measuring.
One further function that does not seem to be offered by the Lecia software is remote trigger. If you wish to use the Disto on a pole for example, DistToPlan is able to trigger a measurement remotely.
The extent of the Leica software is simply data transfer. DistToPlan adds a full set of commands to the CAD system to enable construction of building plans far quicker than just utilising the basic CAD commands. Examples of this may be seen here…
DistToPlan may be downloaded here…