CAD Program advice

[davereid]

OK, I'm not going to admit what CAD program I have been using. Suffice to say it runs in DOS 3.0 or higher. It actually goes OK, but it does all its work in imperial units, and rounding from imperial to metric creates small errors. Like if you snap to grid, it will call 5m 5.00048765m.

Time to get an upgrade !

~ Ideally free or inexpensive
~ Metric units
~ No scaling - ie you draw everything real-life size, and you don't worry about paper size until you want to print.
~ Designed for men. Like people who use metal and lathes and welders - Engineering CAD. As opposed to architects pondering on the shade of pink for the dunny wall CAD.

Ta Much

:niceone:

[jrandom]

SolidWorks. Just use a pirated hacked copy.

:niceone:

Ooooh, did I just say that?

[Crisis management]

I've always used Autocad but have never really looked seriously at other "cheaper" options. Works for me.

I'm sure there are a ton of freebies out there now, depends on how complicated you want to go, if it's just 2d stuff there must be a huge choice.

I watch with interest.....I want a 3d modeling program suitable for architecture for nothing to play with too!

[jrandom]

*cough*

Curious, nobody's PM'd me yet.

*cough*

Oh well, I guess people aren't necessarily that good at picking up on hints.

;)

[imdying]

Depends, just for home use, give Google Sketchup a whirl. Doesn't get much easier than that.

[civil]

TurboCAD. only a few hundrend dollars and works well.

[SimJen]

just download one of the many millions of copies of pirated Autocad.
Get the LT version, as its a pretty small download and easy as piss to learn.
It'll do all you need it to and more.
go to www.mininova.org and do a search for a torrent of it, any old version will do.

[The Pastor]

yeah get autocad off the net like everyone else dose.

if u need it for a bussiness then I suggest paying for it.

[davereid]

Thanks for the advice guys.

I only need a 2D prog, I really just use CAD as an expensive pencil.

I don't mind paying for good software, it's the rubbish I hate coughing up for !

[SimJen]

well LT is geared for simple 2D use.....

[xwhatsit]

No way man, you don't get out if it that easily.

I need to know what you are using now. Runs in DOS 3.0 or higher? :laugh:

I have to know!!! :lol:

[nudemetalz]

Im use 3DS Max now for Nudemetalz, but it is quite memory intensive and not cheap....

[imdying]

I don't mind paying for good software, it's the rubbish I hate coughing up for !Google Sketchup is free and easy to use... comes with a short easy to follow tutorial. Has a non perspective view which is good for 2D stuff. You don't like it, you throw it away :)

[davereid]

No way man, you don't get out if it that easily. I need to know what you are using now. Runs in DOS 3.0 or higher? :laugh: I have to know!!! :lol:

Ahh OK... its called Draft Choice. It ran off a single 360kb floppy. If you needed the help file, you had to have a powerful PC. You know, the type with TWO floppy disk drives. After I had been using it for a while, I upgraded to a machine with a Hard disk drive. It was 10 meg, so I never managed to fill it.

Over the years I have produced untold drawings with this old girl, shes still a faithful old friend. I think I paid about $9.95.

[NighthawkNZ]

http://freeware.quantumillusions.com/cad.htm

[davereid]

Ok thanks to you lot, I have downloaded and registered FelixCAD. I'll let you know how it goes.

[Ocean1]

Ok thanks to you lot, I have downloaded and registered FelixCAD. I'll let you know how it goes.

Do that. In the meantime check this: http://www.rhino3d.com/

Yes it's 3d, but it handles flat stuff just fine, and once you've tried some simple 3d stuff...

[sAsLEX]

*cough*

Curious, nobody's PM'd me yet.

*cough*

Oh well, I guess people aren't necessarily that good at picking up on hints.

;)

Is the Solidworks Vista version out yet? Only have my laptop in this country and the Inventor 11 I was using cant support Vista due to the new file system on it!


If you need a back up of your copy don't look past torrents .... http://www.torrentz.com/ba06604f02bbc7fd608b9331bdd688471c43ab13

[Ocean1]

*cough*

Curious, nobody's PM'd me yet.

*cough*

Oh well, I guess people aren't necessarily that good at picking up on hints.

;)

It's not ideal for 2d draughting, the base app is missing a lot of functionality and the support for legal seats is piss poor let alone pirated copies. It’s popular because Intercad was the first to seriously discount a medium-range Mcad tool so a lot of smaller manufacturers picked it up. For non mass production design I don’t like having to use constraints, it nearly doubles the work in defining geometry and there’s little pay-back in terms of production costs. It also doesn’t play well with other app’s, I used to get quite a bit of work translating SW and Pro-E files and patching dodgy edges.

Seriously, for design-and-build work Rhino is very very good, and while it’s not open-source the community behaves as if it were. There’s a huge list of free plug-ins for more specialist work, and the support is uniquely accessible:
http://www.rhino3d.com/support.htm