CAD software

[Larry]

I am looking at buying some affordable CAD software (i.e. ~$100 or less) for designing woodworking projects and to create drawings for a house remodeling project. I've sort of narrowed the search down to TurboCAD, DesignCAD and Autosketch. An article in the September/October 2004 issue of Fine Woodworking reviewed all of these and seemed to like DesignCAD. It looks like TurbaCAD and Autosketch are more general purpose. Does anyone have any experience and/or opinions about any of these programs?

Larry

[SwampBug]

While i am a lite user of it, I have been using Design CAD since DOS days. I use it for concept visualization and less for spec design drawing. It is an easy to use easy learning curve program. I have tried other programs but always settle for DesignCad. . .now #D Max ver14.1 and eying ver 15+.

[Larry Blanchard]

I've used TurboCad. I'm not familiar with the other two. If they're like TurboCad, you'll have a steep learning curve. But past that, I use TC for both woodworking and model rr designs and find it works for both. I have not used the 3D capabilities, so no opinion there.

One of th nice things about TC is that new versions come out frequently. You can find one or two versions back for very little money.

[CW]

If you want 2D only, Turbocad version 4 is quite good and free.

[John B]