Looking For New Software

[Darrin Davis]

My school is doing away with our AutoCAD software lease so I am looking for an affordable furniture making or cabinet making software. Does anyone have any suggestions? Below are a couple of pictures that show how we currently do it. I am not interested in Google Sketchup due to its 3D rotating environment.
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[Tony Joyce]

Try this link. I have used this program for about 5-6 years. It is very user friendly. It can be bought for upgrade price if you have any CAD program. 30 day free trial. Lots of 2 letter commands. Start line type dimension, hit enter instant line. You can use math in the command line at the bottom of the screen(length+angle,etc.). You can do automate tasks with scripting or programing.

Tony

http://www-dot-tritools-dot-com/

Take out the "-dot-" above and replace with a period.

[Joe Dusel (Vista, CA)]

I teach a class at Palomar College on the eCabinet Systems software. Thermwood gives the software away for free to woodworking professionals and students. You just need to contact Thermwood. They will send you the software and enough registration codes for all of the computers in your lab.

eCabinet Systems will easily do the designs such as you pictured. Plus, it's parametric, so resizing is easy. It also does sheet optimization (nesting), cut-lists, buy-lists and very nice renderings.

Thermwood also provides free support for this product, not only through their forum, but also phone support if needed.

The link below is to my web site where I have a description of Version 5.1 of the software. It's now at Version 5.2, so there are a few changes I need to make.

http://www.woodistry.com/ecabinetSystemsClass.htm

[Darrin Davis]

Thanks! I'll give that a try.