Drawing packages?

[T i m]

Hi All,

My Brother in law is looking for a PC based package for assisting with plans / drawings for his lab refits and general building work.

Any *good* packages come to mind (he's willing to spend some money on a decent PC and package for this), maybe something that would provide a modular breakdown to provide pricing (benches / services etc).

3D view would be nice (to give customers a better feeling for the final look).

If he finds something, maybe I can get the Roland pen plotter out of my garage .. ;-)

All the best ..

T i m

[Andy Hall]

Depends on what sophistication you want.

I use Autodesk Autosketch which is a pretty good compromise between function and ease of use.

They have a more entry level package called QuickCAD, which was well reviewed in a couple of U.S. woodworking mags recently.

Then there is turboCAD which has been around for a while and is quite cheap and effective.

.andy

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[EricP]

This is the sort of thing that is about. Most US based.

[T i m]

Hi Andy, I think he was looking for something fairly compitent. Something where he would be able to get costings back etc. Drop in a item (say 'Bench3') and be sure it's dimensions were in proportion and it would automatically add it to the bill of materials and the job price?

I think I have played with one or both of those (long time ago), do they allow the construction of your own objects (like lab benches etc?)

It could be a start. Maybe he could get up and running on something like that (decent CPU / Ram / Video / big screen etc) and them move onto something more powerful if/when he's ready?

Again the name rings a bell.

At least I han help him by getting 'known' packages for him .. there are so many out there now I didn't want to help him with something that was say very cheap if it then turns out to be iffy or incompatible with everything else in the world ..?

All the best ..

T i m

[T i m]

Thanks for that. Well that's a pretty comprehensive tool isn't it. One thing I didn't spot is the ability to handle water services (it mentions electrics)? I don't think he would be put off by the price (if it was good, tested and being used by folk everywhere etc) and although not a PC person as such has been using one for doing his 'books' / accessing the net, digi photos etc for a while so is on the way (with a little help from me on the way) ;-)

Do you use 'Chief' Eric (or know someone who does?)

My BIL did have a Google about and found (and in some cases downloaded) some packages but how do you know what's a 'goodun'?

All the best ..

T i m

[Andy Hall]

Then he may want to look at AutoCAD itself.

Autosketch is pretty much self contained.

For AutoCAD, there are a gazillion suppliers of third party plug in options and applications that integrate with it to do specialised things.

There are also tons of symbol libraries.

However, you are talking about pricing in the hundreds to thousands for the software.

It's adding things like BOM etc. that starts to make it complicated.

I wonder whether for a first time user, this might all be a bit daunting.

Autosketch can certain allow you to create your own objects and save them, and you can put them into a drawing and scale them.

I think that that might be a smart way to do it. AutoSketch costs about £130.

For the PC, I would suggest going for a well provisioned system.

High end, but not necessarily bleeding edge on price CPU - perhaps

2.4GHz.

Plenty of memory - at least 1GB - it's cheap.

Plenty of disk, but does not need to be top speed technology as would be used for video.

A good resolution and quality graphics card, especially if it's for 3D as well.

A good monitor of at least 19". I would take advice or look at the offerings of a specialist CAD supplier on this. CRT monitors will give good results - and in workstation circles the so called aperture grille tubes are preferred by many - Sony Trinitron and Mitsubishi Diamondtron. However, they do have fine horizontal support wires across the tube which show up as a fine grey line. Most people get used to and don't notice them after a while though. LCDs are becoming popular and take up less space. I am not sure how popular they have become for CAD though. They are optimum at the natural resolution of the screen and should be connected via a digital DVI interface to the graphics card to avoid losing quality.

.andy

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[mike ring]

T i m wrote in news:0kflj0dp95screv0ff53snuu8hmga5bokt@

4ax.com:

I used Autosketch (DOS)for years at work, and got pretty good at it, often producing drawings that went into the DO registry, after designing and building the project with them. It (IIRC version 5) was an amazing prog.

A few years after I get retired, I got a PC and got Autosketch for windows and it was utter rubbish (IMO) with a ridiculously cluttered interface and very important functions like "break" missing.

I gave it to the charity shop.

I'm just curious - have they fixed it at all?

mike

[Andy Hall]

I suppose it is what you are used to.

I use version 8 and find it pretty easy to use.

.andy

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[IMM]

news:0kflj0dp95screv0ff53snuu8hmga5bokt@

That's because you use crayon on the screen.

[dg]

I use Sketchup from

for conceptual 3d design and customer presentations. This is very easy to use and really quick - look at some of the work in the gallery or forum.

For main CAD work I now use Revit from Autodesk. This is a parametric design program, which means you don't draw things as lines to make up the drawing, but you draw using representations of walls, doors, windows etc to make up a model. The items have attributes which let you pull off a full material schedule, and you can add costings etc. Its not cheap, but the time and labour savings over normal CAD are incredible.

dg