I want to draw up some designs for simple objects. In years past I would
have used paper and a drawing table, but it seems that a program is the
current way to go. What CAD program is suitable for a computer challenged
person, using a lap top, who wants to be able to:

create, save and print out on a normal ink-jet HP type printer drawings of
things like car flywheels.
email files and have other people be able to read them
post drawings of objects on a web page
be compatable with any industry standards that may exist.

Any ideas?

Thanks, Brian

On Mon, 16 Feb 2004 11:41:50 -0500, "Brian"
wrote:

I want to draw up some designs for simple objects. In years past I would
have used paper and a drawing table, but it seems that a program is the
current way to go. What CAD program is suitable for a computer challenged
person, using a lap top, who wants to be able to:

create, save and print out on a normal ink-jet HP type printer drawings of
things like car flywheels.
email files and have other people be able to read them
post drawings of objects on a web page
be compatable with any industry standards that may exist.

Any ideas?

http://store.yahoo.com/cadandgraphics/decad3dmaxv.html

Personally, I really like IntelliCAD 4 from www.cadopia.com

Hope this helps you.

--
Lewis.

..........................

*******************************

"Brian" wrote in message
news
I want to draw up some designs for simple objects. In years past I would
have used paper and a drawing table, but it seems that a program is the
current way to go. What CAD program is suitable for a computer challenged
person, using a lap top, who wants to be able to:

create, save and print out on a normal ink-jet HP type printer drawings of
things like car flywheels.
email files and have other people be able to read them
post drawings of objects on a web page
be compatable with any industry standards that may exist.

Any ideas?

Thanks, Brian

"Brian" wrote in message
news
I want to draw up some designs for simple objects. In years past I would
have used paper and a drawing table, but it seems that a program is the
current way to go. What CAD program is suitable for a computer challenged
person, using a lap top, who wants to be able to:

create, save and print out on a normal ink-jet HP type printer drawings of
things like car flywheels.
email files and have other people be able to read them
post drawings of objects on a web page
be compatable with any industry standards that may exist.

Any ideas?

Thanks, Brian


Give QuickCAD from Autodesk a try, about $50. You could call it
"AutoCAD -lite". It's got a lot of features for the money, a fairly good
user interface and the best part- you can open and save in .dwg format.

On Mon, 16 Feb 2004 11:41:50 -0500, "Brian"
wrote:

I want to draw up some designs for simple objects. In years past I would
have used paper and a drawing table, but it seems that a program is the
current way to go. What CAD program is suitable for a computer challenged
person, using a lap top, who wants to be able to:

create, save and print out on a normal ink-jet HP type printer drawings of
things like car flywheels.

There are three general classes of drawing programs, "paint", "draw",
and "CAD". Paint is conceptually simple, like sketching with a pencil,
but it requires similar freehand drawing skills. Draw lets you place,
resize, and adjust graphic primitives (lines, rectangles, circles) by
eye or using "rulers".

CAD is draw by-the-numbers, where positions and lengths of the graphic
primitives are entered numerically to whatever precision you select.
It is thus much less intuitive than paint or draw, and the user
interface of a CAD program tends to be much more idiosyncratic.

If you would previously have been happy with a freehand paper sketch,
paint is the simplest thing to learn. If you'd accept a paper sketch
if it had straight edges and round circles, but was not drawn quite
perfectly to scale, and had dimensions drawn in by hand, try a draw
program.

But if you want the program to help you think about exact dimensions
and how they interact, and force you to resolve all your objects'
uncertainties precisely, then you may find the learning curve of a CAD
program worth tackling.

email files and have other people be able to read them

Paint files can generally be transferred, even across operating
systems. Some draw files can be transferred, others must be converted
to un-editable paint files first.

Exchanging CAD files is the bane of the industry. Yes there are
standards, but there are too many of them and none of them work 100%.
You may find that your carefully drawn assembly transfers as thousands
of extremely short unrelated line segments, or the transferred drawing
is at a completely different scale than you intended, or...

You can always export CAD files as draw or paint images, but the
receiver won't be able to edit them with CAD tools.

post drawings of objects on a web page

Generally you would convert them to paint - bitmap graphics. Most CAD
programs have proprietary web view systems that allow the viewer some
subset of CAD functions, but each viewer would need to install the
proprietary software. Which is typically 5 to 30 MB...

be compatable with any industry standards that may exist.

The de-facto standard for 2D CAD is the AutoCad file format. The
problem is "which version"? AutoDesk has recently made radical changes
to their file format, so most of the AutoCad clone programs can only
interact with older file versions. And even for supported versions,
the conversion may be less than perfect.

Frankly, the effort of learning a CAD program will completely
overwhelm whatever price you pay for it. And most of what you've
leaarned won't transfer to any other vendor's programs any better than
the drawing files you create with it do. But if you need the rigorous
discipline of designing things with CAD, it is definitely worth it.

If you want to get started with CAD, read this review of current
entry-level programs:
http://cadalyst.adv100.com/cadalyst/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=80760

I started out with the "personal use" license for VDraft, which is
about the lowest entry price around. I chose it because it uses the
actual filehandling code from the older versions of AutoCad, which
means it can read and write old-style AutoCad files with no errors and
no translation delays. And its quirks are no worse than any of the
others...

Loren

In article , Loren Amelang says...

It is thus much less intuitive than paint or draw, and the user
interface of a CAD program tends to be much more idiosyncratic.

This is in the running for the 'understatement of the week.'

Exchanging CAD files is the bane of the industry.

Whoops, no, that one is probably even *more* likely
to win!

Jim

==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

How about FREE? Imsisoft's TurboCAD learning edition is an excellent 2D
drafting program.

If you want to post the drawings, you can simply capture your screen
(SHIFT/PRTSCRN) and crop the image using an image editor like paint.


http://nct.digitalriver.com/fulfill/0002.16




"Brian" wrote in message
news
I want to draw up some designs for simple objects. In years past I would
have used paper and a drawing table, but it seems that a program is the
current way to go. What CAD program is suitable for a computer challenged
person, using a lap top, who wants to be able to:

create, save and print out on a normal ink-jet HP type printer drawings of
things like car flywheels.
email files and have other people be able to read them
post drawings of objects on a web page
be compatable with any industry standards that may exist.

Any ideas?

Thanks, Brian

On Mon, 16 Feb 2004 11:41:50 -0500, "Brian"
vaguely proposed a theory
.......and in reply I say!:
]
You want cheap. You want quick. You want somethong that is no harder
than pen and ink, and lets you go away fro a week or so and then come
back and simply start uing it again without an hour's lessons, but
does all the dimensioning for you. You only need 2D.

deltacad. Midnight software. There is a trial. The guy is NOT going to
do 3D last time I asked.

It has its peccadilloes. But they are minor. It has limitations.

But if you want what I said above, I could not find anything better.

I do _all_ of my drawing in it.

No affiliations except usage etc...

I want to draw up some designs for simple objects. In years past I would
have used paper and a drawing table, but it seems that a program is the
current way to go. What CAD program is suitable for a computer challenged
person, using a lap top, who wants to be able to:

create, save and print out on a normal ink-jet HP type printer drawings of
things like car flywheels.
email files and have other people be able to read them
post drawings of objects on a web page
be compatable with any industry standards that may exist.

Any ideas?

Thanks, Brian


************************************************** ** sorry

..........no I'm not!
remove ns from my header address to reply via email

Spike....Spike? Hello?

There used to be an inexpensive shareware CAD system called BobCAD out
there. I experimented with it once and thought it was reasonable. A
Google search turns up a bunch of hits. See if it fits your needs.

Jim

You can sign up for Solidworks Personal edition. The give you 3hr lesson
and a free copy of 2003. It won't interface with any of the commercial
packages do to some software tweaks they have made. But for personal use
hard to beat.


"Jim McGill" wrote in message
...
There used to be an inexpensive shareware CAD system called BobCAD out
there. I experimented with it once and thought it was reasonable. A
Google search turns up a bunch of hits. See if it fits your needs.

Jim

Thank you for all of the replies. I have bokmarked all of the URL's, noted
the suggestions, and downloaded a copy of free turbocad to try out. If
that's the simple version, I really don't want to know about a hard
version...

we'll see. I actually wnat to learn this, it may have a dramatic impact on
my ability to learn new computer skills...

Brian


"Mike" wrote in message
om...
You can sign up for Solidworks Personal edition. The give you 3hr lesson
and a free copy of 2003. It won't interface with any of the commercial
packages do to some software tweaks they have made. But for personal use
hard to beat.


"Jim McGill" wrote in message
...
There used to be an inexpensive shareware CAD system called BobCAD out
there. I experimented with it once and thought it was reasonable. A
Google search turns up a bunch of hits. See if it fits your needs.

Jim

Brian wrote:
... downloaded a copy of free turbocad ...

I have a version of TurboCad that I got at the dump. I didn't get very
far teaching it to myself. However, I followed the recommendation
earlier in this thread for DeltaCad and the little I've used of it is
much better (easier) than TurboCad.

I downloaded a trial version from PCWorld:
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/fil...id,2154,00.asp
$20 if I keep it.

Bob

DeltaCAD, the way to go for an easy, shorter learning curve program!

On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 13:19:17 -0500, "Brian"
vaguely proposed a theory
.......and in reply I say!:


downloaded a copy of free turbocad to try out. If
that's the simple version, I really don't want to know about a hard
version...

then I can only repeat DeltaCad.
************************************************** ** sorry

..........no I'm not!
remove ns from my header address to reply via email

Spike....Spike? Hello?

On 18 Feb 2004 03:40:43 GMT, (TJQu) vaguely proposed a
theory
.......and in reply I say!:

See! That's what I keep saying! G

DeltaCAD, the way to go for an easy, shorter learning curve program!

************************************************** ** sorry

..........no I'm not!
remove ns from my header address to reply via email

Spike....Spike? Hello?