Railfan Technology > Affordable Drawing or Cad Program?

I need an affordable program to do drawings of structures, track diagrams and maps. I don't need 3D and don't want a steep learning curve as I am a writer, book publisher and model railroader (I do a lot of scratch-building) with limited time.

I think Correl might be OK but it looks like they want a subscription. I would also like to save things in a well known file format like Adobe PDF that someone else could use to print that doesn't have my program.


Any suggestions?


Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/11/14 10:46 by wabash2800.

Hi Victor,

DraftSight is a good free tool that can save in .DWG format (same as AutoCAD's) - which can be helpful if you ever need to share drawings with others, have a print shop print them on a plotter, etc. It's hard for me to judge the learning curve, because I have many thousands of hours using several different drawing and CAD tools, but I believe that you'd probably find this tool fairly easy to get into and do what you want with it.

http://www.3ds.com/products-services/draftsight/overview/

Be advised that you have to register an email address to get a key to activate it (even the free edition), which may or may not be your cup of tea. There is a user community but I don't know how active it is (I haven't used this tool very much, and really haven't needed any help on anything that I've needed to do with it.)

Good luck in your quest!


Joe P.

Hainesville, IL



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/11/14 11:51 by TheApostleGreen.

I don't know a great deal about these programs for CAD but from experience in sourcing a statistical program I found the following. Most community colleges or universities are allowed substantial discounts on software purchases. You need a bona fide .edu based email to apply. How substantial? The statistical program I use was $1300 single license retail, through the local college $30.

Ruger338 Wrote:
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> I don't know a great deal about these programs for
> CAD but from experience in sourcing a statistical
> program I found the following. Most community
> colleges or universities are allowed substantial
> discounts on software purchases. You need a bona
> fide .edu based email to apply. How substantial?
> The statistical program I use was $1300 single
> license retail, through the local college $30.

Yes, great point, Ruger! I know AutoCAD in particular is offered for free to students; I think the free educational version expires after 2 or 3 years but that's a fantastic opportunity to use one of the best drawing tools on the planet if one qualifies. I think AutoCAD is about $2500 for one retail license.

Victor, based on your original post I gather that you'd like a piece of software that's very intuitive to use for a layperson and one you won't have to spend much time familiarizing yourself with. In that case, be aware that AutoCAD and competing products are targeted at drafting/rendering professionals, but I will say that it really depends upon your ability to pick things up quickly. (Also, if you are going to be doing 2D line drawings and nothing more, you only need learn the basics of any of these apps.)

In my honest opinion, the biggest caveat is not the learning curve, but the sheer size of many of these programs, in terms of the amount of hard drive space they require and the memory they consume... although both storage space and RAM seem to get cheaper by the week. Just make sure you read the system requirements for whatever product you're considering before committing to one.

Now, if you're really in the mind for something more toward "a dirt-simple drawing tool that I know I'll be able to use within after a few hours [at most] of playing around with it" then one of the high-end CAD tools might not be for you.

For my money, one of my favorite, fairly intuitive, easy-to-get-a-drawing-started tools is Microsoft Visio, but I don't know what your budget is. I don't know if Visio's easy to find at a student-discounted price.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/11/14 20:07 by TheApostleGreen.

Another possibility is "Sketch-Up". My university students do a lot with it, and it has been free and a robust user community.

Thanks for the suggestions folks.

I don't have an option to buy at a student discount as am not attending school anymore with 7 years of college and two degrees. <G>

I do have a 3rd Plannit CAD program and though it's a model railroad program I've done some neat non-model-railroad drawings but the files can not be used by other programs. I shouldn't have any problems with hard drive space, the operating system or CPU as I've got the latest and greatest.

I am still looking at this. I'd love to learn AutoCAD but have just too many irons in the fire right now.

I am inquiring at the 3PI yahoo discussion group whether a code can be purchased to convert a 3PI file to a more standard file that can be used to print on a plotter or commercial printing machine (without the 3PI software). Wish me luck.

3rd PlanIt supports exporting a design to a .DWG, this is the Autocad format (File -> Export, then choose format)

You do not need another code to print off line. If you have Adobe PDF, or one of the free knock off's just make that your default printer. Then when printing from 3pi, you will get an Adobe PDF file. I have done this and used the large printer at work.

Tom Daspit
Morgan Hill, CA
Tom's Trains

i use a program called Smart Draw, if you are just drawing diagrams it may work, it exports in several formats that could be added to a pdf

about $197 but makes my life easier http://www.smartdraw.com/

Jason Webb
http://www.hyrailsimulations.com

Jason Webb
Maitland, FL
HyRail Simulations



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/16/14 17:48 by SCLALINE.

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Thanks Tom. I found that out before you posted. I did export from 3pi and made DWG and DFX files. I thought I could take them to my local blueprint printer and have them print them off but NO. They could not print those files or convert them.

I can invest in a program to convert the files to PDF like Adobe and they can print them. I am looking at the various programs but don't want to pay $20 a month for something I'll rarely use or $60 to $200 for the program.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/17/14 16:38 by wabash2800.

Folks, Tom referred me to this site for a free PDF converter. While you are installing, you have to download a ghost printer.

http://www.cutepdf.com/products/cutepdf/writer.asp

I opted out of the updates to facebook and the weather channel download.

What you do is set the Cute PDF converter as your default printer, go to 3pi and print the file. It gives you the option to save it to wherever you want with a new file name. Then you have a file to print. (Of course, you can go back later and change the default printer to your regular printer but 3pi doesn't appear give you an option to choose printers on the fly.)

I converted my files and will be taking them down to a blueprint shop to have them printed today. However, when viewing the converted file in Adobe Reader I note some of my lines appear much thicker than they should be. I'll let you all know if it prints out that way too.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/18/14 09:36 by wabash2800.

I just got back from the blueprint shop. Just like I see in Adobe Reader, some of the lines are way too wide but uniform in width. I went back into 3pi and noticed that though they vary I width they appear on the Adobe Reader screen and print off uniform ally too wide and dark.

Also, though admittedly, the operator was new, he had trouble scaling the drawings out and said it came of as 8/1/2x11 though I drew it about 2.5 x 5 feet.


Any ideas?

I have yet to take my drawing to the print shop but it looks good when I view with my Adobe Reader.

With help from folks at the 3PI yahoo group I:

changed the scale to 1:1 and changed the paper size to 36x84 inches. It was set at 8.5x11.

This solved the problems with the lines too. Yippy! I've got some more detail work on the tower model board but perhaps after it is complete I can take the PDF file to a sign shop and have them silk screen it with a Hunter Green background and yellow lines and other detail. After that, I'll install the indicator lamps. (I could not find indicator lamps like the prototype but have found a solution with little work that looks very much like the real thing.)

Thanks for all the help here. I think I can go with 3PI to do structure plans and other tower boards on the layout without buying and learning another CAD program!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/14 08:20 by wabash2800.

Yes, it worked. I forgot to mention I also change the setting to mono.

This is an old thread, but I am in the midst of making another tower board, this time an Erie version, where my Wabash line crosses the Erie.

Anyway, with the help I received here with the software end, particularly from TomD, I want to show my finished work here on the Wabash tower board I did several years ago. Here it is.

Since 3pi doesn't place text very well (numbers, letters, words, etc.), I ended up taking the converted file over to Microsoft Paint to finish it up. The sign shop said they did have to do some retracing, but I think it turned our very well.

A lot of research goes into this kind of work, since I have to learn a lot about signaling nuances from railroad to railroad, interpret AAR symbols, etc. And I get help from railroaders here at Trainorders. The tower board here is based on a freelance location, but it follows Wabash protocol and AAR symbols interpreted from a real Wabash tower board and location I was familiar with as a young teenager. I ended up scratch-building the indicator lights, since I could not find any on the open market that looked like the ones I remembered. 

I have a signal maintainer friend who is teaching me how to wire relays, track sensors, etc.

What do you think of my miniature levers that really work?


Victor



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/21 21:09 by wabash2800.

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