CAD Software Forum

Hi,
I just thought I would introduce my self here and tell you what my intentions are for this forum.

My name is Michael Smyth, amongst other things I own a small business called The Drafting Shop (www.thedraftingshop.com) based in Ireland. We specialise in Mech/Elec and Architectural Drafting.

What I propse to use this forum for is as follows:

1 - To pass on tips on how to get up and running
2 - To inform users of utilities that are available and will make their dailiy office life a little easier
3 - Well I havent thought of a third thing, but I will.

Basically I hope to inform you of free/cheap software, tutorials that are available on the net, cover cd's and so on.

So to get the ball rolling, here are 2 for you all.

On this months Computer Shopping Magazine, Turbocad 4 Professional is available for free. Why am i telling you this? Simple, because Turbocad 4 opens a huge amount of different file formats including Microstation DGN files and allows them to be saved as DXF/DWG. If the magazine is not available in your area, check out www.computershopper.co.uk

Secondly, check out http://www.jwgraphics.com.au/ and download Cad Publisher for free. You can translate DXF files into a wide variety of file formats that are used in Desktop publishing.

Thats all for now,
Regards,



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Michael John Smyth
Irish / UK Representative
Efnet Autodesk Users Group
www.eaug.org

My friend, thank you very much for the links...

Hello Michael et al.:

Just registered this evening and was happy to read your introduction and learn of your intentions.

As we speak, I am downloading my first CAD. I am a programmer - not an engineer -- do you think that programmers can learn quickly?

Where can I go to get info regarding the programming environments (addins) for CAD. I am looking for more than just a listing of the addins, I am looking for a discussiojn of how they work together.

Looking forward to replies,
dp

Hi Delores, welcome aboard. Well where to start, if you are interested in programming for CAD, take a look at the VBA pages of this forum, there are some excellent tutorials by John Finlay there on using Visual Basic with Intellicad.

Dare I say it, if you pop over to www.cadopia.com and check out there forum, there are some really good lisp tutorials over there.

For a little more VB info, check out http://www.vbdesign.net/activecad/

Back to Lisp, just do a search for lisp tutorials and you will find loads on the web. To find out a little bt more on what Lisp is, check out http://www.elwood.com/alu/table/contents.htm

I hope that helps you a bit. Oh and as for whether priogrammers can learn CAD, well I know some fine CAD guys who can programme so I cannot see why given a bit of patience why you cannot learn CAD.

If you check out my site at www.thedraftingshop.com you will find some tutorials on Intellicad.

Regards,



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Michael John Smyth
Irish / UK Representative
Efnet Autodesk Users Group
www.eaug.org