Hot Door, Inc. is a software
development company based in Laguna Beach, California. The
company was started in 1995 by Brendon and Shari Cheves.
Products include commercial plugins, like CADtools and
MultiPage, as well as online applications and projects like this
custom web site and online store. In the last 15 years, the
business has grown steadily and added distribution of carefully
selected third-party plugins. Each year the focus remains the
same: user-friendly software tools for design
professionals. We always enjoy giving our customers
personal attention with free, friendly phone support!
Background
The first product, CADtools, was conceptualized in a university
classroom in 1996. Brendon Cheves had recently graduated with a
degree in computer interface design and was teaching part-time
in computer-aided design. His students were using Adobe
Illustrator to modify and enhance CAD files for presentation.
They were burdened by the time and effort required to move back
and forth between programs to merge graphics and dimensions.
Brendon learned that Adobe Illustrator contained a plugin
infrastructure that allowed programming of additional features.
The first version of CADtools was released for the new Adobe
Illustrator 7 in May 1997.
CADtools was hugely
popular with Adobe Illustrator users, appealing to many
different types of professions including environmental design,
sign design, architecture, manufacturing, engineering, technical
illustration, etc. Hot Door continued to develop more plugins
for Illustrator and Photoshop to meet specific design needs not
met with the applications. Hot Door Harmony was released in 1998
for Photoshop -- a color selection tool based on extensive color
theory research. By the end of 1998, Hot Door Transparency was
released to offer new transparent effects in Illustrator.
Transparency was equally successful in its short lifespan --
Adobe added transparency effects to Illustrator in 1999.
Hot Door released both CADtools 2
and MultiPage in 2000. MultiPage offered a clever solution to
bring publishing power to Illustrator with multiple page
organization, printing, and PDF export. CADtools 2 was a major
upgrade based entirely on user requests, offering new live
dimensioning, multiple scales, and dozens of other features. The
new Hot Door online store allowed for instant purchase and
download, as well as the sale of third-party plugins. The Hot
Door staff increased to include technical support and
distribution specialists. 2000 was an accelerated year with
products and people!
In 2002, Hot Door released
Perspective to provide realistic perspective drawing features
for Adobe Illustrator. Perspective proved to be the biggest
development challenge to date, requiring extensive calculations
to create special grids and views. As with every product, the
customer feedback was wonderful, motivating more product ideas.
The long-awaited CADtools 3 upgrade was released in October 2003
in response to the growing need for both 2D and isometric
drawing/dimensioning features inside Adobe Illustrator.
MultiPage 2 followed in 2004 for Illustrator CS with dramatic
improvements to PDF file size and color page previews.
CADtools 4 was released in 2005
with improved wall tools, path division, auto-dimensioning, and
necessary compatibility with Illustrator CS2. Each version of
Illustrator introduces new features and code changes which
result in new challenges in plugin development. We were also
proud of our own custom online store which debuted with CADtools
4, providing a user-friendly method of purchasing software with
frame-based product configuration. In 2006 we completed
compatibility upgrades for CS2, including MultiPage 3,
CADpatterns, and Perspective for CS2. AppliCraft also updated
CADgate for CS2 on Windows which added new DXF/DWG import and
scaled export with Illustrator.
After another year of
development, CADtools 5 was launched in 2007 for Illustrator CS3
on Power PC/Intel Macs and Windows XP/Vista, improving project
workflow with CADtools presets, label options, full screen
cursors, and additional custom scale support. New tools include
perpendicular and tangent drawing, fillet radius and offset
tools by popular demand. MultiPage 4 and Perspective
compatibility for CS3 followed. We continued our support of
Adobe Illustrator with CADtools 6 in early 2009. New features
include an innovative Scale calculator and tools for adjusting
proportion and measuring distance. CADtools 7 quickly followed for
CS5 compatibility, adding new art generation tools for tables,
title blocks and door/window insertion.
We are continually amazed by the
work of our customers who use our products for thousands of
different design tasks every day. We share the desire to
simplify work with elegant tools that suit the designer as much
as the task. Thank you all for your support -- and keep up the
good work!
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Hot
Door CADpatterns for Adobe Illustrator 10, CS, CS2, CS3,
CS4, and CS5
Now you can create clean,
professional documents with vector-based patterns that
conform to ANSI standards. Over 130 patterns represent a
variety of materials and textures including geometry,
masonry, building materials, ground cover, wood, metal,
flagstone, stone, tile, and geology. All patterns are easily
edited and colorized.
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Hot
Door CADtools 8 for Adobe Illustrator CS3, CS4, CS5, CS6 and CC
Hot Door CADtools 8 adds
complete CAD power with precision drawing, dimensioning,
editing and labeling tools inside Adobe Illustrator. Draw in
any scale, dimension artwork with a mouse click, and
numerically control objects like never before. Hot Door
CORE™ technology dramatically improves speed and performance
and ensures prompt release of new updates and upgrades for
Ai Creative Cloud compatibility. CADtools 8 blends smoothly
into the Illustrator environment so you can stay creative
and constructive in one software program.
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