I use Inkscape for drawing things like this (in my case, laser cutter paths) a lot (almost daily), and it's great. There are a few things I spent a long time learning that aren't immediately apparent, however: 1. Inkscape reports the size of objects by their bounding box, *including their line width.* That means that if you draw a square 10mm to an edge with a line thickness of 1mm, Inkscape is going to tell you that square's dimensions are greater than 10mm. Don't let this fool you. I use a very thin line to offset that. 2. Likewise, alignments other than center to center will include line widths. 3. The Align/Distribute and Transform tools are super helpful; look for them at the bottom of the "Objects" menu. At some point, you're going to want shortcut keys for various alignments- I'll save you some time by telling you there's no way inside of Inkscape to do that. 4. Also very helpful are the "Snap" tools, in a bar on the right hand side of the default window. You can snap to midpoints, centers, nodes, and some other things. 5. Finally, explore the operations under the "Paths" menu for combining simpler shapes into more complex ones. Remember, Inkscape is for artists, not engineers, so there are some obvious things it could do to be better at drafting that it just doesn't. Mike On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 8:16 PM, IVP wrote: > Hi all, > > I'm looking at getting some components 3D printed, and the printer > (the person) has suggested the simplest way to get what I want is to > send him .svg drawings, rather than me going through the learning > curve of a 3D program to create .obj files, which he feels are not > necessary for these particular components, as they are really just > 2D with some depth, ie they have the same profile all the way down > > I see there are quite a few free .svg drawing utilities available, can > anyone suggest a "good" one ? > > TIA > > Joe > > > ----- > No virus found in this message. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 2014.0.4744 / Virus Database: 3986/7995 - Release Date: 08/06/14 > > -- > http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > --=20 http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .