Easy-to-use drawing & layout program for woodworking and building projects?

Even CAD pro's would like to find that program.

Do you have any formal drafting experience? If not, a CAD program is going to have a steep learning curve.

Harder still.

More expensive.

Still more expensive

These tend to be toy like compared to a program that you are thinking that you want.

Basically you are looking for something like AutoCAD. A few thousand dollars.

I use AutoCAD LT, Lists for about $800.00 and does no 3D or scheduling.

Dream on, brother. Ain't no such thing.

Bob

Apart from the

As discussed here and in FWW I suggest you try SketchUp. Not a CAD but a design program. Download the trial version and you have 8 hrs of play time.(timer is 'on' only when you are using it). Here are two views of a simple bench. Once you get your 3-D made you can rotate in around any way you want, add shadows and etc and etc... Good import/export and uses Ruby language plugins(some nice little applets available that add to SU functionality.) ..disclaimers go here and YMMV.

I grabbed the demo and it seems pretty nice. But's $500! =8^0

$500 is a lot of paper and erasers!

Barry

There is an Open Source project under way that might meet your criteria.

I've been using QCAD, it shipped with Mandrake 10, But I can't get it to work on suse 9.2, and I upgraded my Mandrake box to 10.1 and it didn't come with it, I'll give this a one a try

CutList Plus

Um that is a great program but is not a drawing program so to speak. It is an optimization program that helps you use your materials efficiently.

...it's me again touting the features of SketchUp. I spent most of the afternoon learning the thing and put together this lantern model. The animation is a BIG .avi file about 1.8 meg and should load auto in Windows media player. I put in 10 views and the program put in intermediate frames (about 160) to get smooth transitions. The first link is the animation and the second are a pair of lanterns I made previously using advanced pencil technology.

Larry

Which is why I put it under... "4. Ability to generate parts list (preferable)"

Actually, YOU generate the parts list. I simply draws a diagram of where the pieces should come from.