Thread: Good _2D_ Cad
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Tim Wescott[_3_] Tim Wescott[_3_] is offline
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Default Good _2D_ Cad

wrote:
On May 17, 12:49 pm, Tim Wescott wrote:
I've been following the threads about CAD by Bronxilogically Violated,
and have been too apathetic to mention:

If you want to make 2D _drawings_, the kind of stuff that you actually
give to machinists to make parts*, then QCad is pretty good. It's a
marketing vehicle for some "full version" 2D cad system that you have to
pay $$ for, but QCad itself is open source and pretty darn good**.

I use it for drawing model airplane plans, mostly, and it works just fine.

* Well, all but the most complicated parts, in which case everyone gives
up on the whole 2D drawing thing and the shop just asks for your 3D model.

** Except splines suck -- one of their sales points for the commercial
product, when translated from Sales to Pithy, reads "and splines don't
suck".

--
Tim Wescott
Control system and signal processing consultingwww.wescottdesign.com


I have been using IntelliCAD (
http://www.cadopia.com/) for many years
and find that it works really well for the simple, 2D stuff that I do.

Unfortunately they only seem to make it for Windows XP and I much
prefer using Ubuntu linux.


QCad is available for Ubuntu. At least I loaded it when I had 8.xx, and
it's on the menu for 10.xx -- but this machine, which I need to upgrade
from 9.xx, doesn't have it available.

Go figure.

--
Tim Wescott
Control system and signal processing consulting
www.wescottdesign.com