Bargain buys: 7 CAD packages to stretch the budget

CADalyst, Jan, 2005 by Ron LaFon

OVERVIEW

Feature rich and flexible, these moderately priced CAD applications can serve as either a primary design tool or as an economical alternative to adding another expensive CAD seat. These impressive design applications deliver a significant portion of the features normally associated with applications such as AutoCAD and are often adept at reading and writing the DWG file format and producing visualizations. In certain areas, these applications actually go beyond out-of-the-box AutoCAD. One of these applications may very well be appropriate for your needs.

We set two basic criteria for this roundup--CAD applications had to cost less than $600 and be significantly updated from the last time we reviewed them. As capable as these applications were when we looked at them last January (p. 16), these new versions offer many improvements and new features. This is definitely not a stagnant area for application developers, much to the benefit of end users.

With AutoCAD dominating the midrange CAD market, it's not surprising that many of these applications tout their AutoCAD compatibility. Not only are many incarnations of the the DWG file format supported, DXF support is readily available. Some applications here also support DWF. It's even possible to use some of these applications to modify a DWG file that originated in AutoCAD, then open the modified drawing in AutoCAD again. Many of the applications here offer compatibility with AutoCAD commands from the command line, customization via the same AutoLISP features supported by AutoCAD, and other features that allow them to fit comfortably into a work environment that uses AutoCAD. In addition, these same features make it much easier to move to AutoCAD should that be necessary, so there's not much effort wasted in training.

Rich Feature Sets

Whenever we cover inexpensive design applications in Cadalyst, the richness of the feature sets in these entry-level applications never ceases to amaze us. In addition to the CAD features considered standard requirements, some of these programs offer sophisticated capabilities such as OpenGL hardware acceleration, rendering, antialiasing, transparency, reflectance and ray tracing. Some also include fairly extensive symbol libraries, support for VBA customization and support for external reference files. These capabilities vary by application, so for a more detailed view of a particular application's capabilities, see the feature table starting on p. 24.

All told, these applications are remarkably capable, far beyond what you'd expect for such bargain prices. And the extra features make the low cost an even greater bargain. Most of these applications benefit from avid user support, with newsgroups and forums for sharing information and resources with one another.

The Future

Vendors continue to develop these products and regularly add new features and improvements, some of which are certainly based on user input. At least one of the vendors covered here was in the late stages of beta testing a major release. The level of development activity in this category is encouraging and should speak well to those interested in an economical solution to their design needs. New features such as freely distributable stand-alone DWF viewers and audio notekeeping systems appear in this roundup, along with support for the latest versions of the DWG file format.

We've noticed some degree of specialization in budget CAD applications, which traditionally tend to be all-purpose drawing programs. For example, a low-cost tool specifically for AEC design is now available. But all of these design tools are capable of a broad array of work, whether they're destined to become a primary design tool or an adjunct to other applications.

Though new versions of many familiar products are included here, a few are missing for one reason or another. Autodesk discontinued QuickCAD last year, electing to concentrate its development energies on AutoSketch.

Also missing are IMSI's TurboCAD products, TurboCAD Deluxe and TurboCAD Professional, because we did a stand-alone review of TurboCAD Professional in December 2004 (p. 34). We do, however, cover another very capable IMSI CAD application here--DesignCAD 3D MAX v15.

With software prices climbing industry-wide, we're considering a survey of moderately priced CAD software in a future issue. Several adept design applications are priced higher than our $600 cutoff, but still substantially below applications such as AutoCAD and SolidWorks.

There are many options for CAD applications these days, depending on the feature set you require and the price you can afford or justify.

AutoSketch 9

Autodesk

Price: $129

800.538.6401, 415.507.5000

www.autodesk.com

In addition to AutoCAD, Autodesk offers design applications ranging from the entry-level AutoSketch and AutoCAD LT to such higher-end applications as Autodesk Architectural Desktop and Inventor. Autodesk recently released AutoSketch 9, a new version with tools for creating professional-quality drawings.