Re: CAD Question

Hi Charlie,

Intellicad is quite good, I downloaded it last week. It doesn't seem to do
all the 3D stuff that Autocad 14 does but it should be enough for your
needs. What you seem to be wanting is actually all there fi only you could
find it! Almost all decent CAD systems let you open mulitiple windows on
one screen and you can assign each of them to a different view. One of the
easiest programs to use in this respect is Rhino Cad. The older demo could
be 'hacked' to let you use it indefinitely but they have 'adjusted' things
on the current demo so that you can no longer do this! ;o( Rhino is also
good at doing 3D work - much easier than Autocad and it renders images
better too. When you have your CAD program showing multiple windows,
whatever you do in one window will show in each of the others. Having a 3D
view or isometric on the screen as well as the top, front and side views is
really useful as you can see just what you are doing if you are working in
3D. This is because when you use 'snaps' (the main tool in most CAD work) in
3D but looking only at 'flat views', it is easy to get the cursor to
mistakenly snap to say, the back corner of a box rather than the front.

Joining a course is a good idea but you may find it a bit slow. There really
is no substitute for sitting at the computer and trying to solve a problem
yourself - popping backwards and forwards from the help files as necessary.
This way the info seems to stick better.

Ian
--
Ian W. Wright
Sheffield UK

----- Original Message -----
From: Charles Gallo <Charlie@...>
> Steve,
> ACK - 13 meg download, plus 5 meg for the manual! I think I'll
> wait till Monday when my ADSL line gets installed
>
> DesignCAD is nice, but it just doesn't do things the way I want. I've
> actually thought of signing up at the local CC in an autocad course to get
> the student discount!