Forum Diagrams

[John Valdes]

I see many well designed drawings on this forum. Are these CAD or another program or programs?
Since I do not have a fax machine here at home, can anyone point me to an inexpensive program to draw out diagrams.

Any help would be much appreciated.....John

 

[coulter]

I bought turbocad about three years ago - $100 -useless.

Next was Autocad LT two years ago - $600 - still using it. Works great.

I've seen Visio and have had people recommend it, but haven't used it - don't know the price.

JAO - Free programs are worth less than you paid. If you consider your time worth anything at all, way less.

carl

 

[George Stolz]

I recently downloaded Google Sketchup for my PC, I'm starting to get used to it. I haven't posted any pictures with it on the forum yet.

It's very 3-D based, yet pretty easy to use, and free. I haven't had much need for anything beyond 2-D for most of my drawings, however. It did come in handy for drawing out a couple fence posts, to measure. I stink at math, so drawing what I was going to do and using the included tape measure was pretty handy.

All the pictures I've drawn and posted online have been made on my 8-year-old iMac, with Appleworks 6.

 

[John Valdes]

George, Thanks for the link. I also do not need 3D or 2D but I do need FREE. I will only use it for electrical drawings. Schematics and physical wiring diagrams. I do not plan to use photos. Will the Google program work in this capacity?

Thanks.....John

 

[360Youth]

Paintshop on Windows works great. I have used it for a lot of things. Unfortunately, mine has quit working and I don't know why.

 

[John Valdes]

I am running Windows Vista. I do not have paintshop on my PC. I will Google it. Thanks 360Youth.

 

[LarryFine]

I usually use MS Word, such as I used here:

 

[360Youth]

I am running Windows Vista. I do not have paintshop on my PC. I will Google it. Thanks 360Youth.

Actually called "mspaint." Sorry. It is typically part of the "Accessories" menu. Mine just freezes for about a year now. But I have done room designs and logos with that program.

 

[Smart $]

Since I do not have a fax machine here at home, can anyone point me to an inexpensive program to draw out diagrams.

Just curious... exactly what does not having fax machine got to do with wanting a drawing/drafting program?

 

[peter]

Mr. Coulter:
You said, "I bought turbocad about three years ago - $100 -useless."
I have TurboCAD Designer and like it very much. The only problem is it does not save to GIF or JPG.
Why would you say it is useless? What is the matter with it?
~Peter

 

[MAK]

I have turbo Cad and I think it works ok. I do not know how to use all of the features in it yet ( do not have to do drawings that much) but I thought it was a good value for around $55.

 

[360Youth]

I recently downloaded Google Sketchup for my PC, I'm starting to get used to it. I haven't posted any pictures with it on the forum yet.

It's very 3-D based, yet pretty easy to use, and free. I haven't had much need for anything beyond 2-D for most of my drawings, however. It did come in handy for drawing out a couple fence posts, to measure. I stink at math, so drawing what I was going to do and using the included tape measure was pretty handy.

All the pictures I've drawn and posted online have been made on my 8-year-old iMac, with Appleworks 6.

Very cool. Tough to get used to. Going from 2-D to 3-D is a hard transition.

 

[cadpoint]

Mr. Coulter:
You said, "I bought turbocad about three years ago - $100 -useless."
I have TurboCAD Designer and like it very much. The only problem is it does not save to GIF or JPG.
Why would you say it is useless? What is the matter with it?
~Peter

Well, OK, I don't understand, why aren't you writing the File Extension in
as you, File, or save as, IE sketch.jpg. Is it a case that if you did the file doesn't work in that format when you go to use it in another program?
Does this program even have any type of file conversion? Try http://filext.com/

 

[coulter]

Mr. Coulter:
I have TurboCAD Designer and like it very much. ...Why would you say it is useless? ...

"Useless" was a poor choice of words. "Far more difficult to get it to do what I wanted that I was willing to work at." - is a better description.

I don't use a CAD progtam for 8.5 x 11 sketches. I use templates, mechanical pencil, triangles. I don't have a scanner, so I use my kids $50 digital camera. Works great and far faster than any CAD program. So, a limited function program isn't much use to me.

I don't really have any use for 3D so a full blown ACAD isn't cost effective.

As for TC, I was having trouble getting the scaling to come out right, especially the text and having trouble with line weights, had to do with switching between World and Paper space. The book was not helping. I called TC's help desk, and he suggested for a mere $225 they would upgrade me to the "PROFESSIONAL" version. (Truly, I don't remember the price.) I politely declined,

TC is pretty low on my list of desireable software. I'd say YMV (your mileage varied)

carl

 

[cadpoint]

Using an Arch scale for a minute say on has a length of 30’
And you want it 1 /8” to scale.
at 1/ 8 “ = C / 30’ = 3.75’ (30 / 8)

In the Computer world: (and with my drafting software)
The desired plot/printer area must be used by knowing the Printable
limits of your printer/Plotter.
Draft an 11 X 8.5, inside the area draw the other printable area
Usually 10.5 x 8.2, and originate correct to the individual printer.
You can delete this second shape later but draft your picture inside this area.
One has to remember once the Sheet and printable area is in
One needs to scale both up by 4, by 2, by twenty for the following to work:
For 1/8” Text to any Scale Use:
A/B = C/D

Arch Scale Text Size Input This Size Text
1 /4” = 1 /8” = .03125 [/ 4]' (.125 / 4”)
1/ 2” = 1/ 8” = .0625 [/ 2]” (.125 / 2”)

Civil Scale Text Size Input This Size Text

1 /30” = 1 /8” = .2667” (8/30”)

One is forcing the text Scale into the desired output drawing scale.

I believe this application work for World measurement, which I believe
Is a representation of real lengths? Inches are inches. And as he said your mileage will very.
Photo pictures get into focal length with I don’t know of…
But I believe if you considered these applications you can get your
text the correct size. Enjoy

| Edit: dropped any personal references
| This is for you people that get a inexpensive CAD / Layout software and have a desire to get
| correct font sizing OR gain an understanding of sizing and to draw with in the boundry of a pages workable
| space. The bottom line is that its a simple math problems and apply accordingly. I will state that I've
| written this several times and Lost the Link / Paste in trying to post ... I'm so Bummed about that
| I don't even know why I try ...

 

[coulter]

...But I believe if you considered these applications you can get your
text the correct size. ...

Thank you for the math lesson, but I can usually get the scale right when I am using a pencil and straight edge.

... I believe this application work for World measurement, which I believe
Is a representation of real lengths? Inches are inches. And as he said your mileage will very....

Yes, that sounds great. My preference for ACAD has to do with setting the scale for world space and having the text heights translated, and when switching to paper space the dimensions are, well, paper sized.

...Photo pictures get into focal length with I don?t know of?

I do. As I said works great. If it becomes an issue, I'll get a scanner. I have not had anybody come back an say my 8.5 x 11 were not understandable. At work, I can give the work to a drafter and get back a beautiful file, a work of art, in a half a day. If I do it myself, sketched, scanned, transmitted, it takes an hour. I doubt I will ever be convinced to use a cad plant for sketches.

Oh, I hear the screams, "But it's not professional looking." I don't know about that. I don't recall a customer complaining about getting a pdf of a scanned pencil sketch with all of the required information and not having to pay for 4 hours of drafter's time.

Of course I'm no longer considered a professional concerning the drafting. I was during the 80s up through the mid-90s. Now they won't let me touch any of the software at work. Probably why I started buying my own for home.

As for TC, I did not see any point in having software I had to fight to get it to do what I wanted. And then their help desk convinced me they they did not want me donating them any more money.

carl

 

[Smart $]

...I have TurboCAD Designer and like it very much. The only problem is it does not save to GIF or JPG.
...

The pro version of TurboCAD has save to jpg, and as of version 12, I believe, save to gif. I don't use either though?I haven't tried a gif export and the export to jpg leaves a bit to be desired IMO.

To get either type of image file for screen display?such as viewing in a browser?I adjust my on screen view to what I want and copy to clipboard via the Print Screen key. From there I paste into my favorite image editor, crop, and export to the desired image format. An alternative is to use an screen image capture utility such as SnagIt by Techsmith. For a high res image, I print to pdf then extract the image from the pdf file.

 

[Smart $]

Using an Arch scale for a minute say on has a length of 30?
And you want it 1 /8? to scale.
at 1/ 8 ? = C / 30? = 3.75? (30 / 8)

Umm... that should be 3.75" (inches), not 3.75' (feet). A scale 1/8" = 1' is a ratio of 1:96.

30' ? 1:96 = .3125'
.3125' ? 12"/ft = 3.75"​

In the Computer world: (and with my drafting software)
The desired plot/printer area must be used by knowing the Printable
limits of your printer/Plotter.
Draft an 11 X 8.5, inside the area draw the other printable area
Usually 10.5 x 8.2, and originate correct to the individual printer.
You can delete this second shape later but draft your picture inside this area.

That is fine if you draw and print from the same "space", but in CAD apps that offer Model space and Layout space (which is the same as TurboCAD's World and Paper spaces, respectively), the proper setup is to leave both space at full scale (1:1) and scale the viewports?for those that don't know, a viewport is a Modelspace-linked-view object that is placed in Layout space, where changes to the "model" are automatically reflected in the viewport. Many do not subscribe to this preferred arrangement because they learned AutoCAD before it had this capability.

With the setup mentioned above, one draws elements in Modelspace at there true-to-life size, then place a viewport of this drawing in Layout view. The viewport is set to the desired print scale, or the scale is adjusted so it fits on the "virtual" sheet and within borders, or the drawing may be broken into several sections for large projects and a key map furnished on each "layout". This method of setup allows setting various scales of the drawing, or parts thereof, for wide entities such as property lines to small items such as engineering details... and this can all take place within one drawing file (even though several to many drawings files may be externally referenced, i.e xref'd).

One has to remember once the Sheet and printable area is in
One needs to scale both up by 4, by 2, by twenty for the following to work:
For 1/8? Text to any Scale Use:
A/B = C/D

Arch Scale Text Size Input This Size Text
1 /4? = 1 /8? = .03125 [/ 4]' (.125 / 4?)
1/ 2? = 1/ 8? = .0625 [/ 2]? (.125 / 2?)

Civil Scale Text Size Input This Size Text

1 /30? = 1 /8? = .2667? (8/30?)

One is forcing the text Scale into the desired output drawing scale.

I'm quite knowledgeable in this area, and I find your explanation/math/text-formatting quite confusing.

If one draws at full scale, you simply multiply the desired after-scaled text size by the reciprocal ratio of the scale. For instance...

Print scale 1" = 50'
1":50' = 1":600" or simply 1:600
600:1 ? 1/8" = 75" or 6' 3"

Print scale 1/4" = 1'
1/4":1' = 1":4' = 1":48" or 1:48
48:1 ? 1/8" = 6"​

 

[Smart $]

My preference for ACAD has to do with setting the scale for world space and having the text heights translated, and when switching to paper space the dimensions are, well, paper sized.

TurboCAD has a Dimension Scale in Dimension Properties where you can enter the reciprocal of the scale ratio... but it does not have such an option for plain text?one of TC's cons.

However, ACAD does have the same problem, but it is not as prominently evident. As you say, when you set a drawing scale in Modelspace the text size is automatically translated. However, when placing viewports in Layout that are not the same scale as one set for Model space, one still has to scale the text in Modelspace for it to appear the correct size in the viewport. Of course this only happens if one uses the Model and Layout spaces with various-scale viewports of the same "model" (...and when annotations are in Model space).

Annotation is not required to be in the same "space". A drawing in Model space can be placed in Layout via a viewport and annotated there. Of course dimensioning will only be accurate on "true-view" objects (this mostly concerns 3D views and skewed-to-view dimension parameters).

...As for TC, I did not see any point in having software I had to fight to get it to do what I wanted. And then their help desk convinced me they they did not want me donating them any more money.

Most full-fledged CAD applications have a high learning curve. Some have a high learning curve even if one does have experience with another CAD app'.

For those attempting to learn TurboCAD, I recommend participating in it's online forum. You will find it to be an invaluable resource in the learning process.

 

[dbuckley]

There are two distinct times when one needs some sort of "drawing program", and it is not necessarily the case that the same tool is appropriate for both.

The really big question is: does the thing I'm about to draw require dimensions? If so, you need a package that can deal with dimensions and scaling. Just about everything with 'cad' in its name will do this, as will Visio, which is my preference for this type of work (yeah, its not really cad, but its close enough much of the time, and less of a fight than most proper cad packages).

The other time is when you don't need dimensions, and Larry illustrated that earlier in the thread: you just need something thats easy to get a result, and for me that means PowerPoint.