Thread: What's a good cad program

Check out the Google sketch up section on this forum.

https://www.woodworkforums.com.au/forumdisplay.php?f=112

For more serious CAD I love Solid Works. Goggle SU should be fine even for furniture once you get the hang of its tools though.

There are a number of free cad programs, like solid edge 2d and numerous others. Probably start there and see how you go.

For laying out rooms I use an architectural design program. The basic ones are designed for home owners to play with room sizes and furniture. They are very much simpler than cad and usually offer a 3d cartoon quality walkthrough function. You could use cupboards sized to represent your equipment and with some imagination that could give you a good visualisation. I do not know of any that are free. The one I use is old and the updated version isn't very good. No doubt there are better ones around. 3D home architect is the one I use but I think it's V4. V5 and on aren't much good. I believe the better homes and gardens one is good but possibly expensive. Ebay...

Originally Posted by colin2000

hi
i'm looking for a easy to use cad program to design my new workshop space so every thing i want will fit and also to design some furniture on. i want the program to be quick and easy to learn ( i want to play with wood not spend all my time learning a new program,) thanks Colin

Easy is a relative term. Most are easy for someone that is a propeller head and was using CAD in the womb. For the rest there is a fairly steep learning curve to become competent, another relative term. If all you want to do is draw squares it's relatively easy... So with that said you had better expect to put in a lot of time becoming competent and start with Google Sketchup. And then once you're become one with the machine you will wonder how you managed to do without it for so long. If you don't have the patience to learn then it's back to the stone age for you and paper and pencil are your tools.

there's no such thing as an easy cad program, just some are easier than others. Google sketchup seems to be relatively quick to learn and there is a forum here that has numerous tips and advice. I would give that a go. All the others are quite hard to come to grips with without one on one advice to get you started.

At school we use AutoCad and Autodesk Inventor. They're easy programs to learn and use but that's me talking. I'm top of the class

hi all thanks for all the great feed back i think i will try Google sketchup and get b ack to all and let you know how it went. in a week or two.

Originally Posted by specialist

there's no such thing as an easy cad program, just some are easier than others. Google sketchup seems to be relatively quick to learn and there is a forum here that has numerous tips and advice. I would give that a go. All the others are quite hard to come to grips with without one on one advice to get you started.

A good point. Pick a program that has a large following that you can get relatively quick help on - you'll need it when starting out. I really like Pytha. It's an easy program when you know what you're doing and have an experienced person sitting next to you when startng out. But if you're on your own it's a bitch of a program. There is no where in the world you can go to get help unless you pay for it or can read and write fluent german.

At school we use AutoCad and Autodesk Inventor. They're easy programs to learn and use but that's me talking. I'm top of the class

skite

Maybe you could teach me a thing or two?????

Robert

I've been using AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT for about a zillion years. The tools built-in are more extensive and powerful than the old pencil-and-paper methods, but you'll have a flatter learning curve if you first become acquainted with the old methods of graphical layout. Look in old bookstores for titles including "Descriptive Geometry." Some public libraries may have online catalogs with search capability by similar keywords too.

Joe

Well... Ive always found a nice clean sheet of A3 paper a stack of "scarysharp" pencils of different leds along with a good rule an some french curves do me just fine

Maybe its just me but I tried that Autocad thingy and got totally screwed up within half a nano second so I took some dopey wombatted gits advice from here if I recall rightly and tried Sketchup which promptly turned into Upchuck and so Im back to old reliable pencil rule and paper... WORKS EVERY TIME!!

But then my nippers do call me the dionsour ol fart but what do they know!!! bloody technophiles

Cheers
Shane

I use VectorWorks by Nemetschek, which is a professional and very expensive CAD program if you buy the full version (the student version however is just over $150 and just watermarks any of your printed work, but is otherwise fully functional)

VectorWorks has a very fast learning curve if you are familiar with any of the Adobe graphic suit programs. In particular Adobe illustrator. VectorWorks sells it self as a professional CAD program for designers as it does not need a a strong grounding in mathematics, trigonometry or geometry.

Once you get some few basic concepts your design work moves quickly.

I personally had no luck with Sketchup, I found it frustrating and limiting, and after numerous times attempting to control basic shapes I gave up.

I am now very happy with VectorWorks.

Autocad and inventor are about as awful as cad programs get. Autodesk are the microsoft of the cad world. I've just spent 18 months fighting management who wanted to ditch NX for inventor. Absolute rubbish, our productivity would have halved.

I learned on autocad back when it was just becoming 3d. It's incredibly powerful if you bother to learn to program it, but it's just awful for producing a one off drawing.

The architectural packages you just select a full height or half height cupboard and resize the width and length to suit and place it in your room. Draw a wall, resize, then us 3d to walk though and see how it looks. There are cd's on ebay for a few $. They often autodimension also if you want to produce a drawing and output to jpg for easy printing/sharing.

Originally Posted by specialist

skite

Maybe you could teach me a thing or two?????

Robert

Like what?

Originally Posted by damian

Autocad and inventor are about as awful as cad programs get. Autodesk are the microsoft of the cad world. I've just spent 18 months fighting management who wanted to ditch NX for inventor. Absolute rubbish, our productivity would have halved.

I learned on autocad back when it was just becoming 3d. It's incredibly powerful if you bother to learn to program it, but it's just awful for producing a one off drawing.

?

I don't think they're awful. Why don't you like them?

Horses for courses, mates.

Hand sketching by pencil and paper is advisable for pre-CAD work, armed with graphical layout methods. CAD allows modifications and auto-dimensioning, as well as saving different versions of a design.

One problem I've seen with CAD programs is the procedure of activities, e.g. AutoCAD vs Bentley. For many things, there's a sequence of Tool, Selection, and Verb. There are 6 combinations of sequences possible, and they can drive a sane person elsewhere. Experience as a real draftsman is very helpful, for users as well as the original programmers. The programmers' experience isn't always obvious, especially when the program is written by a committee.

Joe