alibre design starts at $99.00 Viacad starts at ~$100. victor ----- Original Message ----- From: "M. Adam Davis" To: "Microcontroller discussion list - Public." Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2010 2:22 PM Subject: Re: [TECH] Drawing tool (aka CAD) for doing product drawings and schematics. Have you considered google sketchup? It's free for the regular version, and does shading, etc. Perhaps not ideal, but it's easy enough to work with, and may meet your needs. -Adam On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 4:51 PM, Forrest W Christian wrote: > I'm again trying to get to the point of being able to produce some > decent product drawings for manuals and the like.... > > I'd really like to be able to import/use the 2D/3D cad drawings > available from most of my suppliers in either .dwg, .dxf or .pdf to > produce a 'real' line or possibly 3d-shaded drawings of the products, > and then be able to show wiring options. > > Of course, I'd love to just buy a copy of soldworks, but I have a hard > time justifying the estimated $4K price tag for the product. So I'm > looking for something not nearly as expensive. I'm ok with spending > money on the right tool for the job, assuming it will really work for > me. I've downloaded and tried several, but they all seem to come with > their own set of issues, and not nearly enough functionality and/or ease > of use to make them worthwhile. > > So, my question is, what tools should I be looking at to do these type > of product diagrams? > > -forrest > > > -- > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > -- http://chiphacker.com/ - EE Q&A site -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist