# Drawing package for Macs



## Davidadew (23 Jan 2010)

I design my furniture items on paper so I get the design as I want it, that is fine. I'm looking for CAD software that enables me to produce a plan (not necessarily in 3D) of front / top / side - but I use Macs (only) so it needs to be Mac compatible.

I have Sketchup but would like to evaluate others too so I can get a broad sense of what is out there.

I don't mind spending a little money on the package now, but want something that I can upgrade later in life if I need it.

Does any one have any suggestions? 

My furniture items are not massive and would include bowls etc. so ability to create curves and details on the items is important to me.


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## Chris Knight (23 Jan 2010)

David,

An injury enforced layoff from physical activity gave me an opportunity to look at all sorts of drawing software for the Mac, I think I trialled pretty much everything out there that offered demo versions. I am mainly interested in 3D but also wanted the ability to produce good 2D stuff and in my trawl, I paid no attention to price - at this stage just interested in how things worked.

I also tried a goodly few that were windows programs running in a virtual machine using Parallels.

To cut a long story short, I came back to Sketchup as my primary tool but invested in the Pro version mainly to have Layout for drawings but also the ability to export files to some of the 3D things I had tried. Of the others, the only Mac program that stayed for any length of time on my machine was ViaCad and its big brother SharkFX

I liked these for their solid modelling capabilities, their auto 2D drawing abilities and the fact that particularly ViaCad is reasonably inexpensive. The learning curve wasn't too bad either. 

I was tempted by Vectorworks for a while but the price was more than I was prepared to pay and it had a distinctly dated feel to it.

I assessed support in the various user forums for many programs and came to the conclusion that whilst a large user base was generally a good thing, it wasn't always a reliable indicator of the quality of support.

Although all the Windows progams I tried worked fine under Parallels, I much prefer working in a native Mac environment but I was tempted by Alibre. It feels like Solidworks which I used in the past for one or two big projects and liked at the time but at a price I could contemplate - unlike Solidworks.

I came back to Sketchup mainly for the following reasons:-

1. It could do anything I needed and a lot more besides (casual users generally don't realise the power under the hood).
2. It is updated regularly and given Google's investment in it, I really don't see it disappearing or falling behind.
3. It has one of the best user support groups.
4. It is easier to be productive in it than any of the other things I tried.
5. It provided a more natural path to rendered scenes than some of the other things through its handling of materials, scenes and lighting.

Finally, either Sketchup or ViaCad can support your desire for details on bowls etc.


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## Davidadew (6 Feb 2010)

Many thanks for that, that has been really helpful - I've been trying out various things and think that I will work with Sketchup for now - your comments were really helpful and sorry for not responding sooner, been really busy here.

Interestingly, I started looking into this more due to injury too,.


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## CNC Paul (6 Feb 2010)

David,

this might be if interest to you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR6EeEvaQ8o


Or you could try this http://www.woodturnerpro.com/software/index.html


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