Alternatives to AutoCAD 2006

try RHINO 3d , great tool. better possibilities

Hi, I am user of AutoCAD 2006 to,

please can you tell some more informations about RHINO 3d.

I do agree with you. I also am not a power AutoCAD user and find it very frustrating when they keep moving the goal posts.

Unfortunately, many of the smaller users find it necessary to be able to read in drawings generated by the heavyweight AutoCAD users for checking, editing etc. This forces them into buying a full version of AutoCAD and only utilise 10% of it's functionality.

What I would like to see from AutoCAD is;

1. A good basic single (home or small business) 2D version that incorporates all the core features of AutoCAD (which have essentially existed in all the Windows compatible versions since they were first introduced). Most small users get no more benefit from 2006 than 97 LT.

2. The ability to read & print AutoCAD files that have been generated in subsequent versions (ACAD 2002 can't read 2005 or 2006 drawings). This would probably have to be via web support to update the reader. Yes, I know that ACAD comes with a viewer and there is also Bentley, but it would just be nice to read it into the system and be able to do simple things like check dimensions etc.

3. It's got to be cheap and the version should be valid for several years before it requires replacement / upgrading.

There are numerous other CAD packages available, which are fine if you don't interact with the outside world too often. I'm afraid that I have not yet found one that is sufficiently AutoCAD compatible, but I've been wrong before.

An AutoCAD Light version for small users, that was cheap, would enable AutoCAD to broaden their user base enormously (schools etc.), help to eliminate piracy (why buy a pirate version if you can get the real thing for a reasonable price).

I guess that I should be sending this to Autodesk as well, but hopefully somebody from Autodesk will be reading this.

Join the frustrated AutoCad users. I have been using it for almost 20 years.

My customers want Autocad drawings. I use about 10% of its capabilities and only 2D. They use even less.

My sons used some 3D for school once.

I currently use 2000i, a little buggy with XP, OK with Win2000.

My customers are happy to provide their files saved in 2000 format, so there are no major problems.

I wish ACAD was listening!

I use AutoCAD for 2D drawings, primarily electrical. But for mechanical, you can't beat a solids package. I use Solidworks (any older version) and in my opinion beats the pants off AutoCAD solids, which in my opinion is dragged down by its old clunky 2D style interface.

They just retired AutoCAD 2004, Even if they don't support it does not mean you can't use it. The licence doesn't expire, AutoCAD is the most widely used 2D platform, changing to different program won't help you with legacy drawings. A cheaper program may be nice until some other company buys them up any your forced to use there program, If you want a cheaper program go with AutoCAD LT 2007, there will be no training issues. What do you mean by "direction it is going is not useful to me"? It does the same thing it did 10 years ago. If you want Cheap 3D , Alibre is a good buy & pretty easy to use. I'm not sure if Rhino has a drafting package with it. which is what you need. Right?

Jim C

I am a Tooling Design Engineer and a 2004 user, and have used AutoCAD for about 15 years now. I use Mechanical Desktop version of AutoCAD. I have trained a few users on this software, and they all agree it beats 2D anytime. The modeling is quick, and generates it's own 2D drawings. The problem is that you now have to purchase Inventor package to get Mechanical Desktop. Inventor I have found to be useless, and the package is expensive. Using AutoCAD internal solid modeling is slow compared to Mechanical Desktop. When AutoCAD advertises that Inventor is the number "1" selling software out there, it's not because of Inventor, it's due to Mechanical users having to buy the package to get Mechanical Desktop. I agree, AutoCAD should be offering their software in different packages, so one only has to buy what he wants. All in all, I believe in Mechanical Desktop, My manager in CadKey. Everyone will preach that what they use is the best, but for the average user one is realy no better than the other. A Ford or Chevy? In todays technological market, there is realy no difference. They both perform and get you from A to B. You can get trial packages of different softwares and sales companies love to have demos at there location. As far as paying the yearly dues, Save your money. The upgrades hardley ever add anything worth buying. If what you are using does all you need, why do you need more? The due is not mandatory, and you can go the AutoCAD site and download any patches they come up with for free.

If you found Inventor to be useless you don't know how to use Inventor They only keep Desktop around on hopes that the users will move to Inventor. Desktop is not a true 3D (Sits on top of AutoCAD) where Inventor was 3D from the ground up. DeskTop life cycle is over, Do yourself a favor learn Inventor.

Jim C

Your correct, I don't. I have spent time with the tutorials, and find that everything it does takes extra steps than it would in Mechanical. Yes Inventor is from the ground up, AutoCAD purchased this program from software developers and finished its development. In your field, Inventor may be exactly what the doctor ordered, as I said everyone will say you are wasting your time unless you learn their software. Their's is always better than yours. My boss uses CadKey '97 solid. Big time old school no matter what your software is, but he lives and breathes this Dinasour, and to him nothing compares. Even in the original question, AutoCAD was more than he needs himself, there are users for all softwares from AutoCAD light, to Inventor, and in between. To the guest, who started this, shop around on the net, you will find software better suited to your direct needs.

A very good 2D CAD program is TurboCAD. I found it very easy to learn and use. However, if you are used to AutoCAD and are use the keyboard shortcuts a lot, TurboCAD can be a little frustrating. Besides that, it is very reasonably priced and imports and export AutoCAD files. Although it does have 3D capabilities, I have found them to be very difficult and unintuitive. TurboCAD does fall into the same traps that all other drawing programs have, an updated version every year and someone wanting you to pay and upgrade.

TurboCad is cheap and very good. You can still get a free version if you want to try it out:

TurboCAD LE

I am a structural engineer with my own firm. I cut my teeth in the nuclear power, hydraulic construction equipment design and areospace industries going back well before CAD and FEM as we now know it. I have used at least 30 different CAD systems from Catia and Intergraph to AutoCAD and TurboCAD. AutoCAD is a joke (I know one of the guys that started hawking it in the late 70s and it started out as a strictly 2D system). TRUST me and forget ALL of these systems and go to IMSI and get DESIGNCAD. It is a TRUE 3D Boolean Solids sytem, is very inexpensive, READS AUTOCAD FILES BETTER THAN AUTOCAD DOES, and is well-supported, but more importantly is MUCH more file-efficient than the other alternatives and MUCH more keystroke-efficient as well. DesignCAD is the way to go. And you can STILL read and use AND OUTPUT AutoCAD files of ANY VERSION.

Joe Strain, P.E.

I am a degreed engineer with many years of AutoCAD experience in non 3D drawings used for fabrication and machining. Three years ago I changed jobs. My more recent employer has DesignCAD. I agree DesignCAD is far cheaper than AutoCAD and it is able to use and output AutoCAD compatable files. It is able to do what I need in the mentioned realm.

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Hi!

We have been using Inventor for the last 6 months as an alternative to Autocad, for design work for a relatively small custom manfacturing company. We are very happy with this product. I believe you can try it for a period to get a feel for it.

Eddie B.

Have anyone tried QCad?

I've used QCad a bit. For open source it is nice. At work we use ACADR14 (because other companies refuse to buy newer versions and retrain) and Catia V5...overall I'd say I prefer Solidworks as it's a modern package that doesn't cost a lot and you can actually buy the software instead of leasing a license for a given period of time (i.e. Catia).

If you are using 2D only, try Autosketch or QuickCad (a "light" version of Autosketch). The later versions (6,7,8,9) are based on Drafix, developed by Foresight, then sold to Softdesk, then sold to Autodesk. It it possibly the most intuitive 2D CAD program in existence and will file in Autocad DWG format as well as JPEG and TIFF. The only drawback is you may have to buy it outside of Autodesk as I think they may have stopped making Autosketch. A good example of it's usage is one of our drafters would do his CAD (Autocad class) homework in Drafix in 1/3 the time it would take him to draw in Autocad, then file it as a DWG to turn it in.

Vectorworks is really good, but probably a little pricer than some of the other suggestions here. It's way better than AutoCAD though

With everyone here hating AutoCAD I wonder how they have 80%+ of the 2D market, Must be a really bad program, As I have said on past forums , Put out an ad for designer/drafter with AutoCAD experience and Put out same ad asking for "other"CAD experience How many people will show up ?

This is why AutoCAD has 80% of the market

Jim C

cad is a touchy subject everyone defends what they invested in. to Pro-e guys its the best to Solidworks geeks Solidworks is all the rave. So on and so forth.

I have used 5 different packages over the years and currently using two different ones nearly everyday.

Take a very close look at KeyCreator from Kubotek if you want ease of use and speed and versatility and interoperability nothing compares and the price is affordable.

Don't just take my word ask Walt Silva at ProCad.

mech eng:

I can vouch for Walt Silva, (I have spoken to him on several occasions and read several of his books) as a past and still at times present user of Cadkey 19. Kubotek bought out Cadkey and created a migration path to KeyCreator.

I have used (and hate) various versions of Autocad, including Mechanical Desktop, but have seen some users who are very proficient in them.

Autocad captured the market by being early, not copy protected for many years, and, by the very thing that causes so many of us to dislike it: They have dozens of ways to customize each "default" setting. This enabled them in the early days, to counter the paper based objections of companies to CAD: "But our company drawing standards are such and such .... ", by demonstrating that Autocad could be configured to make arrows the same way, or call out radii the same way, or ... etc etc.

I have also used and use at times Inventor which is similar in many respects to SolidEdge which I also have some experience with. These two are more in the league of enterprise CAD solutions, as they are made for collaborative design contributions and editing among many other useful functions. Autodesk took the right path with Inventor overall, since they read the writing on the wall: The demise of "high end" 2D CAD, and the movement toward solids, interactive editing between parts and assemblies, and collaboration.

Since many of my customers still have their drawings in Autocad or Autocad LT, for the quick "down and dirty" 2D drawings, I will make my assemblies in Cadkey 3D Solids, spit out the drawing views of the separate parts in DWG format and then pull them into Autocad for the title blocks and dimensioning (for ease of editing at a later time if necessary, within Autocad). Otherwise, I have to produce drawings compatible with whatever CAD the client has, often in their software from beginning to end.

I would love to buy KeyCreator, but at present can't justify the cost because my CAD needs change constantly depending on my clients.

We all like what we like, our needs and experiences being different as they are and fortunately interchanging files between packages is much easier than it was. That is, with the exception of Autocad, whose most recent versions seem purposefully to cause problems except when pulling them into Inventor, unless you save them to an earlier format. (A not so subtle push to migrate to Inventor, and once in there, they certainly don't make it easy to get them out again, except in other formats.) But that's Autodesk!

for functionality see if you can get a good demo of the latest key creator 6.x

on solids there is the ability to do face/surface operations, like extend a face, revolve a face.

you can edit features, hole and change the diameter or corner and change its radius or chamfer amount.

you can dim a hole location in 3d space and edit these dim and move the hole or other feature.

you can scale a 3d solid in 1, 2 or 3 axis, try that in solidworks.

import models directly for Pro, Solidworks and Autodesk

and generate associated 3-d views in 2d drawing space

keycreator is cadkey on steroids plus caffeine

Would you believe you can use MicroSoft Word to do all my 2D drawings. Word has an extensive drawing program that can do many neat tricks and is easy to use. It is also easy to send to almost any customer and not have to wonder if they have a way to view it.

You can open the drawing program by Right Clicking on the Menu Bar and checking "Drawing" on the drop down menu.

For sending drawings out for viewing only, besides being able to pull them into Word or WordPerfect, nothing beats printing them out to Adobe Writer, which then puts them in a PDF file. (This is not the free Reader version.) You select it as your printer and Voila! All plotting settings like line widths, density etc. are just as if you printed them on paper, whereas other methods can loose those features. Great for Emailing ... everybody has Adobe Reader.

If creating actually drawings in Word floats your boat fine, but you lose all the advantages of CAD: Full scale drawings, the ability to construct geometrically, query the drawing, etc. In other words it is picture with labels as a opposed to a CAD drawing, which is analogous to a picture of text as opposed to actual text which the computer recognizes as such.

PROVA RHINO 3D !!!!

TRY RHINO !! IS THE BEST! F.P.

http://www.rhino3d.com/download.htm

You can try SolidEdge 2D. It is a free 2D version of the SolidEdge 3D modelling package and is specifically for Autocad support for SolidEdge users. It has pretty good reports and is supposed to be very compatible with Autocad. It is a free download but you must register. The download is 300Mb and is at

http://www.solidedge.com/free2d/default.htm

try ZWCAD.

http://www.zwcad.com/

What I hate of AutoCAD is the fact that it is incompatible with itself. I mean that the files created with AutoCAD 2006 can't be read with my 2000 version. As big companies have a compulsive actualization disorder, they force me to buy a new computer and the new package even if I don't really need to, just to be able to work with them.

The other CAD software companies would kick the **** out of AutoDesk if they agree to use a universal xml file format as default. That would be the only way to beat the giant and insuflate new life in the market.

Oh, and we could really use some hackers on cracking the *.dwg format in all its versions!

I use 2000 too because thats all I need for electrical drawings but I use this free converter that gets put in the ACAD menu for anything that comes at me that is newer: http://www.dwggateway.com/

can you help me to study an cad drawing

Atul Shah

Tel :25405256

GStarICAD is a good program for you to use.

try www.staricad.com to download

i have no autocad in my pc so i want to install it...........