Looking to upgrade to a CAD program. Anyone have a recommendation?

Tyson,

There are quite a few options out there for cad programs and this forum has had more than a few discussions on the topic. If your looking for 3D, Sketchup is very intuitive and they have a lot of tutorials to help get up to speed. If your looking for just 2D, AutoCad is an industry standard and they offer a lower cost LT version. If you go the AutoCad route, I'd suggest taking a class to learn it.

alpha cam

Alphacan is great for the CAM end of things, but not so hot on the CAD end. What type of things will you want to be doing in CAD?

Tyson,

What are you upgrading from?

What are you looking for the upgraded software to do? (Drawing, Presentation, Cut List, CNC)

Hi all,
this is what i do with the Autocad portion of cabinet vision. Extremely easy to work with literally will take a few hours to learn. I do not use their program at all for making cabinets never have we just do everything by hand even the cultists.

Click the link below to download the file included with this post.

ROBIN_LIBRARY_FINAL_4.pdf

I recently learned about an alternative to AutoCAD called Bricscad. I downloaded a trial version and the look and feel are almost exactly like AutoCAD. The cost is about 60% LESS than AutoCAD.
Is anyone else using Bricscad?

Take a look at AutoCAD LT. Less costly than full AutoCAD with a few less features. But I have found it does everything I need for Millwork and Casework. Also, note it can output files that can be used by most CNC software.

'I recently learned about an alternative to AutoCAD called Bricscad'...Briscad doesn't have some features that ACAD employs, for one, I couldn't use my dynamic blocks in the trial version and asked a BC tech about it. His response was despairing...

That's a bummer Donald.

Sure there are things it won't do. Yet, the list of things that I am told it does far surpasses vanilla ACAD. That it can be run parametrically like Inventor or Solidworks, through python code, unfold metal, on different OS's, and much, much more.

quick search turned this up. I don't know if will help. Very blurry, but informative.

Thank you David, I watched the Brics parametric block creation video, it was very good and just so you know I do want to trade out the old ACAD program for Brics. I don't like the cloud based anything (old school)! The point I wanted to make is not all ACAD functions work in Brics, but the cost trade off may be worth it anyway. But, if a client that is ACAD based can't use your drawings, your going to really hear about it.

Bricscad says you can port your old Autocad plug-in application to run on Bricscad without changing any code. So the question on my mind is: would it run Smartlister? And if so would there be an appetite for updating SL to 64 bit? What a combo that would be..

https://www.bricsys.com/en-eu/applications/developers/