On 09/02/2020 20:17, Theo wrote:
Tim Watts wrote:

Hi Theo,

Do you want an AutoCAD clone, or will a drawing program do?

I'm not sure - does Autocad treat complex objects as objects rathern
than lines (like you mention below)?

I use Inkscape, specifically the osxmenu port which has Mac-native menus
(instead of the official Mac version using XQuartz)
https://code.launchpad.net/~suv-lp/inkscape/osxmenu
While being someone's hack project it's good enough for day to day use.

I've used inkscape - didn't think of that...

It's a drawing package so you're placing rectangles, joined up lines and
curves. Everything works to scale just fine, and you can enter coordinates
and dimensions by number. Layers are easy too - often I import a scanned
image in a layer, turn down the opacity and draw on top of it.

I seem to recall it allows accurate placement of items (by numeric
dimension as well as snapping etc)?

And it does have layers too.


There's also LibreCAD which is an AutoCAD clone, but I've never got on with
it as I've always thought of objects as rectangles, multipoint lines, paths,
etc rather than isolated line segments.

Both are free. I also have OmniGraffle which is commercial, but it doesn't
add much over Inkscape.

Theo



Thank you - that's probably the correct answer.

It's useful to have a map of the ceiling (floor joists, ceiling joists
[bungalow conversion - it's a mess up there!], wire and pipe runs so
it's easier to plan where to fit other things and run bundles of
networking cables etc.

I have that drawing in cycas, so I could do with transferring it to
something Mac compatible and cleaning it up.


Genius