For those in the know, is there a CAD program that you would recommend that would be user friendly and resonably priced for beginners? I have been watching youtube vids. of auto and motorcycle designs done on cad programs that are very impressive.
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April 8, 2011 12:44 p.m. Graefin10 New Reader
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April 8, 2011 1:08 p.m. aeronca65t Dork
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April 8, 2011 1:23 p.m. cxhb HalfDork
Never tried Sketchup, or Unigraphix. But I am a big fan of Solid Edge. If you can somehow download a student version I think you'll enjoy it. I hear Unigraphix is superior though, so I would search for that as well.
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April 8, 2011 1:32 p.m. paanta Reader
SketchUp plays fairly nice with the big boy CAD packages and it's easy, fast and has a great online community. Once you start really missing stuff it doesn't do well (dimensioning, real curves and splines, solid modeling, etc) you can step up to the more sophisticated packages. Later on the sketchup files can be imported into AutoCAD either by you or by whoever takes your design forward to the machine shop.
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April 8, 2011 1:35 p.m. cxhb HalfDork
paanta wrote:
SketchUp plays fairly nice with the big boy CAD packages and it's easy, fast and has a great online community. Once you start really missing stuff it doesn't do well (dimensioning, real curves and splines, solid modeling, etc) you can step up to the more sophisticated packages. Later on the sketchup files can be imported into AutoCAD either by you or by whoever takes your design forward to the machine shop.
Wow that's nice. I might just have to try that out.
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April 8, 2011 3:09 p.m. aeronca65t Dork
Check out the -Sketchup Warehouse-.
There's zillions of free drawings already available online that you can take and edit with Sketchup (this is a good way to learn before you start from scratch with your own ideas).
