5 ms·

AutoCAD is vast, recursive, and bloated. I really hope someone comes out with a lightweight version that does less, better.

chx 8y ago
Isn't that like people wishing for a more lightweight Excel not realizing the "80% of people only 20% of the features" is true but it's not the same 20%? Could you even come up with a financially viable lightweight enough Autocad competitor?
- pfranz 8y ago
  I've been perfectly happy using Google Sheets for 10+ years even though I'm sure it's no substitute for someone in finance. (I don't think CAD software has the same wide appeal, though)
- Jamerson 8y ago
  It would be a long shot. But until something changes, Autodesk is just going to keep layering tools, buttons, and menus on top of each other. It's such a rubber band ball now, they would have to start over to make something efficient. But there's no real competition, because even though it's incredibly cludgy, it will work if you learn it's labyrinth.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- Avshalom 8y ago
  I don't know if it's any cleaner internally but Dassault produces the free (2d focused) DraftSight which is very much on the level of like AutoCAD circa 2000, don't know what the paid version is like or how well it integrates with Solidworks.
- fsloth 8y ago
  "financially viable lightweight enough" That's the catch, I think. The market is not so large for 3D modeling tools. The second hurdle is the ridiculous amount of inertia DWG has in the AEC industry. Any solution that would topple Autocad would need to likely provide DWG and/or Revit interoperability to even have a shot at the market. There are no good options for Revit at the moment so, that's a deep vendor lock in. For DWG there is at least Teigha library from ODA which is based on reverse engineering the DWG format and offers reading and writing of it.
  - rurban 8y ago
    And there is the revived GPLv3 LibreDWG, which can read most DWG versions. And write support is pretty close. https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/libredwg/ https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/libredwg/
casylum 8y ago
BricsCAD is pretty popular. https://www.bricsys.com/en-us/bricscad/ https://www.bricsys.com/en-us/bricscad/
- Jamerson 8y ago
  Wow, $600.
  - zokier 8y ago
    For reference, AutoCAD base offering is a $2k/year subscription.
  - mickduprez 8y ago
    Bricscad has everything AutoCAD has and more such as mechanical design (Inventor like) and sheetmetal and full BIM for things like Architecture and all are still just .dwg! I have been developing on Bricscad for years and it is far faster with a much less buggy API as well. Bootup times smash AutoCADs :)
haberman 8y ago
What about SketchUp? I'm very new to 3d modeling, but I've been modeling my house over the last week or so in SketchUp and it seems pretty nice. Are 2d CAD and 3d modeling different kettles of fish?
- takk309 8y ago
  AutoCAD and Sketchup are very different. AutoCAD is vector based for starters. Zoom into a curve in Sketchup and you find that it is segmented. Solids in Sketchup are made up of triangles. In AutoCAD they can be actual solids.
- Jamerson 8y ago
  If you're making 2D things, like blueprints for a human to make something, SketchUp isn't as useful. I admit, I haven't tried it in a few years, but when I did before its fundamental purpose was almost polar opposite to my needs.
- Avshalom 8y ago
  I know there's plugins and I don't know what the pro version is like but for instance free Sketch Up doesn't even have the ability to draw an arc from three points and while it did have two points+tangent it made some internal and opaque decision on whether it would ever snap to that tangent.
- frankharv 8y ago
  Well AutoCAD has some tools for drawing 3D but their actual 3D program is called 3D-MAX. This is derived from the old 3D-Studio program that they bought from Kinnetix years ago. Funny thing is in the shop environment 3DMAX is not used. It is the bastard child of Autodesk. Solidworks is predominately used in machine shops these days.They have a SolidCAM that works well for generating G code for CNC usage. Autodesk also has a newer product called Revit. I have not used it.
  - fsloth 8y ago
    Autocad's main customer base is the AEC industry, while 3D-MAX is used in video game and visual production. Solidworks, on the other hand, is used for modeling mechanically detailed structures - like you would produce in a machine shop. Revit, on the other hand, is used for building information modeling. It's main domain is designing buildings. Except for Revit and Autocad, which are somewhat interchangeable within their users' domain, none of these products really serve each others core userbase well. Hence, they are not really comparable. It's like saying Word is a bit like Excel since you can compose tables of numbers in each. If you were to offer one to the core user of the other they would complain as much as if you were giving a steak for a vetenarian to cook.
LeoPanthera 8y ago
Someone taught me recently that if you type "<product> vs " into Google, all the suggested autocompletes will tell you what the competition is. It works amazingly well.
specialist 8y ago
The road to Sausalito is littered with the corpses of AutoCAD challengers. Generic CADD was pretty good. Bought and shut down. I also remember Visual CAD (which I don't think is the same Visual CAD a quick google search is turning up). I forget who bought them. There's a zillion others I no longer remember. Unbelievably, as bad as AutoCAD is/was, Bentley Systems' MicroStation was a hellspawn of turrible. I've never really understood how AutoCAD and Office maintained their dominance. Conventional wisdom is control the file format. There were so many efforts to open up DWG/DXF. But I don't know that interop ever mattered. I think it's just been inertia. Nothing since Generic CADD has been enough better to warrant the switchover costs.
- gosubpl 8y ago
  What about Intellicad (https://www.intellicad.org/ https://www.intellicad.org/ )? It seems to be pretty popular among engineers. It reads DWG/DXF (AutoCad format) pretty well. The software itself goes by various names, because Intellicad itself is a consortium. For a nominal fee, you get access to the codebase and can release your own version with your own brand. The thing is shared source, so as a consortium member you need to contribute your changes to the core back to the shared codebase. However this is closed-source.
  - specialist 8y ago
    Thanks. That looks bitchin. Will check it out. Looking at its stock UI, I'm reminded of one of my basic grievances with CADD of the AutoCAD model: I hate layers. When doing architectural plans, which layer does the electric water heater go onto? 'ELECT', 'PLUMB', or a special case 'ELECT-PLUMB'? Much better would be something set based. (Today we'd probably call them tags.) Instead of toggling visibility, views should be queries.
- fsloth 8y ago
  "MicroStation was a hellspawn" I think you mean is a hellspawn. I think they still have a solid foothold in some sectors.
  - 8y ago
pkaye 8y ago
Don't they have AutoCAD LT?
CamTin 8y ago
Recursive?
- zokier 8y ago
  Maybe a reference to AutoLISP? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AutoLISP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AutoLISP

chx 8y ago

Isn't that like people wishing for a more lightweight Excel not realizing the "80% of people only 20% of the features" is true but it's not the same 20%? Could you even come up with a financially viable lightweight enough Autocad competitor?

pfranz 8y ago
I've been perfectly happy using Google Sheets for 10+ years even though I'm sure it's no substitute for someone in finance. (I don't think CAD software has the same wide appeal, though)
Jamerson 8y ago
It would be a long shot. But until something changes, Autodesk is just going to keep layering tools, buttons, and menus on top of each other. It's such a rubber band ball now, they would have to start over to make something efficient. But there's no real competition, because even though it's incredibly cludgy, it will work if you learn it's labyrinth.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
Avshalom 8y ago
I don't know if it's any cleaner internally but Dassault produces the free (2d focused) DraftSight which is very much on the level of like AutoCAD circa 2000, don't know what the paid version is like or how well it integrates with Solidworks.
fsloth 8y ago
"financially viable lightweight enough" That's the catch, I think. The market is not so large for 3D modeling tools. The second hurdle is the ridiculous amount of inertia DWG has in the AEC industry. Any solution that would topple Autocad would need to likely provide DWG and/or Revit interoperability to even have a shot at the market. There are no good options for Revit at the moment so, that's a deep vendor lock in. For DWG there is at least Teigha library from ODA which is based on reverse engineering the DWG format and offers reading and writing of it.
- rurban 8y ago
  And there is the revived GPLv3 LibreDWG, which can read most DWG versions. And write support is pretty close. https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/libredwg/ https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/libredwg/

casylum 8y ago

BricsCAD is pretty popular. https://www.bricsys.com/en-us/bricscad/ https://www.bricsys.com/en-us/bricscad/

Jamerson 8y ago
Wow, $600.
- zokier 8y ago
  For reference, AutoCAD base offering is a $2k/year subscription.
- mickduprez 8y ago
  Bricscad has everything AutoCAD has and more such as mechanical design (Inventor like) and sheetmetal and full BIM for things like Architecture and all are still just .dwg! I have been developing on Bricscad for years and it is far faster with a much less buggy API as well. Bootup times smash AutoCADs :)

haberman 8y ago

What about SketchUp? I'm very new to 3d modeling, but I've been modeling my house over the last week or so in SketchUp and it seems pretty nice. Are 2d CAD and 3d modeling different kettles of fish?

takk309 8y ago
AutoCAD and Sketchup are very different. AutoCAD is vector based for starters. Zoom into a curve in Sketchup and you find that it is segmented. Solids in Sketchup are made up of triangles. In AutoCAD they can be actual solids.
Jamerson 8y ago
If you're making 2D things, like blueprints for a human to make something, SketchUp isn't as useful. I admit, I haven't tried it in a few years, but when I did before its fundamental purpose was almost polar opposite to my needs.
Avshalom 8y ago
I know there's plugins and I don't know what the pro version is like but for instance free Sketch Up doesn't even have the ability to draw an arc from three points and while it did have two points+tangent it made some internal and opaque decision on whether it would ever snap to that tangent.
frankharv 8y ago
Well AutoCAD has some tools for drawing 3D but their actual 3D program is called 3D-MAX. This is derived from the old 3D-Studio program that they bought from Kinnetix years ago. Funny thing is in the shop environment 3DMAX is not used. It is the bastard child of Autodesk. Solidworks is predominately used in machine shops these days.They have a SolidCAM that works well for generating G code for CNC usage. Autodesk also has a newer product called Revit. I have not used it.
- fsloth 8y ago
  Autocad's main customer base is the AEC industry, while 3D-MAX is used in video game and visual production. Solidworks, on the other hand, is used for modeling mechanically detailed structures - like you would produce in a machine shop. Revit, on the other hand, is used for building information modeling. It's main domain is designing buildings. Except for Revit and Autocad, which are somewhat interchangeable within their users' domain, none of these products really serve each others core userbase well. Hence, they are not really comparable. It's like saying Word is a bit like Excel since you can compose tables of numbers in each. If you were to offer one to the core user of the other they would complain as much as if you were giving a steak for a vetenarian to cook.

LeoPanthera 8y ago

Someone taught me recently that if you type "<product> vs " into Google, all the suggested autocompletes will tell you what the competition is. It works amazingly well.

specialist 8y ago

The road to Sausalito is littered with the corpses of AutoCAD challengers. Generic CADD was pretty good. Bought and shut down. I also remember Visual CAD (which I don't think is the same Visual CAD a quick google search is turning up). I forget who bought them. There's a zillion others I no longer remember. Unbelievably, as bad as AutoCAD is/was, Bentley Systems' MicroStation was a hellspawn of turrible. I've never really understood how AutoCAD and Office maintained their dominance. Conventional wisdom is control the file format. There were so many efforts to open up DWG/DXF. But I don't know that interop ever mattered. I think it's just been inertia. Nothing since Generic CADD has been enough better to warrant the switchover costs.

gosubpl 8y ago
What about Intellicad (https://www.intellicad.org/ https://www.intellicad.org/ )? It seems to be pretty popular among engineers. It reads DWG/DXF (AutoCad format) pretty well. The software itself goes by various names, because Intellicad itself is a consortium. For a nominal fee, you get access to the codebase and can release your own version with your own brand. The thing is shared source, so as a consortium member you need to contribute your changes to the core back to the shared codebase. However this is closed-source.
- specialist 8y ago
  Thanks. That looks bitchin. Will check it out. Looking at its stock UI, I'm reminded of one of my basic grievances with CADD of the AutoCAD model: I hate layers. When doing architectural plans, which layer does the electric water heater go onto? 'ELECT', 'PLUMB', or a special case 'ELECT-PLUMB'? Much better would be something set based. (Today we'd probably call them tags.) Instead of toggling visibility, views should be queries.
fsloth 8y ago
"MicroStation was a hellspawn" I think you mean is a hellspawn. I think they still have a solid foothold in some sectors.
- 8y ago

pkaye 8y ago

Don't they have AutoCAD LT?

CamTin 8y ago

Recursive?

zokier 8y ago
Maybe a reference to AutoLISP? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AutoLISP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AutoLISP