Furniture Design Program

[Darrin Davis]

Does anyone know of any low cost furniture design software out there on the market? I am a woodshop teacher at a high school in Texas and at school I am fortunate to have AutoCAD to help students design the projects down to the fractions of an inch to make cutting dado's very accurate. We also use CutList Plus to make cutting plywood easier with less waste. I do not have AutoCAD at home but would sure be interested in a software that can create something like the attached pictures. The top of the picture is AutoCAD with the deminsioning and the bottom 2 are the cutlist from CutList Plus.

[Dave Richards]

Why don't you check out SketchUp? There is a free version but they also do an educational package of SU5Pro for schools that, while not free, has more capability than the free version especially when it comes to export. Learning curve is short and easy, too. They have an educator's forum for SU on their site that might be worth looking at. sketchup.com

A while back they demonstrated a sister program they were calling Grizzly (though the name may change) that would take the output from Sketchup and allow you to easily create drawings with title block and orthographic views. I would guess it will be out in 2007.

[Robert Trotter]

Hi Darrin,

Have you checked out TurboCad. I use the free learning version for 2D. Great but it can't output to JPEG etc. But can output to any drawing file type like Autocad and drawing sharing types etc.

If you are after 3D to do drawings like the one you have shown there are the pay version. Two. The professinal one which has a LOT of features and would be the equivalent to AUTOCAD but at a lot less money but still a bit expensive for me. How much do you want to spend? There is also a lighter version but it still has a lot of features and unless you were using CAD as a career I think this might do what you want. It s a lot cheaper than the Pro version. Anyway check them out.

I have just started trying Sketchup free and it is good for quick visualisations in 3D. Within 30 minutes of first using it (and watching a couple of the tutorial videos online) I had my shed and yard roughed out and doing walk arounds to viualise site restrictions. So it must be easy to use. I"m sure alot of people with experience here could help you out with it and if it suit your needs.

Robert

[Jeffrey Makiel]

You may wish to investigate AutoCAD 2007LT. The LT version gives you full 2D capability but extremely limited 3D capability. However, you can open and view all AutoCAD drawings with LT regardless of whether they are 2D or 3D.

Further, AutoCAD offers an educational license in both LT and Full versions at an extremely discounted price. The only difference between the educational version and professional version is that the educational version inserts a stamp on the plotted drawings to indicate that educational software was used to create or modify the drawing.

On the positive side, staying with AutoCAD allows you to remain within the native DWG drawing format with no degredation. You can also hone your skills with AutoCAD, which is a very comprehensive software, and the dominant software widely used in the professional environment.

-Jeff

[patrick anderson]

as a teacher than you should be able to get a education version of acad or acad lt very cheap

[Chuck Saunders]

I am fond of CAD Standard from cadstd.com $25 for the pro version. Not ACAD but has a more similar feel to me than TurboCad.
Chuck

[Dave Richards]

Shelf file attached. Less than 10 minutes. Perspective view, all joinery drawn and parts dimensioned.

[Mark Singer]

Of all the programs and I get to see quite a few....Sketch Up would be my choice

[Darrin Davis]

Dave, that's very impressive. I might have to get a little more fimilure with Sketchup.

[Dave Richards]

Darrin, have a look through the Design forum. Lots of folks are doing very nice stuff with SU. You should be able to get some good ideas of what can be done.

[Travis Porter]

2nd vote for sketchup.