Free CAD Software

[LukeHuff]

Anyone know where to download it at? I've been looking but have had no luck.

[dezertrat82]

What cad program are you looking for? Autocad or solidworks?

[rharriman]

Free But not so Great Software. (http://www.emachineshop.com/machine-shop/Download-Free-CAD-Software/page17.html)

No Promises here either (http://www.freecad.com/):)

But both are free. I would recommend student versions of solidworks, inventor, solid edge or alibre but most free software is well free and sometimes not so gerat.:D

[CRAIG_HALL]

You can get part of Solid Edge free. They offer the 2-d drafting part free from their site. Their 2-d is way beyond any 2-D autocad or similiar 2-D program.

[LukeHuff]

i would prefer 3-d and any name is fine. Just want something to mess around on.

[LukeHuff]

oh yeah sorry i need one for an apple computer

[rharriman]

oh yeah sorry i need one for an apple computer

Ouch:(

That will limit your choices, unless you emulate windows and that might even cause you more problems. I will hit up our IT guy he is a Mac/Apple fan.

When You say Apple, you do mean Mac, right?

[knucklehead]

if you are able to find a program that works for you, make sure your computer is up to the task of solid modeling. make sure you are over the system requirements. ive used solid works on computers that just met or barely exceeded the requirements and it was absolutly terrible. very very jumpy.

[Kritter]

Mac's arent for engineers...at least design engineers anyhow so you are sorta screwed when it comes to engineering software let alone free. I wanted a mac but it is useless for any kind of design software wether it be modeling software, matlab, labview, etc...

[rharriman]

Mac's arent for engineers...at least design engineers anyhow so you are sorta screwed when it comes to engineering software let alone free. I wanted a mac but it is useless for any kind of design software wether it be modeling software, matlab, labview, etc...

LOL, I was gonna say the same but didn't want to be to discouraging.

As for Knuckleheads comments he is right but if you can find a CAD application for a Mac it will most likely work well all software for Macs usually works well and with the grahics pipeline and all 64 bit software it would actually be ideal for design just no one uses it for it. Go Figure.

[LukeHuff]

i have an old windowa laptop that runs on vista. its like a 03-04 that will run it right?

[rharriman]

i have an old windowa laptop that runs on vista. its like a 03-04 that will run it right?

"Old" and "Vista" throws up some questions for me. :confused:

Vista has alot of issues with older computer hardware and drivers but if its running well for you now, I guess its gonna be OK. As for the software running on it, it all depends on your expectations. 3D programs are usually graphics heavy, meaning if you have or can upgrade to a good video card it would be beneficial. If you want to model an entire chassis and go all "DUMP" (:D Reference (http://www.race-dezert.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31417)) on us then you better step up and buy a better computer. If you are only going to model single parts and small assemblies you can probably get by with what you got.

Hope this helps.

[Young&Fast]

Hey, this is: 3-D, Free, For a Mac, and it absolutely sucks. :D
http://sketchup.google.com/

[jesusgatos]

I run SolidWorks on my Macbook Pro. The graphics don't render as well as on my PC, but I don't have any problems running it.

[wideopen93]

I run SolidWorks on my Macbook Pro. The graphics don't render as well as on my PC, but I don't have any problems running it.

How are you running SolidWorks? Or how were you since this is about 2 years later :rolleyes: But anyways, are you running it on another partition?

[jesusgatos]

Had one of the older Intel MacBook Pro computers and was running SolidWorks through bootcamp. But recently got a new laptop, so now am running SolidWorks 2010 on a 15" MacBook Pro with a 2.6 GHz I7 processor and and 4 GB of ram using Parallels 6 and Win7 (64-bit).

[wideopen93]

Had one of the older Intel MacBook Pro computers and was running SolidWorks through bootcamp. But recently got a new laptop, so now am running SolidWorks 2010 on a 15" MacBook Pro with a 2.6 GHz I7 processor and and 4 GB of ram using Parallels 6 and Win7 (64-bit).

Wow! I never even knew something like that existed, thats awesome! Does Parallels work pretty well?? I think I am going to look into getting that!

[jesusgatos]

It's OK. It was actually more stable before I migrated to this new laptop and installed some software updates. Been meaning to wipe it out and do a fresh install, and this time I think I'll start with a basic bootcamp install, with Win7, SolidWorks, Bendtech Pro, etc. Then I guess you're supposed to be able to install parallels using the bootcamp files/partition. Or something like that. I'd just like to have SW installed with parallels so that I can open SW to check files, dimensions, make presentations, etc. without re-booting. But when I'm actually doing CAD work, I think I'm going to start using bootcamp. Seems kinda silly to have a blazing fast computer that seems more mediocre (when using SW/parallels), and there's supposedly a way that you can do a double-install without having to physically install everything on your laptop twice (taking up 2x as much space).