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What's the most popular design tool?
toolaa:
--- Quote from: Crazy Cooter on August 13, 2005, 11:27:30 pm ---What's wrong with graph paper?
--- End quote ---
elvis:
I personally use QCad on Linux, primarily because it's free + open source (and I don't agree with pirating commercial software when it is available for legal sale).
I use to be the IT manager for a very large architecture firm so I've used almost every CAD and design package (both 2D and 3D) you can think of. Just before I left them they were trialling Skatchup 3D:
http://www.sketchup.com/
I have to say this is THE MOST intuitive 3D design package I've ever seen. It beats AutoDesk Viz and 3DSMax by a mile for design speed. It kicks AutoDesk Revit and Arcsoft ArchiCAD for ease of use and onscreen manipulation. And it slaughters AutoCAD, Microstation and any of the large CAD packages for intuitive interface and visualisation abilities. Even novice non-CAD users can pick this up and be designing complex things in no time.
Best of all, it comes with some fantastic training videos. They show you how to quickly build objects onscreen, and manipulate them easily to change your design on the fly. It has built in functions for swinging doors and moving parts, which makes those sorts of items easy to design, and more importantly you get instant visual feedback on whether or not it will fit into the object you are designing.
It's only downfall is its size. You simply cannot use this for 100-man design projects. This is a 1-man package, not a system designed for a large workgroup or project team. But for cabinet design or 1-man design/architecture/engineering offices, it's brilliant.
Check out the gallery page to see what it can do. They offer a trial download, as well as some simple training videos for free to get you started. Give it a whirl and see for yourself.
Here's a video (flash player required) showing just how quickly you can design complex things with this tool:
http://download.sketchup.com/downloads/training/tutorials50/movies/Mkt_B5-watch_me_first.html
It also shows of the slice-view tools included to get quick internal views of the items you are building.
Tahnok:
Personally, I designed by bartop with Visio. Bartops are quite a bit simpler than cocktails, but you could probably still pull it off.
And don't forget about CP Sketcher for the CP (www.CreditButton.net.tc) ;) .
Bones:
I don't have the drafting skills to design something down to the finest details. Everything I have done has been done in Illustrator and to quite basic plans and designs.
I did download a few CAD programs in the beginning but for somebody that hadn't used CAD software before the programs seemed a little intimidating.
In the big scheme of things, Illustrator for me was only fancy grid paper.
CJK:
I used VectorWorks 11 from Nemetschek to design mine. Fabulous program, and it comes in a version for the Mac, which is my preferred computing platform.
http://www.nemetschek.net/
-- Chris
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