I used to draw some complex drawings with Visio. Most Data Sheets
of Semiconductor parts are drawn with it - It is very handy. Wife draws
the landscaping in it - even though we bought Pro grade landscaping
programs.

It depends on the user and experience level. A guy on 30 year old cad
using DOS can whip anyone - due to skill in the brain overcoming all.

I got a request for a part design delivered in Visio. The company was
doing most of their work in Cadance as did I but Visio was handy and
quick.

Maybe they / you don't know how many things are in it - auto-scaling
all sorts of stuff.

Martin

On 3/5/2011 10:42 PM, Dennis wrote:
I'm sure this has been asked many a time....

I'm doing some work for a company that is currently doing their mechanical
dwgs using Microsoft Visio. It's slow, impractical and a *major* PITA to
use.

Most of the drawing are simply showing sheet metal layouts, hole locations
etc. A 2d package would be ok.


Has anyone found a open source or freeware package that is really usable.
I've used& really like SolidWorks but the company is small and
unwilling/unable to spent $100 let alone many thousands!

I've found a couple BRL-Cad and FreeCad - any experience anyone?

Thanks