I'm looking at building a structure to house an indoor baseball field(not fullsized) and possibly two basketball courts. Is there any free software out there that will let me do some design work and change dimensions to help me make some decisions?
Thanks, Bruce
I don't know about using it for engineering decisions, but for planning a design, working out what goes where, Sketchup might fit your needs.
I have used ArchiCAD as well as (currently) AutoDesk's Revit. LOTS of tutorials available online.
Sketchup is apparently quite good, but I detest using it. Or it detests me. One or the other.
Shetchup is ok but 3d modeling looks kind of cartoonish. But free is the operative word here.
I vastly prefer AutoCAD but you could buy 6 Miata project cars for what my license cost.
Draftsight
FreeCAD is well, free. SketchUp is awesome and has a low learning curve but it's hard to make it behave like solid modeling.
Revit is Free.
http://students.autodesk.com
I teach Drafting. I like free.
I have not really looked at it but TinkerCAD may be good enough for what you are doing and I believe that it is free as well
dean1484 wrote: Shetchup is ok but 3d modeling looks kind of cartoonish. But free is the operative word here. I vastly prefer AutoCAD but you could buy 6 Miata project cars for what my license cost.
I was not even aware that AutoCad still existed in the era of Solidworks, Pro Engineer and Catia. Last time I used AutoCad was 2002 and it was pretty much etch-a-sketch compared to the competition.
If you just need to doodle some building plans, there are dedicated programs that will do most of the heavy lifting for you and are under $100. Just go to Business Depot or wherever you buy software.
ProDarwin wrote: Draftsight
+1 on Draftsight. It's a FREE version of AutoCAD. We use it to maintain our Legacy AutoCAD data after we migrated to SolidWorks 3D. It has all the 2D functionality you could want. NOT 3D.
Sorry I left this thread hanging. I wanted to say thanks to everyone that replied. I went into a full-on, head down focus as we were putting our business plan together for a business consultation. I ended up using Microsoft Visio since I had it on my machine at work for drawing schematics and block diagrams. Elegant it isn't but I've gotten pretty good at it. I'll definitely check out some of the options you guys have listed since I'd like my drawings to have more detail. These two have been good enough for the business plan thus far. Meeting the steel building guy on Friday
IndyJoe wrote:ProDarwin wrote: Draftsight+1 on Draftsight. It's a FREE version of AutoCAD. We use it to maintain our Legacy AutoCAD data after we migrated to SolidWorks 3D. It has all the 2D functionality you could want. NOT 3D.
I've used draftsight to design sheet-metal cutouts, first CAD I ever did. It's basically trial software though. If you want 3D CAD, try FreeCAD, it's FOSS.
I do want to say that you are designing a berking HUGE building and it is not going to be cheap or easy to construct.
SketchUp excels at quick, easy visualization modeling, and there are a million free downloads of objects you can use to add scale and realism. The trick with SketchUp is to make most of your parts into Groups or Components, because those don't stick together like the regular geometry does.
There is a free CAD-ish type building software that also estimates costs. The upside is that you can plug in a bunch of dimensions and poof you have a 3D building. The downside is that it is a free software put out by a building manufacturer, so it only has their options. I have used it several times and really liked it. Its a slam-dunk, no engineering, already up to universal building codes, etc.
No affiliation, no canoe, its just what I use a lot of times to estimate garages that I'll never be able to afford.
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