CAD program?

Greg O wrote: > Anyone know of a cheap, (freeware?), drafting program? Nothing fancy, I > just want something simple to layout cuts on sheet of plywood before > cutting, and similar tasks.

A couple of sheets of graph paper and a pair of scissors.

Fast, cheap, simple, and foolproof.

(We used to call it "making paper dolls" in our industrial engineering plant layout classes)

Lew

Google Sketch Up should do the job

Fine, but too cheap, and not geeky enough! Greg

Picky, Picky.

Lew

You may really be looking for an optimization program vs. a drafting program. If you know the sizes you want and want a program to determine the best way to get the most out of a piece of plywood or board, you probably want something like Sheetlayout or Cutlist Plus.

Both programs come in affordable versions and both IIRC have a trial version.

Anyone know of a cheap, (freeware?), drafting program? Nothing fancy, I just want something simple to layout cuts on sheet of plywood before cutting, and similar tasks.

I like "Sketchup" from Google. It's easy and fun and free. It was $500 until bought it and made it public.

It still is in that price range. The version they give away is somewhat stripped down. Good enough to mess with but not for professional use.

It's not really stripped down. All of the tools are there but you can't print at higher than screen resolution or export obj files or other formats, but it is good enough for the kind of project mentioned above, I guess. One cool thing is that you can export files that integrate with google earth, ie can be uploaded and seen on GEarths interface.

CAD program? Group: rec.woodworking Date: Tue, Jun 26, 2007, 8:30pm (EDT-1) snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com (Greg=A0O) did query thusly: Anyone know of a cheap, (freeware?), drafting program? Nothing fancy, I just want something simple to layout cuts on sheet of plywood before cutting, and similar tasks.

Yep. Very versitile, cheap too.

- General George S. Patton

Wed, Jun 27, 2007, 3:18am (EDT+4) snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net (Lew=A0Hodgett) di sayeth: Picky, Picky.

Requires too much operator input.

JOAT If a man does his best, what else is there?

- General George S. Patton

Linux has it all and its free, best of all.

Except that the free CAD offerings for Linux are pretty limited.

Free programs: CutList -

Greg O wrote:

Pop`

JeffB wrote:

Alibre express is waaaaaay too tough to learn unless you are going to do some serious designing. Same with Sketchup in my humble opinion.

Free, 2D, Scalable, Easy to Learn, and upgrading to pro is only $30 bux.

Drum roll, CadStd

My favotite!

DesignCAD

"Mr P" wrote in news:scRti.1819$ snipped-for-privacy@nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com:

I'll second, and mention that the Pro version is worth the money. While the free version is very much functional, the Pro version makes things so much easier. If you're familiar with pencil and paper drafting, CadStd will take maybe 30 minutes to get used to.

Puckdropper

Anybody know a good 3D CAD program for Linux? I've looked at Varicad, it looks promising but expensive. Turbocad won't load using Cross-Over (Wine)