AUTOCAD DRAFTING SOFTWARE VS. OTHER DRAFTING SOFTWARE Will you be drawing in 2D or 3D? FreeCAD is another free CAD program that provides a parametric approach that is easier for beginners to grasp. It can be used to create a wide range of 3D and 2D drawing projects like floor plans, mechanical engineering plans, and product designs. It is also open-source, so it is always growing and becoming more powerful. What will your drawings be used to create? Solidworks is a program for creating drawings for 3D printing and manufacturing. It uses a parametric approach to creating drawings and is very much an STL output-centered tool. However, it is not very adept at importing and modifying STL files generated by other programs. BlocksCAD is mostly used for educational purposes and is considered a very intuitive and user-friendly tool for beginners. It uses a building block method similar to using LEGO bricks, which most of us will take to very easily. Will your drawings be industry-specific? Creo is used to design engines and create drawings that illustrate moving parts. Its use of structural, motion, thermal, and freestyle surface generation make it very useful in designing automobiles and other types of vehicles with moving parts. AutoCAD can also be used for these purposes as well as architecture and engineering, but you would have to possess the knowledge to create the algorithms necessary to create these types of drawings. Instead, REVIT is another tool offered by AUTODESK that is designed to be the company's flagship architectural product. It can be used in architecture and civil engineering to create scaled 3D drawings of structures and buildings. Do you need to access your drawings from anywhere? OnShape is one of the most powerful 3D drawing software tools on the market as of the writing of this post. It is also completely free and cloud-based. You can use it to collaborate with other teammates in the cloud from your phone, tablet, or any modern web browser. It is also becoming very popular among professionals and would not be a waste of time to learn at all. Fusion 360 is another cloud-based program. Its strongest feature is its version control system that allows you to save different versions of your drawings and then revert to a prior version completely or just merge features from previous versions into your current drawing. |