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Looking for a Drawing Program

SAHaskell

SAHaskell

Joined
May 15, 2019
Messages
321
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168

Location
United States, Neenah, WI
Anyone know of a reliable, simple program for two-dimentional drawing? I used SketchUp for a number of years and loved it very much. It was a free program from Autosketch which is much more complicated and more expensive. SketchUp was discontinued a few years ago. I feel very lost without a simple drawing program.Any recomendations are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Steven
 
If you have windows you have Paint as part of Windows. It is simple but somewhat limited. I used it a number of time before I got TurboCad. TC does 3D but I only use it for 2D. It is not nearly the price of Auto Cad.
Allan


Found this on the current pricing on the internet......

TurboCAD
TurboCAD offers a range of options to suit different budgets and needs, starting at $69. TurboCAD also offers a perpetual license option. Some of the TurboCAD 2024 subscription prices are:
  • TurboCAD 2024 Deluxe Annual: $129.99
  • TurboCAD 2024 Professional Annual: $499.99


  • Annual AutoCAD subscription: $2,030
  • Monthly AutoCAD subscription: $250
  • 3-year AutoCAD subscription: $6,085
 
SAHaskell said:
Anyone know of a reliable, simple program for two-dimentional drawing? I used SketchUp for a number of years and loved it very much. It was a free program from Autosketch which is much more complicated and more expensive. SketchUp was discontinued a few years ago. I feel very lost without a simple drawing program.Any recomendations are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Steven
Click to expand...
If you search a good simple CADprogram for 2D. I recommend QCad pro. You can test the program with the community edition which is open source. The pro version gives you some nice add ons. The most important is the compatibility with the modern ACAD file formats. Another good open source cad is Libre Cad which is also based on an old version of QCad.
There are also some commercial ACAD clones available, which ar based on the Intellicad Technology Consortium. I tested ProgeCad. The look and feel is really similiar to ACAD. In the US have a look at CMS Intellicad.
 
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Hi, is it for CAD, or simply drawing/painting as you would on paper? I now use a graphics tablet and eventually graduated to Corel Painter, which is just like drawing on paper. I think there's a light version.
 
the drawback with drawing programs is using a mouse. i had a drafting tablet for cadd drawing and it made drawing much easier and more accurate.

my lap top has a finger pad area that i try to use a stylus on but because its such a small area i find it difficult to do anything with it.
 
The question is, should technical drawings be created, plan drawings, or rather freehand drafts, artistically designed?

I have only had good experiences with Inkscap when creating technical plan drawings. Waterline drawings, frame drawings, etc.
 
WOW! Thanks for all the kind responses. I greatly appreciate the info and hope that one, or more, will suit my simple needs. My primary interest is to draw simple, 2D images of woodworking projects.
Thanks to all.
Steven
Happy Modeling
 
FreeCad might also be a contender, depending a little bit on your platform and the age of your hardware. (Fusion 360 isn't compatible with a 10 year old MacBook
 
You usually get what you pay for, so it depends on how professional-looking you need your drawings to look and how much time you want to invest learning the software. I worked in the aerospace industry where SolidWorks, ProE and Catia were the norm in a 3D design environment and created ortho projections for 2D drawings. These apps are beyond most user's budgets, --including mine. Fusion 360 is a free program with a paid upgrade path, but the learning curve is too steep for many.

My go-to 2D drawing package has been Visio for over twenty years. It's full-featured and inexpensive. Best of all, if you use MS Word, or PowerPoint, the learning curve is pretty flat and the features easy to pick-up in a few days. I have an old Office 2013 MS Office suite that gets 2D drawings knocked out quickly. Schematics are even easier. Visio drawings or 2D pictures with annotations can be dropped into other MS programs - this is handy when creating build logs using PowerPoint.
 
There is a powerful freeware drawing program, GIMP. Though powerful, I find it user unfriendly. There is a book on how to use it. I bought a used copy of the book. I find it necessary to have the book on hand. Most of the time I use Corel's Paint Shop Pro. It's price is not unreasonable, and it is very powerful. I bought an early version and upgrades are very reasonably priced.
 
I use Adobe Illustrator all the time. It is sophisticated and will take a little while to do tricky things, but there's a huge amount of online reading, tutorials, YouTube, and books to support it. I use it all the time to make technical drawings, to make art illustrations, and most of the time, technical drawing the load directly into Lightburn for my laser cutter. You can output .svg files directly from Illustrator. I think it's $19.99 a month and less if you buy a year, but I do get a lot of use out of it. See some examples below.
1726321172132.png
1726321225811.png
Echo Practicum from Admiralty Models site redrawn to exact dimensions
1726321332788.png
Frame redrawn over original and then made wholly symmetric (original was not)
1726321423786.png
Parts of frames for laser cutting that will load directly into Lightburn for the laser cutter. You can also generate an .svg for many outputs
1726321566899.png
Drawn directly from published George Lucas design patent
1726321819281.png
Illustration based directly on a plate in a book from a Natural History museum in France from the mid 19th century

So I love it. Definitely more than free, but the results are there and I'm not a professional Illustrator.

Glenn

p.s. no, I don't own any Adobe stock that I know of.

1726321668728.png
 
Autocad LT or Fusion 360, of course there is still something wonderful about hand drawings.



Graphite-2024-01-20-08-42-13.jpeg
 
glennb17 said:
I use Adobe Illustrator all the time. It is sophisticated and will take a little while to do tricky things, but there's a huge amount of online reading, tutorials, YouTube, and books to support it. I use it all the time to make technical drawings, to make art illustrations, and most of the time, technical drawing the load directly into Lightburn for my laser cutter. You can output .svg files directly from Illustrator. I think it's $19.99 a month and less if you buy a year, but I do get a lot of use out of it.
Click to expand...
Like Glenn, I also use Adobe Illustrator to create drawings for laser cutting. It's got a steep learning curve but is very powerful. I quite enjoy it. I learned by Googling what I was trying to do, one step at a time. Over the years I've become quite proficient at using it for what I want to do, but I'm just scratching at its capabilities. I'm lucky enough to get free access to it through work so the cost isn't an issue.
 
tossedman said:
AutoSketch was discontinued years ago but SketchUp hasn't been discontinued. It is now owned by Trimble and has a subscription service. Not cheap, but you can access SketchUp Free. It's an online version but may not have all of the functions you're looking for. Check it out here. https://www.sketchup.com/en/plans-and-pricing/sketchup-free
Click to expand...
I'm still managing to run a 23 year old copy of QuickCAD 8 (also from AutoDesk, and long discontinued)... on a Windows 10 Professional install on a Dell desktop. The only reason I mention this is if the OP still has the original disc that his software came on, there's a good chance he can still install it and get it to run... it might have to be in Windows Compatibility Mode... but it should be able to run.
 
For all my 2D drawing, I have always used Corel Draw. My first was Corel Draw 3, then upgraded since. I currently run Corel Draw 7se under Windows 10. Windows 10 doesn't like it as its old and the help files are incompatible. I solved that by removing the help files, having used it for so long, no longer needed.
The beauty is that you can get the software to automatically dimension your objects, dependant on you setting the drawing scale.
You can pick up a 2021 basic edition version for about 30 quid...
shopusia.com

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2022 | Lifetime License for Win

WHAT YOU WILL GET: This is a pre-activated version (the product key will be automatically added to the software during the installation process) INSTANT DELIVERY this is not CD The Software will be delivered to you by Email as stated ( 12H - 24H ) Lifetime license for 1 PC Free tech support...
shopusia.com shopusia.com
 
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