Doug White wrote:
AutoDesk apparently laid off the development team for AutoSketch a number
of years ago. They just came out with a "new" release (Ver. 10), which
has next to nothing new in it, and still has several annoyances I've been
fighting for a while. I'm going to get my money back, and take it
elsewhere.

AutoSketch is a 2D tool, but moving to 3D is probably not a bad idea.
I've done some solid modeling for microwave structures, and played around
briefly with Google Sketchup, so the fundamental concepts aren't
completely foreign. However, 90% or more of what I need to do is
essentially 2D work.

I spent $175 on AutoSketch 10, which was a bit painful. I can't see
spending $600 on something like General CADD (Used to be GeneriCAD) sight
unseen, or spending the next year trying out a lot of the multitude of
cheap 2D options.

One deciding factor is file imports. I work with a lot of test equipment
that exports WMF, EMF and HPGL files. I have a DXF translator that seems
to work OK for HPGL, but the other formats are iffy. It would be really
great to have a program that could directly import all three formats.
Autosketch will only do WMF, and that has become a real limitation. It's
often hard to tell which files a given software supports from the
marketing blurbs. I did some digging on-line, and it looks like Google
Sketchup can't import any of them.

I've gone through the archives, and checked out the reviews at:

http://tinyurl.com/dh5ptr

It looks like IntelliCAD (of some flavor) may not be too bad. It's hard
to say because lots of folks offer different versions.

Alibre has also gotten some good comments from folks in this group.
Design Express now appears to be free, but it can't do Booleans, and
doesn't appear to include a 2D Drafting mode. There's no indication on
file imports I need, and the full version is $1K.

I'm open to suggestions. It's a real shame that AutoDesk decided to stop
development on AutoSketch. I've been using it for almost 20 years,
starting with Drafix for DOS. AutoDesk apparently decided to use the
Microsoft model of buying up better competitors & then shutting them
down.

Thanks!

Doug White


Learning Alibre right now, I'm just amazed at its power. I had to
document some prototypes and had used paper and pencil in the past. In
about a week I've been able to transfer the simplest of my 2D stack of
papers into 3D and resultant full 2D dimensioned drawings. Everytime I
refer back to the tutorials I learn an easier way to do things. Long way
to go before I became proficient, but I can see that it is the deal.
cheers
T.Alan

Keywords:
In article , "T.Alan Kraus" wrote:
Doug White wrote:
AutoDesk apparently laid off the development team for AutoSketch a number
of years ago. They just came out with a "new" release (Ver. 10), which
has next to nothing new in it, and still has several annoyances I've been
fighting for a while. I'm going to get my money back, and take it
elsewhere.

AutoSketch is a 2D tool, but moving to 3D is probably not a bad idea.
I've done some solid modeling for microwave structures, and played around
briefly with Google Sketchup, so the fundamental concepts aren't
completely foreign. However, 90% or more of what I need to do is
essentially 2D work.

I spent $175 on AutoSketch 10, which was a bit painful. I can't see
spending $600 on something like General CADD (Used to be GeneriCAD) sight
unseen, or spending the next year trying out a lot of the multitude of
cheap 2D options.

One deciding factor is file imports. I work with a lot of test equipment
that exports WMF, EMF and HPGL files. I have a DXF translator that seems
to work OK for HPGL, but the other formats are iffy. It would be really
great to have a program that could directly import all three formats.
Autosketch will only do WMF, and that has become a real limitation. It's
often hard to tell which files a given software supports from the
marketing blurbs. I did some digging on-line, and it looks like Google
Sketchup can't import any of them.

I've gone through the archives, and checked out the reviews at:

http://tinyurl.com/dh5ptr

It looks like IntelliCAD (of some flavor) may not be too bad. It's hard
to say because lots of folks offer different versions.

Alibre has also gotten some good comments from folks in this group.
Design Express now appears to be free, but it can't do Booleans, and
doesn't appear to include a 2D Drafting mode. There's no indication on
file imports I need, and the full version is $1K.

I'm open to suggestions. It's a real shame that AutoDesk decided to stop
development on AutoSketch. I've been using it for almost 20 years,
starting with Drafix for DOS. AutoDesk apparently decided to use the
Microsoft model of buying up better competitors & then shutting them
down.

Thanks!

Doug White


Learning Alibre right now, I'm just amazed at its power. I had to
document some prototypes and had used paper and pencil in the past. In
about a week I've been able to transfer the simplest of my 2D stack of
papers into 3D and resultant full 2D dimensioned drawings. Everytime I
refer back to the tutorials I learn an easier way to do things. Long way
to go before I became proficient, but I can see that it is the deal.
cheers

Could you check & see if it can import any of: WMF, EMF or HPGL? (HPGL
files may have a variety of extensions,; PLT & HGL are the most common)

Thanks!

Doug White