Cad program

[Ace McGirk]

Not sure if this is the right section,but here goes,

My brother-in-law is looking for a cad prog that will let him make drawings of the electrical and plumbing systems on the ship he works on,he would like it to have the standard electical/plumbing symbols,so he can "drag and drop" them into place.

It must be freeware or very cheap.

AutoCad is to complicated for his skills , so something more user friendly would be best.

Any leads would be great.

Thanks

[Theophylact]

These folks have a "lite" version you can download for free. Comes in both English and Metric versions. Don't know if it's got the plumbing and electrical symbols in the "lite" version, though.

[Whir]

Actually, AutoCAD 2000 and 2002 support dragging and dropping. You just have to create the toolbars (which is a lot easier than it sounds). Unfortunately even AutoCAD Lite costs like $250 or something. Maybe more.

-Whir

[alligator_al]

As well as Autocad LT, there's also QuickCAD and Autosketch (both also from Autodesk) which are very simple and use the standard DWG/DXF files. They cost $69 and $119 respectively from the Autodesk website (but i'm sure you can find them for less $ )

I used autosketch some time ago, and remember it being easy to learn but quite powerful. IMO autocad LT will do 90% of what you could ever need to do, so if you're going to be working with CAD long-term, i'd recommend starting with LT right away.

[puk]

A google search revealed TheFreeSite scrol down to Minos
The link will point to this
Give it a try.
Puk

[Ace McGirk]

Thanks everyone,I will check them all out as I get a chance.

[Redwolf]

What about IntelliCAD? Don't know mauch about it.

[goldpag]

I dont belive there are many programs out there with a drag and drop option, i have fairly extensive knowledge of Auto Cad and other drawing Aids but, you have stumped me..... But keep searchin....

That thing bout creating your own drag and drop options in Auto Cad sounds interesting were did you find it Whir?????? never seen it before???????????

[alligator_al]

I think Ace must be referring to the drag&drop facility of AutoCAD design centre (cmd: '_adcenter) from ACAD2000 onwards (inc. LT)

this lets you drag and drop blocks, styles, attributes, etc. from a side bar into the dwg window. Don't use it much myself but it must be good for repetitive modular drawing.

[caddmannq]

You don't absolutely need to create any tool buttons or bars at all. You may, however easily create any new putton you want, if the code, or LISP you want to run from it already exists. Buttons which just run keyboard macros, you may create on the fly. Look at the "Customize" option under "toolbars". If the buttons depend on code that's not loaded at startup, load it with "appload" & add it using the startup suite.

With the advent of AutoCAD2000, they adopted the multiple document intereface. You can just put all the standard symbols you want into one or more template drawing, then drag them right into your working drawing; either from the template itself, or from "design center."

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The thing that makes AutoCAD complicated is that it needs to be "set up" (customized) to do quickly what you do every day, and you need to hide the other 95% of the stuff you'll rarely need. Knowing which 5% you should keep depends on your particular needs. Getting decent plots demands a good amount of setup too. For this you need a consultant, or a whole lot of experience & study.

Once customized for a particular user's needs, it's much easier to use. But it's never been cheap & never will.

As far as Ace's Bro-in-law is concerned, what he needs depends on what he wants to create: schematics? working drawings? 3D drawings? intelligent 3D models? Schematics can be done with any cheap drawing program, but you'll have to find or create a library of symbols to use. Heck, you could do it with MS Paint.