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Best Free Cad Tool

Tim Robbins

Hi All,
What is the best free cad tool at the moment?
Looking to do up plans and ideas for an extension for a house?
Thanks

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dh1985

Not sure what the best is. There is free ones like libre CAD and BabaCAD. Not a huge fan. Not very user friendly. Find Draftsight good. Its very similar to Autocad so if you have experience in that it's pretty easy to transition over.too. It used to have a 30day free trial and I think it's only 100$ for a license anyway. Thought Google had a free drafting software also. Have no experience with it though.

Supertech

No experience of the packages dh1985 mentions, but Draftsight is free and has essentially the same appearance as AutoCAD.

PrzemoF

Do you want to do it in 2D or 3D? If 3D check FreeCAD.

https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/index.php?title=Arch_tutorial
https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/index.php?title=Arch_Module

LMK

I use QCAD at work a little https://qcad.org/en/qcad-downloads-trial I think €37 for full pro package... its easy to use and I would recommend it.

PMBC

From a recommendation of a helpful poster on boards some time ago, I've downloaded Draftsight andhave spent just a little time trying to make sense of it, slowly. Now I'd also like to learn a little about modeling simple layouts and can see above there are free 3D packages available as well as prof/3D Draftsight.
TO understand the overall concepts, as I'm very far from computer smart, Id like to read some basic stuff about how you work this software - not necessarily how the software works.
Thanks posters.

Turbulent Bill

PMBC wrote: »

From a recommendation of a helpful poster on boards some time ago, I've downloaded Draftsight andhave spent just a little time trying to make sense of it, slowly. Now I'd also like to learn a little about modeling simple layouts and can see above there are free 3D packages available as well as prof/3D Draftsight.
TO understand the overall concepts, as I'm very far from computer smart, Id like to read some basic stuff about how you work this software - not necessarily how the software works.
Thanks posters.

Draftsight is almost identical to 'classic' AutoCAD, so for training I'd pick up a beginner's AutoCAD book (maybe an older one) and go from there.

For free 3D stuff, Onshape looks very impressive but I think Draftsight is a better fit for what you want to do.

PMBC

Thanks Turbulent Bill. Just saw your post; have been busy at other stuff recently i.e. learning MS Project 2013 on line and from Dummies.

PMBC

PMBC wrote: »

Thanks Turbulent Bill. Just saw your post; have been busy at other stuff recently i.e. learning MS Project 2013 on line and from Dummies.

Just an update and some info.
Subscribed to Draftsight some months ago and started to learn this week-end. I commenced with Dasault System's' own tutorial on pdf whch I found to be unusable as I don't know any of this stuff. It could be fine if you knew the terminology.
A YouTube search got me a simple six part tutorial by Castle Rock which seems to be for users of their CNC tools. It explained the most basic stuff slowly including all the info and 'entities' shown on the Draftsight screen. I now know that ESnap button refers to entities snap as in grabbing that item!

PMBC

Another update on my learning CAD.
I tried various routes to learn Draftsight to no avail - I was getting caught up in basic terminology, what tutor meant, not having sight, or at least not having a good clear view, of what was shown on the tutorial screen.
However I am stubborn. So last weekend I got a 30 day trial of Autocad and bought an up to date copy of 'Autocad for Dummies'. Since I'm not working 'Ive progressed through the first eight chapters (of twenty seven!) and can now understand the basics. Will continue now to the end and then switch back to Draftsight. Also I now understand, or at least have a much better idea of, the other tutorials and learning materials.
Thanks again to all who posted replies to my original query.

sydthebeat

PMBC wrote: »

Another update on my learning CAD.
I tried various routes to learn Draftsight to no avail - I was getting caught up in basic terminology, what tutor meant, not having sight, or at least not having a good clear view, of what was shown on the tutorial screen.
However I am stubborn. So last weekend I got a 30 day trial of Autocad and bought an up to date copy of 'Autocad for Dummies'. Since I'm not working 'Ive progressed through the first eight chapters (of twenty seven!) and can now understand the basics. Will continue now to the end and then switch back to Draftsight. Also I now understand, or at least have a much better idea of, the other tutorials and learning materials.
Thanks again to all who posted replies to my original query.

If you ever have any questions don't hesitate to stick them up here. There are many ways to do many things in AUTOCAD so you might learn something new even with something you've already learnt.