Want to draw up some basic ideas for house extension - does anyone know of
any free CAD software that I might use to do this please?

DavidKendall wrote:
Want to draw up some basic ideas for house extension - does anyone know of
any free CAD software that I might use to do this please?

alt.comp.freeware can help

NT

I've used QCAD a little, and it can read .DXF (Drawing Excahnge Format)
so files can be interchanged with Autocad and others.
http://www.ribbonsoft.com/qcad.html

The new kid on the block is SketchUp - a highly intuitive 3D package -
I like. http://www.sketchup.com/

try here...
www.progecad.com
and download 'progeCAD LT 2006' - it's almost identical to AuotCAD and
fully compatible if that's a consideration. Has lots of features and is
fairly easy to pick up - there are many tutorials knocking around. It
really is excellent.

The new kid on the block is SketchUp - a highly intuitive 3D package -
I like. http://www.sketchup.com/

That looks like hours of fun.

wrote:
The new kid on the block is SketchUp - a highly intuitive 3D package -
I like. http://www.sketchup.com/

That looks like hours of fun.

Yeah, it really is worth a download and a try-out of the very nice
tutorials. The basics are really, really intuitive - way better than
any other draughting package I've tried.

wrote:
wrote:

The new kid on the block is SketchUp - a highly intuitive 3D package -
I like. http://www.sketchup.com/

That looks like hours of fun.


Yeah, it really is worth a download and a try-out of the very nice
tutorials. The basics are really, really intuitive - way better than
any other draughting package I've tried.


Looks every bit as impressive as Picasa. Let's hope Google come up with
a free OS next

The message .com
from contains these words:

The new kid on the block is SketchUp - a highly intuitive 3D package -
I like. http://www.sketchup.com/

That looks like hours of fun.

My 8yo boy has been designing the perfect house. So far the gym and
games room have pushed the rest of the house into a shoebox.

--
Skipweasel
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

The message om
from " contains these words:

The new kid on the block is SketchUp - a highly intuitive 3D package -
I like. http://www.sketchup.com/

Great fun, but I still haven't managed to get it to do arrays rotated
round a centre.

--
Skipweasel
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

"Guy King" wrote in message
...
The message om
from " contains these words:

The new kid on the block is SketchUp - a highly intuitive 3D package -
I like. http://www.sketchup.com/

Great fun, but I still haven't managed to get it to do arrays rotated
round a centre.

--
Skipweasel

SketchUp looks great for rapid sketching of a building; but how does one
generate an aggregation of items into a 'building'? In other words, one can
rapidly 'sketch' a bog-standard' house, with hipped roof -even 'paint'
tiles- and generate windows with transparency form 'surfaces'; but if one
wants to 'construct' a roof using rafters, purlins, and joists of certain
sizes at certain spacing .... how does one start?

--

Brian

The message
from "Brian Sharrock" contains these words:

but if one
wants to 'construct' a roof using rafters, purlins, and joists of certain
sizes at certain spacing .... how does one start?

Do one, then copy it all down the roof. Select move/copy, choose the
item to be copied, then press and release [Ctrl]. A + will appear beside
the cursor. Now, click on the endpoint, and then type /n [Enter] where n
is now many repeats you wanted. You can change the number as often as
you like until you do something else, then it's locked.

--
Skipweasel
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

DavidKendall wrote:
Want to draw up some basic ideas for house extension - does anyone know of
any free CAD software that I might use to do this please?

I used vectorengineer pro-tools to do my extension plans, which were
passed a couple of months ago. I found it easier than the normal
auto-CAD style programs. You can download the quick tools version for
free, and it may be enough. It can't do hash patterns and dotted lines
though. Program has a few quirks. Biggest one - the dotted lines cannot
be scaled, so you have to chose a reasonable drawing scale to start off
with. I started off with 1:1 and had to convert everything to 1:10 so
that the dotted lines came out dotted.

http://www.vectorengineer.com/

Cheers,
Simon.

DavidKendall wrote:
Want to draw up some basic ideas for house extension - does anyone know of
any free CAD software that I might use to do this please?



There are some versions of turbocad available on the net.