With the recent changes in planning law it seems that some decks will need
planning permission.

Drawings will be required, so I'm going to need to provide them with some
quotes.

I've tried a couple of CAD thingies but always found them massively over
complicated for my numpty skills.

Any suggestions for a (preferably free) CAD program that would prepare deck
drawings that a simpleton could use?



--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

In article ,
The Medway Handyman wrote:
With the recent changes in planning law it seems that some decks will
need planning permission.

Drawings will be required, so I'm going to need to provide them with
some quotes.

I've tried a couple of CAD thingies but always found them massively over
complicated for my numpty skills.

Any suggestions for a (preferably free) CAD program that would prepare
deck drawings that a simpleton could use?

I reckon a basic vector drawing prog does everything that's needed for
this sort of thing. Most tend to be far too complicated when all you need
is something you'd do with a ruler, pencil and paper - only not needing
draughtsman skills. One reason I still use my Acorn. Draw on that was
designed for school kids long before they all had games machines, etc.

Dunno what's similar on a PC - Coral Draw used to be quite good?

--
*Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard? *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:15:38 UTC, "The Medway Handyman"
wrote:

With the recent changes in planning law it seems that some decks will need
planning permission.

Drawings will be required, so I'm going to need to provide them with some
quotes.

I've tried a couple of CAD thingies but always found them massively over
complicated for my numpty skills.

Any suggestions for a (preferably free) CAD program that would prepare deck
drawings that a simpleton could use?

Not free (but tax deductible I guess): TurboCAD (the cheapo version).
I've used it a bit and it seems pretty simple.

http://tinyurl.com/afvcnh

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://www.diybanter.com

The Medway Handyman wrote:
With the recent changes in planning law it seems that some decks will need
planning permission.

Drawings will be required, so I'm going to need to provide them with some
quotes.

I've tried a couple of CAD thingies but always found them massively over
complicated for my numpty skills.

Any suggestions for a (preferably free) CAD program that would prepare deck
drawings that a simpleton could use?

For structured drawings (rather than full cad) Visio is pretty good. Not
free though.

Sketchup also has the capability to show 2D projections and is very easy
to use. Might have the advantage being a full 3D visualisation tool of
being able to show the clients what the finished result will look like.

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Thu, 19 Feb 2009 02:10:23 +0000, John Rumm
wrote:

The Medway Handyman wrote:
With the recent changes in planning law it seems that some decks will need
planning permission.

Drawings will be required, so I'm going to need to provide them with some
quotes.

I've tried a couple of CAD thingies but always found them massively over
complicated for my numpty skills.

Any suggestions for a (preferably free) CAD program that would prepare deck
drawings that a simpleton could use?

For structured drawings (rather than full cad) Visio is pretty good. Not
free though.

Have a look at
http://www.visguy.com/
for some of the stuff being done with Visio recently.


--
Regards, Paul Herber, Sandrila Ltd.
Electrical for Visio http://www.electrical.sandrila.co.uk/

On Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:15:38 +0000, The Medway Handyman wrote:

With the recent changes in planning law it seems that some decks will need
planning permission.

Drawings will be required, so I'm going to need to provide them with some
quotes.

I've tried a couple of CAD thingies but always found them massively over
complicated for my numpty skills.

Any suggestions for a (preferably free) CAD program that would prepare deck
drawings that a simpleton could use?

=========================================
Keycad is cheap and quite good. You could also download 'Open
Office'(OpenOffice.org) which is free. The wordprocessor includes very
useful drawing functions. Don't ignore MsPaint (Windows) which can produce
surprisingly good clear drawings for basic purposes.

Cic.

--
==========================================
Using Ubuntu Linux
Windows shown the door
==========================================

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
The Medway Handyman wrote:
With the recent changes in planning law it seems that some decks will
need planning permission.

Drawings will be required, so I'm going to need to provide them with
some quotes.

I've tried a couple of CAD thingies but always found them massively over
complicated for my numpty skills.

Any suggestions for a (preferably free) CAD program that would prepare
deck drawings that a simpleton could use?

I reckon a basic vector drawing prog does everything that's needed for
this sort of thing. Most tend to be far too complicated when all you need
is something you'd do with a ruler, pencil and paper - only not needing
draughtsman skills. One reason I still use my Acorn. Draw on that was
designed for school kids long before they all had games machines, etc.

Dunno what's similar on a PC - Coral Draw used to be quite good?

I did all my stuff in Corel Draw.


It's exepensive, but there are cracked versions available..

"The Medway Handyman" wrote in message
om...
With the recent changes in planning law it seems that some decks will need
planning permission.

Drawings will be required, so I'm going to need to provide them with some
quotes.

I've tried a couple of CAD thingies but always found them massively over
complicated for my numpty skills.

Any suggestions for a (preferably free) CAD program that would prepare
deck drawings that a simpleton could use?



--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk



Have a look at Instant Deck Designer
http://tinyurl.com/anp4vf

As with most of these things they can do so much very simply but require a
fair bit of practice if you want to do completely custom work. Well worth a
look though.

CorelDraw is good although not especially designed for architectural work -
more of a graphic arts design app, but fine if you don't need to be too
exacting on actual dimensioning.

An OS vector graphics app - similar to CorelDraw - is Inkscape
http://www.inkscape.org/ -- free!

Neil

On Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:15:38 GMT, The Medway Handyman wrote:

With the recent changes in planning law it seems that some decks will need
planning permission.

Drawings will be required, so I'm going to need to provide them with some
quotes.

I've tried a couple of CAD thingies but always found them massively over
complicated for my numpty skills.

Any suggestions for a (preferably free) CAD program that would prepare deck
drawings that a simpleton could use?

It ain't free, but I swear by AutoSketch. It's a 'light' version of a fully
featured AutoCAD program. Yes, I accept there's a learning curve, but I
wouldn't be without it. I plan out all my alterations with it, even down to
things like sorting out the optimum way to lay tiles. You can dimension
with it, and although it's on my main pc which went tits up yesterday, I'm
sure there are predefined page layouts if you have to prepare drawings for
the planners - looks more professional.

You can 'tile' A4 print pages to get a larger size print, or most graphics
& printing places will print out a file onto a plotter if necessary, which
I've had done in the past.


--
the dot wanderer at tesco dot net

On 19 Feb, 00:15, "The Medway Handyman"
wrote:

Any suggestions for a (preferably free) CAD program that would prepare deck
drawings that a simpleton could use?

Sketchup - very easy to use and intuitive (if you haven't had your
mind muddled by using proper CAD).

There's been a free version since Google bought it out a couple of
years back, and the restrictions as compared to the Pro (paid for)
version aren't critical.

wrote:
Sketchup - very easy to use and intuitive (if you haven't had your
mind muddled by using proper CAD).

There's been a free version since Google bought it out a couple of
years back, and the restrictions as compared to the Pro (paid for)
version aren't critical.

It's a bit of a faff trying to produce paper drawings from Sketchup
because you have to export images of the views from different
directions, then combine them in some other package at the correct
scale.

Pro includes a thing called "Layout" which can do some of this work for
you.

On 19 Feb, 10:33, Jim wrote:

It's a bit of a faff trying to produce paper drawings from Sketchup
because you have to export images of the views from different
directions, then combine them in some other package at the correct
scale. Pro includes a thing called "Layout" which can do some of this work for
you.

I use Pro, but I don't see why you have to do that.

I thought that the free version includes the print-to-scale options,
doesn't it? If so, draw the thing, select orthogonal view, turn
perspective off and use the print to scale options. No need to mess
about with exports and other programs.

If I'm wrong about the print-to-scale options obviously that's out,
though.

The Medway Handyman coughed up some electrons that declared:

With the recent changes in planning law it seems that some decks will need
planning permission.

Drawings will be required, so I'm going to need to provide them with some
quotes.

I've tried a couple of CAD thingies but always found them massively over
complicated for my numpty skills.

Any suggestions for a (preferably free) CAD program that would prepare
deck drawings that a simpleton could use?




Hi Dave

I've been using:

http://www.avanquest.com/UK/create/h...scape_Pro.html

but they also do a specialised version:

http://www.avanquest.com/UK/create/h..._and_Deck.html

which at 15 quid it's hard to go wrong.

BUT the above, which don't take long to learn (allow a couple of weekends to
follow the tutorial) *are* great for showing the customer 3D pictures and
walk-throughs, they don;t directly knock out plan-prints.

The former does allow 2D exports and 3D rendered pictures from various
angles which may be good enough for Planning in the context of decking.
Otherwise, with the first product, you can also export "elevations" (side
views) in a 2D CAD format, bung that through a cheap 2D CAD program and
stick the dimensions on.

I wouldn't have thought that Planning would be too fussed about
Architect-quality plans for decking (maybe you should nip down and ask
them). Assuming this is true, personally I think you'll probably find more
joy with a program that is highly customised for what you want to do than
using something very generic.

The only caveat is that TFP is an american product so sometimes
lacks "english" components and building methods - don't know if this is
likely to make any difference to decking or not.

You'd be welcome to come over to Pembury and I'll show you around my copy of
TurboFloorPlan Pro - my email's valid. Never done decking, but I've got the
rest of it sussed so it shouldn't take long to see if the decking bit will
do what you need.

To use either you'll need about 1GHz or better PC or laptop, reasonable
memory (1GB probably, 2GB better). Video card isn't important.

Cheers

Tim

wrote:
On 19 Feb, 10:33, Jim wrote:
It's a bit of a faff trying to produce paper drawings from Sketchup
because you have to export images of the views from different
directions, then combine them in some other package at the correct
scale. Pro includes a thing called "Layout" which can do some of this
work for you.

I use Pro, but I don't see why you have to do that.

I thought that the free version includes the print-to-scale options,
doesn't it? If so, draw the thing, select orthogonal view, turn
perspective off and use the print to scale options. No need to mess
about with exports and other programs.

If I'm wrong about the print-to-scale options obviously that's out,
though.

You're quite right, it can do that. However it can't produce a printout
showing multiple different views (eg plan and elevations) and a title
block as is possible using Layout.

On 19 Feb, 11:03, Jim wrote:

You're quite right, it can do that. However it can't produce a printout
showing multiple different views (eg plan and elevations) and a title
block as is possible using Layout.- Hide quoted text -

The title block is true, but it's not what I would call critical.

The former is just a matter of copying and pasting the finished model
however many times and rotating one copy to show each relevant view.

wrote:
On 19 Feb, 11:03, Jim wrote:
You're quite right, it can do that. However it can't produce a printout
showing multiple different views (eg plan and elevations) and a title
block as is possible using Layout.- Hide quoted text -

The title block is true, but it's not what I would call critical.

The former is just a matter of copying and pasting the finished model
however many times and rotating one copy to show each relevant view.

Yes, that's a good way of getting round it - hardly as convenient though.

On 19 Feb, 11:21, Jim wrote:

Yes, that's a good way of getting round it - hardly as convenient though.

Of course not, but it is, what, about a minute's work each time - for
a saving of nearly £300.

As I say I have the Pro version, but only because I first bought it
back in @Last days when there was no free version, and the updates
since have been free or cheap enough. I'm not sure I would fork out
for the Pro version if starting from scratch, for my amateur use
anyway.

Sketchup

Another vote for SketchUp.

Two things are disabled in the free version - high resolution printing
and file export.

File export I never use, and for high res printing I have the time-
limited demo (8 hours) of the pro version installed on another
machine.

"John Rumm" wrote in message
et...
The Medway Handyman wrote:
With the recent changes in planning law it seems that some decks will
need planning permission.

Drawings will be required, so I'm going to need to provide them with some
quotes.

I've tried a couple of CAD thingies but always found them massively over
complicated for my numpty skills.

Any suggestions for a (preferably free) CAD program that would prepare
deck drawings that a simpleton could use?

For structured drawings (rather than full cad) Visio is pretty good. Not
free though.

Sketchup also has the capability to show 2D projections and is very easy
to use. Might have the advantage being a full 3D visualisation tool of
being able to show the clients what the finished result will look like.


What's good with Sketchup is that you can create a block building shape and
then stretch and pin a photograph of the real building onto the surface. As
you move your viewpoint around in sketchup you get a realistic view from
every angle.

It's not quite as simple as 1-2-3, but worth learning how to do.

"OG" wrote:
Sketchup also has the capability to show 2D projections and is very easy
to use. Might have the advantage being a full 3D visualisation tool of
being able to show the clients what the finished result will look like.

What's good with Sketchup is that you can create a block building shape and
then stretch and pin a photograph of the real building onto the surface. As
you move your viewpoint around in sketchup you get a realistic view from
every angle.

You can also very quickly model a house from existing plans by importing
them as a ground plane texture at the correct scale, then you just draw
around the walls and pull them up to the correct height.

On 19 Feb, 13:18, "OG" wrote:
"John Rumm" wrote in message

et...



The Medway Handyman wrote:
With the recent changes in planning law it seems that some decks will
need planning permission.

Drawings will be required, so I'm going to need to provide them with some
quotes.

I've tried a couple of CAD thingies but always found them massively over
complicated for my numpty skills.

Any suggestions for a (preferably free) CAD program that would prepare
deck drawings that a simpleton could use?

For structured drawings (rather than full cad) Visio is pretty good. Not
free though.

Sketchup also has the capability to show 2D projections and is very easy
to use. Might have the advantage being a full 3D visualisation tool of
being able to show the clients what the finished result will look like.

What's good with Sketchup is that you can create a block building shape and
then stretch and pin a photograph of the real building onto the surface. As
you move your viewpoint around in sketchup you get a realistic view from
every angle.

It's not quite as simple as 1-2-3, but worth learning how to do.

Other thing with Sketchup is the massive library of objects in the 3D
warehouse as well.

Adam

On Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:15:38 +0000, The Medway Handyman wrote:

With the recent changes in planning law it seems that some decks will
need planning permission.

Drawings will be required, so I'm going to need to provide them with
some quotes.

I've tried a couple of CAD thingies but always found them massively over
complicated for my numpty skills.

Any suggestions for a (preferably free) CAD program that would prepare
deck drawings that a simpleton could use?


QCAD is rather nice - a bit like AutoCAD or AutoSKETCH in use. There is a
free ("community" - i.e. older!) version for linux and current demo
versions for Linux, Windows & Mac. A smidgen over 20 quid for the full
"Pro" version.

--
Mick (Working in a M$-free zone!)
Web: http://www.nascom.info
Filtering everything posted from googlegroups to kill spam.

wrote:
Sketchup

Another vote for SketchUp.

Two things are disabled in the free version - high resolution printing
and file export.

You can export a 2D image though, and if you click on the options button
on the file save dialog you can specify the resolution. That combined
with the parallel projection option and the elevation orientation
buttons makes getting flat projection drawings quite easy.

File export I never use, and for high res printing I have the time-
limited demo (8 hours) of the pro version installed on another
machine.

While messing about with bitmaps is not as nice, you can get enough
resolution for most applications.

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Thu, 19 Feb 2009 02:10:23 +0000, John Rumm wrote:

For structured drawings (rather than full cad) Visio is pretty good. Not
free though.

OpenOffice's Draw program is supposed to be a Visio-alike (not sure if
it's a full visio clone). And of course it's free as in beer as well as
free as in speech.

--
John Stumbles

Thank God I'm an atheist

On Feb 19, 9:33*am, The Wanderer wrote:
On Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:15:38 GMT, The Medway Handyman wrote:
With the recent changes in planning law it seems that some decks will need
planning permission.

Drawings will be required, so I'm going to need to provide them with some
quotes.

I've tried a couple of CAD thingies but always found them massively over
complicated for my numpty skills.

Any suggestions for a (preferably free) CAD program that would prepare deck
drawings that a simpleton could use?

It ain't free, but I swear by AutoSketch. It's a 'light' version of a fully
featured AutoCAD program. Yes, I accept there's a learning curve, but I
wouldn't be without it. I plan out all my alterations with it, even down to
things like sorting out the optimum way to lay tiles. You can dimension
with it, and although it's on my main pc which went tits up yesterday, I'm
sure there are predefined page layouts if you have to prepare drawings for
the planners - looks more professional.

You can 'tile' A4 print pages to get a larger size print, or most graphics
& printing places will print out a file onto a plotter if necessary, which
I've had done in the past.

--
the dot wanderer at tesco dot net

Microsoft Word, select view, and then tools then draw. When you’ve
done that, at the bottom of the screen is all the lines, squares,
circles, thin lines thick line Just click on the one you want and off
you go. You can even add text and measurements. And it’s free.
Keith

Kipper at sea wrote:

Microsoft Word

[...]

it’s free.

only for higher values of "free"

I'm now using microsoft paint, and gimp
(and lego building blocks)
to model my house,
Eventually I will use Blender
which is more powerful than Google Sketchup
and probably harder to learn...

The lego was a recent idea:
I now understand the roof ridges and valleys far more,
and today I built an extension!

g



OG wrote:

"John Rumm" wrote in message
et...
The Medway Handyman wrote:
With the recent changes in planning law it seems that some decks will
need planning permission.

Drawings will be required, so I'm going to need to provide them with
some quotes.

I've tried a couple of CAD thingies but always found them massively
over complicated for my numpty skills.

Any suggestions for a (preferably free) CAD program that would
prepare deck drawings that a simpleton could use?

For structured drawings (rather than full cad) Visio is pretty good.
Not free though.

Sketchup also has the capability to show 2D projections and is very
easy to use. Might have the advantage being a full 3D visualisation
tool of being able to show the clients what the finished result will
look like.


What's good with Sketchup is that you can create a block building shape
and then stretch and pin a photograph of the real building onto the
surface. As you move your viewpoint around in sketchup you get a
realistic view from every angle.

It's not quite as simple as 1-2-3, but worth learning how to do.

"george (dicegeorge)" wrote in message
...
I'm now using microsoft paint, and gimp
(and lego building blocks)
to model my house,
Eventually I will use Blender
which is more powerful than Google Sketchup
and probably harder to learn...

The lego was a recent idea:
I now understand the roof ridges and valleys far more,
and today I built an extension!

g



OG wrote:

"John Rumm" wrote in message
et...
The Medway Handyman wrote:
With the recent changes in planning law it seems that some decks will
need planning permission.

Drawings will be required, so I'm going to need to provide them with
some quotes.

I've tried a couple of CAD thingies but always found them massively
over complicated for my numpty skills.

Any suggestions for a (preferably free) CAD program that would prepare
deck drawings that a simpleton could use?

For structured drawings (rather than full cad) Visio is pretty good. Not
free though.

Sketchup also has the capability to show 2D projections and is very easy
to use. Might have the advantage being a full 3D visualisation tool of
being able to show the clients what the finished result will look like.


What's good with Sketchup is that you can create a block building shape
and then stretch and pin a photograph of the real building onto the
surface. As you move your viewpoint around in sketchup you get a
realistic view from every angle.

It's not quite as simple as 1-2-3, but worth learning how to do.

Oh dear, I do hope you put the foundation in the right place!

george (dicegeorge) wrote:
I'm now using ... lego building blocks to model my house,

You really need to find a middle-aged child (like me) who still has a Bayko
set. Much more realistic than Lego.

--
Reentrant

"Reentrant" wrote in message
...
george (dicegeorge) wrote:
I'm now using ... lego building blocks to model my house,

You really need to find a middle-aged child (like me) who still has a
Bayko set. Much more realistic than Lego.


But generally limited to 1930's suburban designs (nothing wrong with that
per se, my previous house was a Bayko look-a-like).


--
Bob Mannix
(anti-spam is as easy as 1-2-3 - not)

In message , Reentrant
writes
george (dicegeorge) wrote:
I'm now using ... lego building blocks to model my house,

You really need to find a middle-aged child (like me) who still has a Bayko
set. Much more realistic than Lego.

Assuming you happen to live in a 1930s semi, with bay windows :-)
--
Graeme

On Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:15:38 +0000, The Medway Handyman wrote:

With the recent changes in planning law it seems that some decks will
need planning permission.

Drawings will be required, so I'm going to need to provide them with
some quotes.

I've tried a couple of CAD thingies but always found them massively over
complicated for my numpty skills.

Any suggestions for a (preferably free) CAD program that would prepare
deck drawings that a simpleton could use?

QCAD which runs fines on Unbuntu/Fedora/Suse etc. Might even work on
Windoze. Free of course, works nicely, not too complex or too simple.







--
Ed Sirett - Property maintainer and registered gas fitter.
The FAQ for uk.diy is at http://www.diyfaq.org.uk
Gas fitting FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/GasFitting.html
Sealed CH FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/SealedCH.html
Choosing a Boiler FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/BoilerChoice.html