which cad program should I use?

[Dave Richards]

Gary, thanks. We'll work on that.

John, you make me blush. Thank you for the kind words.

[John Schreiber]

Cartoons, huh?

Man o man. Those are good. You did the sailboat in SU? Is there a special plug-in for those kind of lines or what's the trick? I'm still plugging away on the tutorial in my spare time. Working on the drawers now. Also drew up a plan for a marking gauge which I hope to post soon.

[Dave Richards]

John, Thank you.

The original file for the Vesper sailing canoe was drawn in a program called Freeship!. (I'm not yelling that, it's name really is Freeship!. ) I exported the drawing as a DXF file and then imported it into SU. Once I had it in SU I did a bunch of cleanup work before exporting to render.

It could have been drawn in SU but since the file already existed as a Freeship! file, there was little point in going to the trouble. The original was drawn by an aquaintance of mine and is freely available on the Freeship! site.

FWIW, this is a boat I drew from scratch in SU. This is drawn from the offsets I drew up for the cradle boat I made for my son.


Looking forward to seeing your marking gauge.

[Jeffrey Makiel]

Stephen,
You will probably find that most CAD software caters to Windows PC environment. However, don't be too afraid to change computer formats if that's what holds you back. Windows and MACs are awfully close in functionality these days. Also, once you launch the software, the differences become even more smaller.

Joe,
I fooled around with ecabinets software a long time ago. This software appears to do a whole lot more than just draw geometry as you probably know better than me for sure. It prepares cut lists, order materials and does alot of thinking about cabinetry details behind the scenes. It could be a time saver over generic design software like Sketchup, TurboCAD, AutoCAD, etc. I guess it depends on the type of work one does.

However, I had no idea it had such a nice rendering engine as evident by your pics, and the ability to import models. Nice!

cheers, Jeff

[Jim Becker]

Current (Intel) Macs run Windows beautifully, too...and fast. You can dual boot (with the Apple utility) or in VMs with third party setups. My next machine my be an Intel Mac. I need to continue to have access to Windows due to a number of applications that I cannot afford to re-license on Mac OS, but would love to enjoy the advanced OS otherwise.

[Jeffrey Makiel]

At work I tried to install AutoCAD on a few Macs using Virtual PC software. It was so horribly slow; it was unusable and would jam up after drawing a few simple lines. I believe the layers of software were: MAC OS10 to Virtual PC to Windows 2000 to AutoCAD. That's quite a path for a command to go thru.

Perhaps the new Mac operating systems are better now with using PC software. My experience is about 4 years old. But, I'd still be weary. CAD drawings can become unwieldy very quickly especially if the graphics card is the average Nvidia GeForce game card like my home computer has.

cheers, Jeff

[Jim Becker]

Jeff, the current Macs are a whole nuther animal...they are Intel based (dual core) and run native Windows faster than most "real" Windows machines. There is no emulation involved now. They are also considerably faster for the same or less money than you paid for the previous generation...substantially less in some cases.

[Christopher Zona]

I use Solidworks, Pro/e and Autocad programs, Solidworks the most at work.

I also use SolidWorks extensively at work. It's a pretty robust piece of software for its price.

That said, I think it can be overkill for wood working projects. I have seen a less expensive 3d modeler called "Alibre" which looks to be pretty decent though I haven't used it myself. Also, the price seems rather affordable if your just starting your own business and want to keep costs down.

Regards,

Chris

[Jason Anders]

I'd recommend for a "free" professional grade 2d cad program SolidEdge 2. Available from http://www.solidedge.com/free2D/ They have CNC and a 3d version when and if you need to make the upgrade.

[Steve Summers]

Greetings. I too am going through the software search process. And I am a MAC user too (G5 PPC). So far, SketchUp is winning the award for coolest program. I also tried TurboCad MAC 2 (2D only) and TurboCad MAC Pro 2 (2D drafting and 3D modeling). They both have a 30 day free trial (www.turbocad.com). The one thing I didn't like about the 3D software, you could not use a texture (like wood grain or brick, etc) on a 3D surface. Only a solid color. Don't let their documentation fool you. Even though it says you can do this, the documentation is for the Windows version. Their tech support person expained this to me.

And take a look at OnmiGraffle (www.omnigroup.com). It is like Microsoft's Visio, but for a MAC. They also have a free trial version.

Have fun. Let us know what you finally end up choosing.

[Mark Singer]

Sketch up!

[Dave Richards]

Sketch up!

That's all you need.

[John Schreiber]

Earlier someone had mentioned that they thought the SketchUp output looked cartoonish. I suspect that what that means is that some people think that the straightforward output of SU doesn't look complicated or professional enough.

The latest update, Version 6, has a wide variety of display styles which, I think add a lot of "professional" appearance. Here are a few examples:

Drill Press Stand Trad.jpg
Traditional SketchUp

Drill Press Stand CAD.jpg
CAD look

Drill Press Stand Sketchy.jpg
Hand drawn look

And there are many other styles available.