Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Tool Box: Google SketchUp, a Condiment for Design

After graduating, my student version of AutoCAD expired, and I suffered from some bouts of computer design withdrawal.  Thankfully, Google stepped in with a patch for my predicament.  It's Google SketchUp--a free*, downloadable CAD (computer aided design) program.  It doesn't have a lot of the features that you may be used to if you use AutoCAD, but for about $4,000 in savings, I can do without them.  SketchUp is a very user friendly application with great tutorials and an extensive library of pre-drawn components.

*Make sure that you download the regular version, not the pro version.

2 comments:

  1. SU is not a (real) CAD system but a 3D modeler for making 3D sketches fast and easy.

    Prof. shop drawings, which AC is mainly made for, cannot be done.

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  2. Thanks for your feedback Anonymous! You're right, SketchUp isn't capable of doing many of the things that AutoCAD can. But, for the weekend DIYer, (or the recent graduate without $4,000 dollars to drop on a professional system) it is a great, user friendly resource. At $0, it's just in my price range!

    Thanks again!

    Faith

    P.S. If it makes you feel any better, I do still pine for AutoCAD from time to time. Press that offset button a couple times in my honor will ya'?

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