Erik Reuter wrote:
>
> On Sat, Feb 16, 2002 at 02:37:27PM -0600, The Fool wrote:
>
> > From: Erik Reuter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> > It's not about, what I or You can do, but what the CAD software can
> > do, which puts AutoCAD out of "QCad's" league. More specifically it's
> > about what these $150k+ engineers and designers need for their work.
>
> In other words, you haven't used QCad and are just talking. By the way,
> I am an engineer and designer, and I use CAD software for my job. And as
> I said, I can use QCad to do everything I need to do.
>From this I gather a) you don't need to do 3D, and b) you don't need to
use someone else's .dwg files.
> It is worthwhile to ask what is the purpose of this discussion? My
> purpose was to point out to anyone who was interested that there are
> alternatives to Windows and the frustrating problems that Rob is
> having. Also, it sounds like you are interested in arguing something
> much more esoteric than I wanted to discuss. I stated that
>
> "But for home productivity use, linux can do 99% of what you can do
> with Windows, and it does it much better in most cases."
>
> It sounds to me that you are arguing with the "much better" part of my
> statement. But you are talking about an esoteric example that most home
> productivity users aren't interested in. If you want a better example
> than AutoCAD, then I suggest you look at SolidWorks or Pro/E. These are
> 3D CAD and modeling packages for which there is not a good alternative
> on Linux that I know of (and I've looked, SolidWorks in particular is
> a great program which I would like to use at home, but I can't justify
> the expense). These programs cost many thousands of dollars and do not
> qualify as "home productivity".
If you want to change a file generated in AutoCAD, the only good way to
do it is with AutoCAD. If you're an engineer taking your work home, you
might very well want AutoCAD on your home system.
If you're wanting to do stuff that's a lot more basic than tasks you
need an expensive CAD package for, you're probably OK with the freeware
stuff.
Now, AFAIK, the only CAD program we've ever had in our house has been
AutoCAD. (It's possible that there's been a system with CadKey on it at
some point, but I couldn't tell you for sure one way or the other.)
AutoCAD made it easy for Dan to set down his house design, let me see
it, let me offer suggestions, let the ARCHITECT see just what he was
talking about (he didn't quite get it after the face-to-face discussion
where stuff was sketched out with pen on paper), and gave the architect
a really good starting point. We were also able to save time in getting
feedback back to the architect, since he'd e-mail us the .dwg file with
the latest modifications and we'd go over that when we had time, instead
of having to drive the 25 minutes out to the builder's office to meet
with the architect once a week or so. There's nothing like being able
to hack extra phone jacks into the plan at 8:30PM on a Thursday, for the
architect to see Friday morning. (So I'd recommend that if you're
having a custom house built and are comfortable with CAD in general,
that you break down and buy the software the architect uses to make it
easier on yourself in the planning stage. Sure, it's bucks, but I think
it would be worth the $3K not to have the headaches that we avoided.)
Julia
