Apple software

singh

For those wallies with a Mac.
What type of CAD programs are you using for
drawing floor plans,maybe some loops and basic pipe/boiler drawings.
I'm looking for something that is easy to use, almost as easy as
graph paper and pencil, and inexpensive.
I don't need any 3D or a large palette of tools,that may never be used.
Simplicity is what I'm looking for.
Has anyone used Intaglio or CADintosh?

Constantin

I do more piping, electrical diagrams than room layouts...

For that, I have found ConceptDraw from Odessa to be a good tool.

Man with a question

CAD

I use Vectorworks, which is a full-blown CAD program-maybe not the easiest to learn from scratch, but truly excellent and MAC native

Unfortunately, for loop drawing it is necessary to export to LoopCad, then export your results back to Vectorworks.

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Kyle Kubs - Benchmark Home Inspections

Vectorworks

I've used vectorworks for years. As the previous post say's it's an extensive program but a lot easier to learn than Autocad. Even more so if you only want to do a few things... If what your looking to do is simple (not 3D) you can suffice with an older version that will be a lot cheaper. Also while it is Mac native, it's also cross platform.

Mac's rule PC's drool

Kyle Kubs
Benchmark Home Inspections

bob_44

Cadintosh

is written by Thorsten Lemke. I just bought GraphicConverter from him so far I like it, still learning however. Constantin turned me on to him. You can download a free trial at www.lemkesoft.com. I'ts only $33.00 for the program. I was thinking of trying it, but I think you and Constantin should try it first and tell me how hard it is:) bob

Unknown

How well does that work back-and-forth between the two? We just moved into PowerCADD but I'm thinking I may end doing VPC/LoopCAD for my tubing drawings (once I check it out and decide I like it), however I am nervous about the portability.

Any big hangups in Vectorworks in that respect?

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Man with a question

Vectorworks

It works fine, but it is a little bit of a pain to manage.

It depends on how the original floorplan was created. If it was autocad you can import it directly into loopcad and create your loops, when finished you export the drawing as a dwg file into vectorworks. Then you do whatever you would like. It sure looks great on my own template with the heat loss calcs and other engineering in a table next to the floorplan.

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Man with a question

By the way,

Love you project on the "find a professional" page. Those are just the kind of projects we do, only it's a bit simpler because it never freezes here.

Have you ever used evacuated tube solar collectors? Might be great for your climate.

Regards,

Jacob

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Unknown

small but STRONG MAC !!!

Use PowerCADD

Emulate everything elce. Look at this.

http://www.engsw.com/Drawings/Siegenthaler/Siegenthaler.html

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

rb_6

Software

I've rode the AutoCad program since the early days...have demo'd a number of others. Wednesday I tried out the Visio program - I was able to create an icon/symbol library and build up this mock system in about 4 hours (46 kb .jpeg). The best and worst had to do with the menu graphics…it was easy to use but some standard Microsoft symbols strayed from the norm and the zoom in/out features is frustrating in comparison to other programs. Other than that it’s import/export features are nice as are its intuitive line extensions. 4/5 on the graphics, 3/5 on the drafting and 5/5 on the file import/export.

Unknown

Yes, we did another combo solar/radiant further north using evacuated tube collectors. Actually the project we have up for "find a professional" and the only one on our website at the moment isn't a very good example of how we like to tie in solar... quik trak isn't a great choice for it here, but it's the only thing we could use in that installation.

We'll have to get the other one up sometime, thinslab, thinfin U and lightweight sandwich on the second floor. Lot more niftiness in the controls too!

Thanks for the compliment, btw.

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Constantin

Nice graphic... wrong platform.

Robert, I believe the request was for Macintosh CAD software. AutoCAD abandoned the Mac back in the OS 8-9 days, Visio (I believe) was never on the Mac.

I agree that VISIO is a great package - on the PC. For Mac users, there are other options, as outlined above.

rb_6

You're right

I remember in 84 we started out with the Apple IIe and then did the Mac thing until the early 90's...switching over to PC. Most days I think about switching back to Mac...then do a mental inventory of the dollars invested in PC software...the trap of all traps.

Dale Pickard

I swing both ways

I have a nice Mac G5 and an HP Pentium machine on my desk. Dual monitors and a KVM switch that switches the monitors, keyboard and Mouse between the two machines. Both machines are on our network and share file almost seamlessly between application in the two environments. I do CAD and some specialized engineering apps on the Windoze side and everything else on the Mac. I try to keep the Windoze machine off the internet so that it doesn't bring home any weird diseases.

Knowing what can be done with Microstation or AutoCad on the makes me very biased towards those two programs for any professional drafter or designer. There is a reason they are used so much.

A program like Microstation (uStn) is one that one could learn for the rest of one's life. There is a depth to the application that I can't even adequately express compared with other very shallow apps on both platforms. uStn has a heritage that goes back to mid '60's (just like me). Defense projects, power plants, hiway systems. The newest version will open files created that long ago.
It's a little stodgy but has it's interface has been made current with other software advances. The learning curve is a little steep, but in the same sense that it takes a while to get used to driving a Formula I car if you are used to VW's. An amazing piece of software. They too dropped the Mac about 8 years ago. uStn is fully compatible with ACAD, there is no "translating" involved, uStn can open and edit files in dwg or native dgn format. CAD doesn't get any realer than uStn. www.bentley.com

On the Mac side, PowerCadd, I think is the more useful software. For simple 2d and perspective drawing. It uses a real floating point engine and you can design with no loss of accuracy. Others like Vectorworks but I never liked it. I use Illustrator on the Mac for drawing. It will open dwg (ACAD) files and the vector engine works at the same precision and gives me access to all the wonderful stuff that can be done with PostScript on the Mac.

About LoopCad...it's very impressive and I think very useful for a lot of radiant work for those who don't do drafting or CAD. But if you do drafting, I don't see the use for it. I think that you screw around more importing and exporting and scaling and losing precision etc. and lose track of good design. Screwing around more with how you are doing it and less with what you are doing......it was always my problem with manual drafting...I need cad to draw a straight line.

Once you learn how to create and modify the tube loops in your CAD package, the need to automate it becomes less important. There are other ways to automate as with symbol libraries or making use of the language built into many CAD packages to create one's own auto draw algorithims.

Look at the Tube Loop drawing I attached. uStn allows me to create independent "views" (similar to viewports in ACAD) Each of these views could be rotated to the differnt angles in the floor plan. There are places here where the same room had two different angles. uStn lets me move the cursor from a grid set on one view to the grid set on another view rotated to another angle, and draw on the fly, seamlessly as I go from one view to the other.

You can see how I arranged the zoning and balanced the loop lengths and placed the manifolds. I also located and counted all the return bends and ThermoFin U used in the layout. I don't know if I want to play John Henry to LoopCad but I don't know how smart loopcad is at hydronic design.

Visio.....I suppose it has it's place...doesn't really qualify as CAD in a drafting sense does it? More symbol manipulation, useful for like interior design, or maybe landscape design. Microsoft bought it from the original authors. They must have screwed it up by now. You know, give it an "office assistant" and maybe open up a few doors for the viruses to get in. ;-)

Windoze XP....what can you say? It works. I use it as big file cabinet. It is stable and fast. Crude though.
Mac OS X....WOW! what a great OS! It networks seamlessly with Windoze. I was able to create this PDF in uStn on the PC and drag and drop it into a number of applications on the Mac as well as attach it directly to this post.
Apple has had some ups and downs but they are on a roll right now.

Dale

singh

Thank You to all responses.
Powercadd looks promising.
I will always love my mac ,eventhough finding good software for it
can be difficult. Especially for the plumbing/heating industry.
Virtual PC is always an optiion though,my heat loss program runs fine,but can be slow .