Average Customer Review:
 ( 4 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 found the following review helpful:
 Edgar in VirginiaJun 23, 2007
By Edgar S. Young
"Edgar in Virginia"
I have been with DesignCAD for many, many years starting with them when they were the American Small Business Company out of Austin, Texas. Over that span of time, I have produced more drawings using DesignCAD than I can count. I started with them when they were DOS based, where I first learned 2D and 3D before the mouse - the commands were keyboard "shortcuts" and arrow keys alone. Try 3D in DOS sometime if you want bewildering frustration. Since the advent of Windows and that nice little mouse, I draw almost exclusively in 3D. DesignCAD is compatible with AutoCAD and SketchUp (tryout SketchUp's free express version at [...].- you'll like it, but it can be a bit difficult to grasp for a beginner). I owned and used AutoCAD in the past, but I would always return to DesignCAD to start the drawing in 3D and then export it to AutoCAD for the purpose of using AutoCAD's enhancements. My 3D drawings always start in DesignCAD. In short, I am very familiar with this program, and, in my way of thinking, it is the perhaps the finest 2D/3D CAD program in existence - a full five stars.
Unfortunately, version 17 is two stars because it has a few too many continuing issues that need fixing.
With DesignCAD, you can just sit down in front of your screen and start drawing. If you are new to CAD, you may want to have DesignCAD setup each drawing for you. When you press /, the New File Wizard should appear. If not, press "Q" (without the quotation marks) and then click on the tab entitled "View". Scroll down and check "Show New File Wizard". Now, every time you start a new drawing, the wizard appears and steps you through the setup one . . . two . . . three. Piece of cake. Then, for example, (1) Press "V" to start a line. Then left-click the mouse to set a point anywhere on the screen. (2) press ":" and you're given a small screen so you can enter how long you want the line in American Standard (inches, feet, etc.) or Metric units (mm, cm) depending on your settings - go to /. (3) Then enter the direction in degrees the line is to go - X (right or left), Y (up or down), or Z (3D depth). (4) Hit and there's your line accurately drawn to length in the plane of your choice. (5) Select zoom (Fit to Windows) to bring the line to full screen, and you're off and running. Use the right mouse button to snap instantly to the end of a line, or press "K" to snap anywhere "on" a line. From there, you have a full list of commands including circles, arcs, arrays, planes and solids with a full set of dimensioning tools and layers together with a host of editing tools. They make it easy for you, if you start by using one simple basic command at a time. As a result, you can begin drawing a 2D or 3D product fast and accurately.
At the time of this writing, because of the lingering issues with version 17, you might consider a more reliable version - perhaps version 16. Unfortunately, I have had to remove this version from my computer and put an older version back on. Version 17 is simply unreliable. It's too bad, because prior versions of DesignCAD have really been quite good.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
 Don't PurchaseNov 05, 2007
By Vincent L. Young
I took Edgar Young's advice and specifically ordered version 16. Instead the shipper sent me v. 17...never replied to any of my E-Mails
..In short this was the worst experience with Amazon that I've had.
I've used design CAD v. 13 for years. After two weeks of frustration with v.17, I too had to go back to v.13...v.17's response to inputs is
highly unpredictable and unreliable!!!! e.g. many times you are completely locked out of the Z-Axis, unable to correctly position your part in 3-D space....parts show up deformed and placed seemingly randomly miles from where they should be....and on and on.
I'm quite sure the vendor is pawning off v.17 to people that request v.16 just to unload a useless product!!!!!!!!!!
Advice...Demand in writing that you want v. 16 or earlier!!!
Vince Young
St. Petersburg, Fl.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 "Easy-to-use" is easy to say.....Oct 22, 2007
By JavaBen
"JavaBen"
My opinion!
They market this product as 'Easy-to-use'. That's easy to say.
If it was easy-to-use, I would expect it would come with a tutorial, or a getting-started, or something like that. Instead, it's like trying to learn to write a book from using a dictionary.
If it's easy-to-use, why would the training disk, sold separately on a CD, cost almost as much as the actual software? That must be a lot of training! Hah!
Avoid this softwareAug 07, 2008
By K. Nili
Crashes all time. Most features won't work right. I give this software 0. Total waste of money and you better off use paper and pencil to draw
|
based on 4 reviews
