On Sat, 04 Sep 2004 23:42:21 +0100, Andy Hall
wrote:

On Sat, 04 Sep 2004 22:20:40 GMT, T i m wrote:

Hi All,

My Brother in law is looking for a PC based package for assisting with
plans / drawings for his lab refits and general building work.

Any *good* packages come to mind (he's willing to spend some money on
a decent PC and package for this), maybe something that would provide
a modular breakdown to provide pricing (benches / services etc).

3D view would be nice (to give customers a better feeling for the
final look).

If he finds something, maybe I can get the Roland pen plotter out of
my garage .. ;-)

All the best ..

T i m


Depends on what sophistication you want.

Hi Andy, I think he was looking for something fairly compitent.
Something where he would be able to get costings back etc. Drop in a
item (say 'Bench3') and be sure it's dimensions were in proportion and
it would automatically add it to the bill of materials and the job
price?

I use Autodesk Autosketch which is a pretty good compromise between
function and ease of use.

I think I have played with one or both of those (long time ago), do
they allow the construction of your own objects (like lab benches
etc?)

They have a more entry level package called QuickCAD, which was well
reviewed in a couple of U.S. woodworking mags recently.

It could be a start. Maybe he could get up and running on something
like that (decent CPU / Ram / Video / big screen etc) and them move
onto something more powerful if/when he's ready?

Then there is turboCAD which has been around for a while and is quite
cheap and effective.

Again the name rings a bell.

At least I han help him by getting 'known' packages for him .. there
are so many out there now I didn't want to help him with something
that was say very cheap if it then turns out to be iffy or
incompatible with everything else in the world ..?

All the best ..

T i m