What is your choice of CAD program?

[Rledoux313]

I’m not familiar with what a virtual machine is or how to set it up. I am pretty inexperienced with computers and troubleshooting issues. So if I could keep it as simple as possible I think that would be best

[Laurentic]

Paul - thanks for the heads up (reply#27) on LibreCad.  Have downloaded it and trying it out. Seems quite comprehensive a package, more so than TC, but progress on a drawing is far slower at the moment due to having to learn a different way of doing things, and figure out why some commands work quite differently than expected, and how to fix the unexpected.  So yes, it does work on a Mac, yes it is free too (huge plus for someone with short arms and deep pockets), but I suspect it works better on Windows , perhaps?

Chris 

[PaulR]

Paul - thanks for the heads up (reply#27) on LibreCad.  Have downloaded it and trying it out. Seems quite comprehensive a package, more so than TC, but progress on a drawing is far slower at the moment due to having to learn a different way of doing things, and figure out why some commands work quite differently than expected, and how to fix the unexpected.  So yes, it does work on a Mac, yes it is free too (huge plus for someone with short arms and deep pockets), but I suspect it works better on Windows , perhaps?

Chris 

Cheers Chris, glad you spotted the suggestion. LibreCAD is a development of the community edition of QCAD. I think there's still a free version of QCAD which also runs on Mac. I tried it some years ago but found LibreCAD easier. I don't know about the Windows versions, I haven't used that OS for many years.

At the end of the day it depends what you want your CAD program to do; I only require simple 2D so LibreCAD does the job (it has an isometric view but I've never used it). If you want free alternatives for 3D you could try FreeCAD or SolveSpace which are both cross-platform, or the online 'OnShape'.

Good luck!

[Laurentic]

Quite happy to be restricted to just 2D Paul, I'm too old to undergo getting my head around 3D, although I have looked at FreeCad and SolveSpace, which I quite liked!

Chris

[Dave Otto]

Does LiebreCAD have the ability to open and save DXF files?  Sometimes a basic 2D CAD program is pretty handy. I used to use AutoCAD 2000  years ago but it won't install on the newer operating systems anymore. Dassault Systems the Solid Works people, came out with a 2D program called DraftSight that was pretty much a carbon copy of the AutoCAD interface, and it was free. Then after they got a pretty large installed base they started charging for it, and it was more than I wanted to spend for occasional use.

Dave 

[PaulR]

Does LiebreCAD have the ability to open and save DXF files?

It does, that's the default format. I don't know offhand how consistent it is as far as imports go as I've only looked at a few drawings created by others but they seemed ok.

[Gauge3]

Does LiebreCAD have the ability to open and save DXF files?  Sometimes a basic 2D CAD program is pretty handy. I used to use AutoCAD 2000  years ago but it won't install on the newer operating systems anymore. Dassault Systems the Solid Works people, came out with a 2D program called DraftSight that was pretty much a carbon copy of the AutoCAD interface, and it was free. Then after they got a pretty large installed base they started charging for it, and it was more than I wanted to spend for occasional use.

Dave

Dave, as I mentioned in my earlier post, Solid Edge CE has an exellent 2D CAD system built into it - with the advantage that the UI for 2D sketching is pretty much the same as that for it's 3D sketching, so Solid Edge offers a very gentle path from 2D to 3D if you require it. I've moved much of my TurboCAD 2D across to SE-CE '2D' now (via DXF files) and they open perfectly. If I wish to create a 'new' 2D drawing, then i simply open a new Solid Edge CE 'draft' document. I then have all the 2D features I had in TurboCAD (and a lot more).

I'm currently running SE-CE on both Win 11 & Win 10 (Home Editions). It's free to download.

Regards.