Born again cad user wannabe

[cashriver]

hello, i am new to the site, great help and info i must say.

i have been thinking about getting back into cad drawing but am unsure of what to buy. i have an associates degree in mechanical drawing, but i got that in 1993 when i was using r.11 or r.12 (not sure) and i haven't sniffed it since 1995 when i worked for a machine shop.

i have surfed the web, Autodesk and other sites, and see Autocad LT 2004 (full version), Autocad LT 2004, and Autocad 2004. obviously, due to the pricings, the LT stands for something less than the complete package.

i have been doing some drawings by hand (wow, people still do that?) but have had a couple of interested parties ask to do some more work. so i thought of going back to computer drawing and make some money on the side. the problem is i'm not looking to put out an initial investment of $3,000 because i'm not sure i'll recover it.

most all of the drawings will be 2d, even though i would like the capability of going 3d (rendering, solid objects), i suppose that's where the LT comes into play.

what options do i have, and at what costs?

any help is greatly appreciated!!!

[hendie]

have a look at IntelliCad ~ it's an Autocad clone at a fraction of the cost of Autocad

[f700es]

AutoCAD has jumped ahead by lightyears compared to those versions (I learned on r9 dos edition).

Amazon.com has LT 2005 for $699.99 after a $100 rebate so it might not be a bad call. For 3D modeling it will be hard to beat SketchUp (www.sketch3d.com). It sells for $495 and can import Acad r2000 formats. So right at $1000+ you can have a pretty good one-two punch. SketchUp will not do true realistic render but will do conceptual and sketch renders, check out the site to see. You can even generate sections and elevation in SketchUp and export to Acad-LT for construction documents (I do it all the time). Download the 8 hour demo of SketchUp and order the 30 day demo of LT-2005 and see for your self. Best of luck :)

[Flores]

most all of the drawings will be 2d, even though i would like the capability of going 3d (rendering, solid objects), i suppose that's where the LT comes into play.

what options do i have, and at what costs?

any help is greatly appreciated!!!
Take a serious look at TurboCAD Professional. I haven't used it yet, but it has received great reviews from both online and printed CAD magazines. It has both 2D and 3D capabilities, and it is supposed to have great rendering capabilites. I haven't used this version, but in a previous version I had, one thing I disliked was not having a command line like in autocad. But I also heard that Inventor and other CAD programs don't have the command line either.

Interesting videos:
http://www.imsisoft.com/allmovies.asp

User's gallery:
http://www.imsisoft.com/showcase.asp

Currently US$700, get a free trial version here:
http://www.imsisoft.com/faminfo.asp?fam=1

Flores

[cashriver]

thanx for the help,

just want to make sure that these other programs (turbocad, intellicad, inventor) support Autocad formats (dwg, dxf)

one of my possible customers has a customer who sends him autocad drwgs. (by fax) but wants him to be able to make modifications if needed and sent back via modem.

i suppose these can be transferred via modem and imported into whichever program i purchase?

[hendie]

Intellicad uses the native DWG format

[Paul Sweet]

Most CAD programs will read and save DXF & DWG through ACAD 2000 format. I don't know of any other CAD programs which can read or save to 2004 DWG format. Most translations require a degree of cleanup afterwards, mostly for linetypes or linescales, text & dimension styles.

There are several CAD programs available which are fairly powerful and less expensive than AutoCAD. http://cadalyst.adv100.com/cadalyst/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=80760
Many of them have 30-day demos which you can download, and find out which program fits your working style and needs best.

[atari]

Hi

BricsCAD IntelliCAD can
READ DWG files 2004 (and 2005 if is the same as seems), 2002-2000, r14, r13, r12, etc

and can

SAVE DWG files 2002-2000, r14, r13, r12, r11, etc

30 days free trial
http://www.bricscad.com/about/download/downloadForm.jsp?product=BICAD

if you have linux you can read something interesting at
http://www.cadlinux.com