John (in ) said:

| I checked out google's sketchup. It is easy enough to sketch, and I
| can even enter dimensions of object. But that part doesn't seem
| very well developed. I could not figure out how to enter the
| rotation angle of objects. Plus I don't think it can produce an
| output with dimensions labeled. But then, I've only spent 30
| minutes playing with it.
|
| What exactly are the differences between a modeling software and a
| CAD software?

John...

I've been using DesignCAD (and its DOS predecessor) for my woodworking
projects and I think it works fairly well. It's not free; but the last
time I checked, the price was under US$100, which seems like a good
price for what I got.

I will warn you, from both personal experience and hearsay, that any
richly-featured CAD package will present a significant learning
curve - probably more or less in proportion to the number of
capabilities built in...

[No afiliation with the publisher, etc.]

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto