talmage@bu-it.bu.edu (David Talmage) (02/01/89)
In <6078@louie.udel.EDU> I asked for people's opinions of the various
inexpensive CAD packages for the Amiga. A couple of people were kind
enough to reply. Here's the summary and my conclusions.
I wanted something to draw kite patterns and print them out full sized. I
wanted to be able to change the scale of the drawing at will, to see a
scale ruler, the coordinates of my mouse, and to be able to group pieces of
a drawing together to be treated as a single object. I also wanted to be
able to print over paper perforations.
I asked for opinions on Modeler 3D, IntroCAD, Logic Works, Draw, Draw Plus,
and mCAD (from Fish Disk 74).
In <6078@louie.udel.EDU>, buita!jwcote@blake.acs.washington.edu (Jim Cote)
gave his initial impressions about IntroCAD. He said that it'll probably
do what I want it to do.
In <6078@louie.udel.EDU>, buita!harvard!ames!well!shf (Stuart H. Ferguson),
the author of Modeler 3D told me about his product. He said it is intended
for use with a 3D rendering package but that it would do most of the things
I asked. There are no printing abilities built-in but it can save drawings
in Draw+ format. He also said that it uses SI (metric) units only. Many
of my patterns are in English units but I could adapt, I guess.
Stuart said he found mCAD v1.2.4 simplistic and I agree with him. I got a
copy from my local dealer (Soft Designs in Belmont, MA) and played around,
drawing a simple unit sled in a few minutes. I don't recall any way to
specify the units I use and it doesn't do some simple things like SAVE
AS... or OPEN. mCAD speaks HPGL when it plots. I don't recall what format
it saves things in.
Since my posting, I've found some flaws in all of the MAC drafting packages
I've tried. MacDraft prints things too big. Canvas does too and resizing
anything is not intuitive; things grow too big or too small when I zoom in
or out and lines don't stay where I put them. I think I had the same
problem with MacDraw.
I thank Jim and Stuart for their help. My next task is to visit the local
dealers for a test drive and test print. I'll probably bring my room
mate's Imagewriter II along to be sure the printing is the right size on
our hardware.
David Talmage
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David W. Talmage ...!{buita,bbn}!lti!talmage
Language Technology, Inc. talmage%lti.uucp@bu-it.bu.edu
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