With the recent changes in planning law it seems that some decks will need planning permission.
Drawings will be required, so I'm going to need to provide them with some quotes.
I've tried a couple of CAD thingies but always found them massively over complicated for my numpty skills.
Any suggestions for a (preferably free) CAD program that would prepare deck drawings that a simpleton could use?
I reckon a basic vector drawing prog does everything that's needed for this sort of thing. Most tend to be far too complicated when all you need is something you'd do with a ruler, pencil and paper - only not needing draughtsman skills. One reason I still use my Acorn. Draw on that was designed for school kids long before they all had games machines, etc.
Dunno what's similar on a PC - Coral Draw used to be quite good?
Not free (but tax deductible I guess): TurboCAD (the cheapo version). I've used it a bit and it seems pretty simple.
For structured drawings (rather than full cad) Visio is pretty good. Not free though.
Sketchup also has the capability to show 2D projections and is very easy to use. Might have the advantage being a full 3D visualisation tool of being able to show the clients what the finished result will look like.
Have a look at
========================================= Keycad is cheap and quite good. You could also download 'Open Office'(OpenOffice.org) which is free. The wordprocessor includes very useful drawing functions. Don't ignore MsPaint (Windows) which can produce surprisingly good clear drawings for basic purposes.
Cic.
I did all my stuff in Corel Draw.
It's exepensive, but there are cracked versions available..
Have a look at Instant Deck Designer
CorelDraw is good although not especially designed for architectural work - more of a graphic arts design app, but fine if you don't need to be too exacting on actual dimensioning.
An OS vector graphics app - similar to CorelDraw - is Inkscape
Neil
Sketchup - very easy to use and intuitive (if you haven't had your mind muddled by using proper CAD).
There's been a free version since Google bought it out a couple of years back, and the restrictions as compared to the Pro (paid for) version aren't critical.
It's a bit of a faff trying to produce paper drawings from Sketchup because you have to export images of the views from different directions, then combine them in some other package at the correct scale.
Pro includes a thing called "Layout" which can do some of this work for you.
I use Pro, but I don't see why you have to do that.
I thought that the free version includes the print-to-scale options, doesn't it? If so, draw the thing, select orthogonal view, turn perspective off and use the print to scale options. No need to mess about with exports and other programs.
If I'm wrong about the print-to-scale options obviously that's out, though.
The Medway Handyman coughed up some electrons that declared:
Hi Dave
I've been using:
BUT the above, which don't take long to learn (allow a couple of weekends to follow the tutorial) *are* great for showing the customer 3D pictures and walk-throughs, they don;t directly knock out plan-prints.
The former does allow 2D exports and 3D rendered pictures from various angles which may be good enough for Planning in the context of decking. Otherwise, with the first product, you can also export "elevations" (side views) in a 2D CAD format, bung that through a cheap 2D CAD program and stick the dimensions on.
I wouldn't have thought that Planning would be too fussed about Architect-quality plans for decking (maybe you should nip down and ask them). Assuming this is true, personally I think you'll probably find more joy with a program that is highly customised for what you want to do than using something very generic.
The only caveat is that TFP is an american product so sometimes lacks "english" components and building methods - don't know if this is likely to make any difference to decking or not.
You'd be welcome to come over to Pembury and I'll show you around my copy of TurboFloorPlan Pro - my email's valid. Never done decking, but I've got the rest of it sussed so it shouldn't take long to see if the decking bit will do what you need.
To use either you'll need about 1GHz or better PC or laptop, reasonable memory (1GB probably, 2GB better). Video card isn't important.
Cheers
Tim
You're quite right, it can do that. However it can't produce a printout showing multiple different views (eg plan and elevations) and a title block as is possible using Layout.
The title block is true, but it's not what I would call critical.
The former is just a matter of copying and pasting the finished model however many times and rotating one copy to show each relevant view.
Yes, that's a good way of getting round it - hardly as convenient though.
Of course not, but it is, what, about a minute's work each time - for a saving of nearly =A3300.
As I say I have the Pro version, but only because I first bought it back in @Last days when there was no free version, and the updates since have been free or cheap enough. I'm not sure I would fork out for the Pro version if starting from scratch, for my amateur use anyway.
Another vote for SketchUp.
Two things are disabled in the free version - high resolution printing and file export.
File export I never use, and for high res printing I have the time- limited demo (8 hours) of the pro version installed on another machine.
What's good with Sketchup is that you can create a block building shape and then stretch and pin a photograph of the real building onto the surface. As you move your viewpoint around in sketchup you get a realistic view from every angle.
It's not quite as simple as 1-2-3, but worth learning how to do.
You can also very quickly model a house from existing plans by importing them as a ground plane texture at the correct scale, then you just draw around the walls and pull them up to the correct height.
Other thing with Sketchup is the massive library of objects in the 3D warehouse as well.
Adam
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