Making a CAD drawing look like it is hand drawn

It may be a bit dated but I am using AutoCad 2002 and at the moment have no real need to update, however just recently I have been asked if I can make a CAD drawing look like it has been hand drawn, I have seen other people ask the same question but I don't completely understand the answers as they mention comands such as 'Sketch' and 'freehand' which I can't find (it may be because my version might not have these functions). Can anyone point me in the right direction?

What is your drawing of? There are ways to do this.

Go to this website and page down until you get to the entry named Freehand.lsp. It's a lisp routine that will add some "squiggle" to the linework to make your drawing appear as though it were hand drawn.

http://www.cadcorner.ca/lisp.php

Funny. We now need to make CAD drawings look like they were drawn by hand. Why? Is it because a CAD drawing looks too perfect or that it lacks "pop" or "character"? Next they'll want the drawing done on linen.

Freehand.lsp.

Won't download this end?

Dang! Thanks Lazer.

I see the problem. Looks like all one can get is the actual text file for the lisp routine. Would have to cut & paste and maybe even do a little reformatting.

I have gone to the website mentioned and found 'freehand isp' but all I seem to get is a load of text which doesn't mean a lot to me.

OK, ok. Jeez, you guys are awfully impatient. I was working on it as you typed. Try this website instead:

http://www.cadalot.co.uk/acad/download.htm

Page down to Drawing Lisp Routines.

Has anyone any other ideas?

I guess "free" was too cheap. Here's another option for which you'll have to pay unless the demo version (if there is one) let's you get away with using it and saving the results.

http://www.cadsketch.com/

Freehand.zip can be downloaded, free, from this site:

http://www.cadmonkey.com/lisp.htm

It may be me but this link seems to be a text file aswell. I'm not really that impatient, computers just really annoy me sometimes.

I have downloaded freehand zip. any ideas what I do next?

Yes the freehand lisp is nice but you can also look at using SketchUp. It's a free 3D program but you can bring in 2D dwg files and apply styles to the lines for a nice effect.

The AutoCAD viewer program has a "Wizzle" feature that is the basis for the CADSketch program. I took a simple house elevation (front) and applied a "wizzle" factor to it to get this result.

Can you explain how you did that?

Opened the drawing in the viewer (CADwizz) and used the Wizzle option. It gives you some latitude in the amount of "wiggle" to be applied to the lines.

I'd check out CADSketch. The software may have a "try before you buy" feature. Sort of a free trial in a way. Know what I mean?

Funny. We now need to make CAD drawings look like they were drawn by hand. Why? Is it because a CAD drawing looks too perfect or that it lacks "pop" or "character"? Next they'll want the drawing done on linen.

When CAD first became "popular" the shop foreman expressed his disdain for CAD drawings. The previous drafters did not apply conventional line weighting to their drawings (all one line thickness). I corrected that situation with proper thicknesses. His complaint then was the drawings looked too perfect.

I just recently moved and I came across some old blueprints I had done from my board drafting days and I've got to say I was struck by their "beauty". I haven't looked them over too closely but the one thing that caught my attention was the view placement, hatching, line weighting and especially the blueish paper color and blue line color.

I sort of see his point now.

Yeh, I suppose its gone complete circle, firstly it was a pain to draft a drawing by hand due to the problems in correctling errors etc and the time it used to take, then CAD came along and sped things up and made drawings so accurate that we now have the situation where some people say CAD drawing looks to accurate!!!!!!! Where do we go from here, I am certainly not getting the drawing board back out?

I have had a look at CADSketch and although it does distort the lines I can't see a way of printing the drawing off to scale, it doesn't look easy to use!!!

If anyone has any ideas that are compatible with CAD then I am up for suggestions.

Does CADSketch offer the ability to "save as" in dwg or dxf format? If so, then the drawing can be opened in AutoCAD and scaled however you like.

It does give me the opportunity to save as a dwg, however when i do this and open it up in CAD a 'fatal error' appears and the drawing closes. Not sure if this is my computer or a normal problem