Mac Design Software Options

[Andrew Seemann]

Hi folks,

I looked through the archives, but didn't see anything recent on this. I'm going to break down and try to learn how to do furniture design on the computer. I have a small fleet of Macs, and no desire to pick up a Windows machine. What do other folks in the Mac world use for design?

I'm not interested in using the free SketchUp Make from 2017; the thought of 4 year old unsupported software isn't appealing, and I don't know that it would even run on my M1 Mac. The more promising ones I have seen so far are potentially SketchUp Shop and MacDraft PE. Right now I am just doing hobbyist work, so I don't need to worry about commercial licenses yet.

Thanks!

[Matthew Hills]

I still like pencil and paper for most work.
I use keynote for some project planning (cutlists, collecting photos, etc.)

Matt

[Kevin Jenness]

Rhino 3D https://www.rhino3d.com/en/sales/north-america/United_States/

[Doug Dawson]

I looked through the archives, but didn't see anything recent on this. I'm going to break down and try to learn how to do furniture design on the computer.
Why? With all due respect to the people who are wizards of CAD, they took years to master it, and even Frank Gehry does his visualizations with cardboard and glue. It strikes me that trying to design an attractive piece of furniture with CAD is like trying to construct an attractive face out of Legos.

[Bradley Gray]

I use drafting tools to get 2 or 3 views then scan the drawings into Photoshop on my macs to clean up, resize, combine views, add lettering, do perspective...

If I need more elaborate 3D I make a model, load a picture into Photoshop and convert to a drawing.

454182

[Ken Krawford]

Don't rule out Windows just because you have a Mac. I have a couple of programs that just don't have a Mac equivalent. I run them on my Mac using VMWare Fusion Player. There's a free version for personal use and it works very well. You do need a copy of Windows to install along with VMWare

[Jim Becker]

Why? With all due respect to the people who are wizards of CAD, they took years to master it, and even Frank Gehry does his visualizations with cardboard and glue. It strikes me that trying to design an attractive piece of furniture with CAD is like trying to construct an attractive face out of Legos.
OTOH, designing virtually provides the opportunity to experiment and refine before committing to hard material. There will always be things that get enhanced once the build starts, but for many of us, working out the project on the screen is a healthy visualization process.

OP, there are many applications available that are good to consider. Rhino, Fusion360, FreeCAD, etc. Unlike in the "old days", MacOS is well supported. However, don't expect native on M1 for many quite yet. Even the "big dogs" like Adobe are just starting to get there. However, the Intel emulation is reportedly pretty good in the meantime. Be sure you confirm with a software vendor (and test with any available free trials) that the application works on M1 currently.

[ChrisA Edwards]

I'm in the process of learning Fusion 360 on my MacBook Pro. I did buy an external monitor and mouse to make this process a little easier.

There are lots of good Youtube tutorials


This is a good one for woodworkers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IWAt-dfYeg&t=875s

This one was good also
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJLVbv0uuOQ

This tutorial is aimed more at 3D printing design, but I think the concepts of learning how to work inside of F360 are good. Every keystroke and mouse click is explained.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5tp4QXciK4

[Ed Mitchell]

Why? With all due respect to the people who are wizards of CAD, they took years to master it, and even Frank Gehry does his visualizations with cardboard and glue. It strikes me that trying to design an attractive piece of furniture with CAD is like trying to construct an attractive face out of Legos.

I don't think it has to be an either/or situation....both is best. Fusion360 (or etc) to try multiple designs with potentially radical changes or hundreds of incremental changes faster than would otherwise be possible, and then once a design is settled on, it's time for full-size mockups from plywood or hardboard or etc.

[Joe Jensen]

Fusion 360 and Sketchup are both cloud (web) based and both work equally well on MAC or PC. A mouse is a must and a large monitor helps a ton. I am a fan of sketching. I am personally very good at visualizing what something will look like in 3D from 2D sketches (Called spatial reasoning). My wife is not. I used to only use a computer drawing program to play with proportions. I now do some stuff with sketchup and some with Fusion 360. I have never built anything from a blueprint or drawings so I don't try to use the design SW for that.

[Richard Coers]

Why? With all due respect to the people who are wizards of CAD, they took years to master it, and even Frank Gehry does his visualizations with cardboard and glue. It strikes me that trying to design an attractive piece of furniture with CAD is like trying to construct an attractive face out of Legos.
For one thing you can download a program that lets you print out files directly on your printer. That gives you incredibly fast 1 to 1 templates. https://woodgears.ca/bigprint/
Also, try hand drawing a headboard with a 120" radius by hand. Nearly anyone can get going with a month of learning, you don't have to be a master before you use it. With your theory, no one should start woodworking because it takes years to master that. I learned CAD and operation of a 5'x10'x3' Z axis CNC and felt comfortable after 2 months.

[johnny means]

Why? With all due respect to the people who are wizards of CAD, they took years to master it, and even Frank Gehry does his visualizations with cardboard and glue. It strikes me that trying to design an attractive piece of furniture with CAD is like trying to construct an attractive face out of Legos.
I'd say that a good rendering is a better representation than anything that can be done with cardboard and glue.

[roger wiegand]

EasyDraw is Mac native and seems to be pretty good as a 2D design program.

Parallels or Fusion give you a real Windoze environment on your mac with all the attendant problems native to Windows. They both work very well in terms of giving you a Windows machine to use on Mac hardware. You do have to buy Windows in addition to Parallels or Fusion, so a cheap PC might be cheaper albeit less powerful.

[ChrisA Edwards]

Parallels or Fusion give you a real Windoze environment on your mac with all the attendant problems native to Windows. They both work very well in terms of giving you a Windows machine to use on Mac hardware. You do have to buy Windows in addition to Parallels or Fusion, so a cheap PC might be cheaper albeit less powerful.

Not really sure what you mean by this, Fusion does not run under a simulated Windows environment on the Mac.

Fusion 360 is still free to the hobbyist and runs natively on IOS. It does use cloud storage for your projects, so internet access is required.

So if you have a Mac, internet access and are deemed hobbyist, you have no further expense in using F360.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

I have Chief Architect for CAD of buildings and site plans predominantly and use it a lot. It will also work down to the furniture level if you want to. I've tried it and Sketchup a few times for that sort of thing but decided it was silly. In my experience I can design in my mind a lot faster than on a computer. Problem comes when you need someone else to visualize, ie a home design. On a piece of furniture with only you needing to visualize, I personally don't see the time invested on a CAD design as having any use.

[roger wiegand]

Not really sure what you mean by this, Fusion does not run under a simulated Windows environment on the Mac.

Fusion 360 is still free to the hobbyist and runs natively on IOS. It does use cloud storage for your projects, so internet access is required.

So if you have a Mac, internet access and are deemed hobbyist, you have no further expense in using F360.


I think we're talking different Fusions? I was referring to VMWare Fusion, the Parallels competitor. Not a graphics program.

[Jim Becker]

I think we're talking different Fusions? I was referring to VMWare Fusion, the Parallels competitor. Not a graphics program.

Fusion360 is a CAD/CAM program from Autodesk. It doesn't need Parallels or VMWare Fusion to operate on MacOS. Neither of the virtualization solutions are yet up to speed for supporting the M1 chips in the latest Macs (it's an Apple produced ARM processor that's replacing Intel/x86 processors going forward) anyway.

[Andrew Seemann]

Hi all,

Thanks for the info, I will need to check out some of those programs. In my specific situation, it would be helpful to be able to do some design work on the computer. I normally have most of the design worked out in my head before I draft things out on paper, but I can see some advantages to being able to manipulate the design on the computer. Also one of my main sources of mistakes in woodworking is messing up the dimensions on the drawings; while I am good at geometry, my basic addition and subtraction skills leave something to be desired:)

[Tony Latham]

Hi folks,

I looked through the archives, but didn't see anything recent on this. I'm going to break down and try to learn how to do furniture design on the computer. I have a small fleet of Macs, and no desire to pick up a Windows machine. What do other folks in the Mac world use for design?

I'm not interested in using the free SketchUp Make from 2017; the thought of 4 year old unsupported software isn't appealing, and I don't know that it would even run on my M1 Mac. The more promising ones I have seen so far are potentially SketchUp Shop and MacDraft PE. Right now I am just doing hobbyist work, so I don't need to worry about commercial licenses yet.

Thanks!

Just for the record, Sketchup 2017 works fine on my MacBook M1.

T

[Peter Kelly]

The freebie version of Fusion 360 has just about everything a hobbyist would need.

[Randy Heinemann]

@Andrew Seeman (OP)From your post, I'm not sure how sophisticated you want to get with a 3D design program. Sketchlist 3D (not Sketchup) sells both Mac and Windows versions of the software. For about a year I have used the Windows version and found that it was relatively easy to learn and allows you to design and build furniture, cabinets, or really anything just as you would build in the shop. It seems to be made for woodworking more than most (if that is what you are looking for). Sketchlist has just released a new version for both Windows and Mac (Version 5) and I found that it was even easier to learn and use than the previous version. As far as I know the capabilities of both of these is the same with whatever changes are required for Macs.

It might be worth checking out. The older versions permitted a trial period so I would imagine that the new version does also. I found that, in comparison to other 3D design programs, Sketchlist 3D was relatively inexpensive (but I'm not aware what the new version sells for to new users as I bought my new version as part of a Kickstarter project for developing the new version).

[Brian Tymchak]

Fusion 360 and Sketchup are both cloud (web) based and both work equally well on MAC or PC.

Our woodworking group just saw a demo this morning by SketchupSchool of Sketchup Pro on a mac. The instructor said that Sketchup Pro is a local application. Sketchup Free is web based.

[Jim Becker]

Our woodworking group just saw a demo this morning by SketchupSchool of Sketchup Pro on a mac. The instructor said that Sketchup Pro is a local application. Sketchup Free is web based.

Yes, that's true...SketchUp Pro is a large, local application and always has been.