please post your #1, #2 and #3 choices for you favorite cad freeware/ software.
#1 AC3D
#2 delta cad
#3 3D Canvas
i advise people to try AC3D, it is a really easy user freindly program.
i made this in 5 min…
and…
oh ya, its ac3d.org
eMachineShop offers a free CAD program. I haven’t used it or tried it, but it looks quite functional from the demo and documentation.
Good job! I can feel for you. I asked for autocad for x-mas before I found out it is like an $800 program.
Total uni, I would reccomend this to you so you can check and see whether some of those crazy designs you some up with an actually be built.
I might also use it to design me some junk…
Re: Good 3D/2D CAD freeware/software?
That’s a strange definition of free you got. 
I just checked those three programs and only one of them has a free version. The other two are trials and are only free to try during the trial period.
AC3D costs money. But is reasonably priced.
Delta CAD costs money. But is reasonably priced.
3D Canvas has a free version. There are also a Plus and a Pro version available for a reasonable price.
Of the three, 3D Canvas is the only one that has has a free version. You’re going to have to adjust your definition of free.
I tried the eMachineShop CAD program today. It’s a nice simple CAD program. It’s easy to start using and functional enough to actually design some parts with.
It only does what it needs to. It’s not a full featured CAD program. It’s missing features like layers, dimensioning, arrays, and other useful features. But it does what it needs to and is simple to use. Really nifty for a free program.
FORT Freeware has a list of freeware CAD programs.
QCad looks interesting. They don’t have a free version for Windows. Linux and Mac OS X have a free version, but you have to download the source and compile it yourself. The Professional version (already compiled for you and ready to go) has a yearly license fee of $28. I’ll have to give the demo version a try and see if I like it. There is a FAQ that attempts to explain their licensing system. I’m not sure what happens at the end of 1 year of the Profesional version license. Does it stop working? I don’t know. It’s a confusing system they have.
CADVANCE version 6.5 is available for free. That’s pretty cool. It’s an old version from 1995 that was designed for Windows 3.1, but hey, it’s free. That was fancy CAD software back in 1995. Being designed for Windows 3.1 it may be a bit kludgy compared to more up to date software, but it should still work. I’m going to give it a try. You have to email the company to get a registration code.
I’ve been looking for a CAD program so I can sketch up some ideas I have. But I don’t want to pay $150 or more for it cause I don’t need the software that badly. I just want something functional for drawing out some ideas.
There’s three versions of Auto CAD available.
AutoSketch is their consumer oriented CAD program. It’s around $120 or $150. It has a different interface than Auto CAD and a more limited feature set.
Auto CAD LT is their lite version. It’s about $800. It’s basically Auto CAD without the 3D features.
Auto CAD is the full version and is way expensive. Multi-thousand dollar expensive.
