I'm building a page for my website and was wanting to get some of your suggestions.
Are there any other woodworking software programs you would personally suggest?
Thank you for your input. Jeremy
I am not sure you can use a Cabinet Design Software to design a web page. ;~)
I don't really know if a piece of software exists that would meet you expectations with out spending some serious money.
What you might be interested in looking at is a simple CAD program and a material optimization program like Cut List Plus.
Most CAD programs have a rather steep learning curve. I have used probably
10 different CAD programs since 1985 and they have come a long way however they are still a rather specialized piece of software that can be rather intimidating if you have no drafting experience. I now use AutoCAD LT and it goes for about $900. IntelliCAD an AutoCAD clone can be had for about $200 IIRC.
That "(home)" qualifier really limits your choices. I have been looking for a CAD program to do what my program does, to no avail. There is always some catch. Either you study hard and long, or you pay big bucks...but even then, you have to have a clue about drafting. If you don't know what 'extrude' or 'sweep/lathe' commands mean, no software will ever make it easy. Add NURBS and other complex tools and again, you're learning a lot or spending big bucks, but usually both.
An all inclusive CAD program for cheap....just ain't happening. If all you want is a competent sketch, try SketchUp from Google for free. Then spend your money one small step at the time..like Turbo CAD.
In my opinion, nobody has ever addressed a simple CAD program which also has some depth....even a modular approach, where you can add tools as you need them.
My cornerstone for all my CAD work has always been from
On Dec 23, 3:42=A0pm, Robatoy wrote: =2E
I want to add something about the experience of dealing with Ashlar Vellum.
Their products are truly superb. BUT...and there is always a BUT.
By the time you gather all their available tools, and many are buried in other packages, it's a $ 3000.00 deal. Now, with Christmas, 30% off actually means something and I do like those people. I love their modelling package, but no drafting tools to speak of. I want to create, build, then model. Then render. Woops... add another grand...
It is like the AutoDesk people. They'll sell you WAY more ways to draw a triangle than you will ever need in their drafting package. Then, if you want to make a model out of it...wooops, next package...then if you want to render it it in 3D...wooops next package...but if you want it to look nice as well...woops next package. By the time you're done, $7000.00 and 3 months later, a notice that in order to stay in the game they'd like another wad of your money. The guys at
In all reality, it is such bullshit. I have hated it from the car companies too. I want air conditioning but I do not want a carpeted trunk. However, I have to get the UpMode Package in order to get features which include a whole lot of crap.
Modular. I'll take the following tools:...yadda yadda... NO, I do NOT want a library with 300 farking trees....I do NOT care if they are in
3D... and that automated parking lot-striping tool (that one is for real, btw) I do NOT want it either.Dammit... it's like going to The Borg and all I want is a 18v Circular saw, and the only way to get it is to buy a whole box of tools.....waitasec...that's already happening, huh?
I need another drink.
Merry Christmas everybody.
r
Look at Google's SketchUp 6. It's very popular and they also have a tutorial site with vids. Being an 'old dog' it's all pretty intimidating to me. The two best points about the program is the (supposed) ease of use as compared to the big-gun CAD programs. And, there is a free version so that you can play and decide if you want to upgrade. I hope that this is useful.
Chuck
I really, really wish that Microsoft had kept IntelliCAD when they owned it (it was produced by the same outfit that produced Visio--Visio was what they wanted) and rolled it into Windows. It's not great but if it was free and bundled it would have pulled the rug out from under all the grossly overpriced CAD vendors. Instead they decided to spin it off to a consortium that has never really had a clue what to do with it, so it's slowly turning into yet another overpriced CAD program.
----- Original Message ----- From: "J. Clarke" Newsgroups: rec.woodworking Sent: Sunday, December 23, 2007 11:01 PM Subject: Re: software suggestions
I've got to pipe up here and ask what the heck your talking about??
It costs well in excess of $200,000 (USD) for a software engineer to get enough training to produce anything meaningful. It usually takes several software engineers at any given time to move a CAD package forward.
If you think a few measily thousand dollars is a lot of money, then you should guess again. Even at that price, they're probably still working for free, probably because they love what they're doing.
-sm
So what? At 20 bucks you sell 10,000 copies you've got that back.
So you have to sell 30,000 copies. Or charge 40 bucks.
No, that's Richard Stallman and company. And it's a funny thing, their software for which they charge nothing works pretty well.
My heart bleeds for the poor CAD developers.
Seems you've made a total of three posts on USENET, and only one in rec.woodworking. I sense either a shill or a sock puppet.
As someone who has worked on CAD software, I'm glad for your sympathy. It's really hard, and after six years of university it still took a LOT of training, most of which I had to do on my own time while producing results for cranky demanding customers with no money.
Just producing the software is a fraction of the total cost of bringing it to market. I might get it to run on my sixty thousand dollar SGI workstation, but if you expect me to port it to your five hundred dollar PC, I've got to do a lot more work. Am I to do it for free? I can tell you I won't. My teenage boys have outgrown their shoes again, and after all those years of burning out my eyes reading math books I'm saving up for bifocals.
Do you really think you can sell tens of thousands of copies of software at a slightly higher price when the Chinese are ripping it off and selling it for almost nothing? As long as people are expecting free software, and they're willing to steal to get it, the producers of real value are going to struggle.
How many posts have I made here?
- Owen -
Oh, boo hoo.
Oh, boo hoo. That 60 grand you spent on your niche machine would have bought a lot of shoes. Why are you developing CAD for an overpriced machine that hardly anybody has? Do you think there's some vast untapped market there?
Microsoft seems to manage it. Corel seems to manage it. All the game developers seem to manage it. Why can't you?
Yeah, Bill Gates is sure struggling. If you were producing real value you wouldn't be struggling.
Why don't you tell us?
Sun, Dec 23, 2007, 9:57am (EST-3) snipped-for-privacy@cinci.rr.com (Skey_000) doth burble: Are there any other woodworking software programs you would personally suggest?
Properly applied this will do wonders.
We (meaning wife and I) use Solid works (Work paid for my training) much better than CAD programs, although it is one in disguise.
Cutlist plus, we use the gold version
Rebus
There was one for the Mac that looked really good and wasn't horribly expensive, but I can't find it now.
I've been playing with Alibre Design Xpress a bit and it looks pretty good, however I'm seeing reports that it has trouble with imports and exports--it will do them but they aren't clean. Free, remarkably capable, and seems stable. Not dedicated cabinet design but pretty good 3d parametric modeling that can be used for that or any other purpose.
You might also want to google "free woodworking software" as there are numerous sites that list such stuff.
Maybe you were thinking of Design Intuition?
I use pencil and paper. :-) However, I'm strictly a hobbyist and haven't made anything very complicated yet. Probably the most complex thing I've made was my little glue-up/work table, with the legs splayed out at 6 degrees. Even that was simple enough that I drew no plans and worked from the model in my head.
(A guy at work was throwing away a 20"x30" piece of that black stuff they use for benchtops in chemistry labs. I grabbed it and built my small table to go under it. It's great for glueing things: it's hard and flat, and glue drips are easily scraped off with a sharp chisel.)
Fri, Dec 28, 2007, 9:56pm (EST+5) snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com (darkon) doth sayeth: Even that was simple enough that I drew no plans and worked from the model in my head.
Right. Don' need no steenkin' plans.
JOAT If you can read this you're in range.
Little known outside the engineering community--quite often design drawings get made by handing a draftsman the working part and telling him to draw it. Whether that approach is taken depends on the complexity and scale of the project. It doesn't work very well for aircraft carriers for example.
So, what you are telling me that you think it's weird that they would machine a toilet seat from a single billet of chrome-moly?
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