Re: CAD Question

Charles Gallo wrote:

> From: Charles Gallo <Charlie@...>
>
> OK,
> We've spent a LOT of time talking about CNC, a tad on EDM, a bit
> on CAM,
> but now, how about a CAD question.
>
> For years, I've played with CAD. YEARS ago I tried CADKEY (Lets talk
> 286
> era here), and I played with Autocad back at a job many years ago (Rev
> 7 if
> I remember right), but at home, on my very limited budget, I've mostly
>
> played with DesignCad. The thing is, I keep going back to pencil and
> paper, because I don't like how the CAD systems work! I don't know if
> I'm
> missing a feature somewhere, or what but...
>
> What I want to do is what is really 2d CAD, sort of. I want to be
> able to
> do the classic 3 view drawing. Most of the CAD programs have a way to
> hide
> hidden lines - I don't want to hide them, I want them shown, AS HIDDEN
>
> LINES. I want center lines shown in side views of holes, I want the
> center
> x shown on the end view of a hole. When I draw a feature on the front
>
> view, I want the system to interpret this as best as it can to the
> side and
> top views, and then when I draw a line that matches up on the side (or
> top)
> view, I want it to understand what I did, and match it up, and fix up
> the
> third view. Heck, it would be nice if the system showed construction
> lines
> to help you draw the extra views, just like you do with paper and
> pencil. It would also be nice that once you have all three views
> done, the
> system would be able to give you a 3d view, like and isometric!
>
> Is there anything out there like this?

Gee, it sounds like you are describing Bobcad! Now, many of the things
you ask for are not totally automatic, but it will do many of these
things
with a few keystrokes. Now, actually Bobcad doesn't quite work the
way you describe, about making 3 drawings and keeping track of the
3-D structure, and updating the other views. I think there was a CAD
package years ago that worked this way, and it turned out not to be a
good idea.

Jon