design software

[Mark Stewart]

Hi there I am looking for some simple design software. The cheaper the better. Free would be great. I have never played with this stuff before so I need to start simple. Looking to design a few small projects as well as some room layout stuff.
Thanks
Mark

 

[ehpoole]

If your primary criteria is "free" software then you should probably check out Google SketchUp, a free CAD application. There are more full-featured CAD alternatives as well as a paid commercial version of SketchUp, but they will set you back a good deal more than SketchUp and SketchUp is more than adequate for most woodworking purposes.

We have a dedicated forum on NCWW specifically for questions and support of CAD questions. Dave Richards is our resident SketchUp expert. I can't offer support beyond this recommendation as I am a longtime TurboCAD Pro user, so I am not familiar with SketchUp in any great detail.

 

[Dave Richards]

FWIW, it hasn't been "Google" SketchUp for several years.

SketchUp would be a good option to consider. You can use it to do everything from concept drawings to detail construction drawings if you wish. If you need to show your designs to others to get approval, you can make perspective views that most anyone can understand and make whatever technical drawings you need from the same file.

Here are some samples of things I've drawn.

This was done as one of a number of proposal sketches for a client.


A simple overview with dimensions.


Exploded view of a sideboard designed by Steve Latta. I created two different complete sets of plans for this project. One is a PDF download and the other is printed on 36" x 48" paper. Both are fully dimensions with all the joinery shown and the larger one included full size patterns for templates.

 

[Bill Clemmons]

Mark, a lot of us on here use SketchUp for project design. As Dave and Ethan pointed out, there is a free version of SketchUp 2014. Just do a search for it.

There are some pretty good tutorials that come w/ the download, as well as numerous other online help. There are also several CDs available specifically for woodworking applications.

Dave (above) is the SketchUp expert for Fine Woodworking mag. and has been extremely helpful to those of us who are considerably less proficient than he is.

 

[Michael Mathews]

Also, if you're looking for a 2d program like autocad, there is a free version of DraftSight by Dassault Systems. It's very similar to AutoCad and uses very similar keystrokes and menu layout.
Michael

 

[dave]

Also, there are some really nice plugins for Sketchup. Wudworx and Cutlist are two that I use. Some are free and others are payware, but usually have reasonable prices.