CAD Programs
 

I was looking around in the Ubuntu repositories for CAD programs and saw three: Qcad, Pythoncad, & Sagcad. I was wondering if anyone has used any of these and could share their opinions on them. Is anyone better than the others? Or are there any other free programs that might be better?

I have only used QCad. Last time I tried was a little over a year ago. It seemed okay as an AutoCAD Lite type of replacement, but IIRC wasn't 3D capable. At work I use Solidworks and would like to switch to all linux, but until there's a good (and cheap) Solidworks replacement, I'm outta luck.

I've used ProE in the past on linux, but last time I checked on pricing it was like $10k per seat/year...

You might take a look at GraphietOne CAD for Linux (2d and 3d capable; commercial license for commercial use; free for non-commercial use).

You should give FreeCAD and VARKON a look. I'm not sure how much of Solidworks functionality they have, but both are targeted at the same area and are free.

scorpioofthewoods,

Some other options include ARCAD, CYCAS, LinuxCAD, and VariCAD. The last two are non-free. I haven't done any CAD work in a while, but QCad looks like a good one to start with.

bigrigdriver

Have you used GraphiteOne? Had a look at the homepage and found an rpm for Suse. Trying to find an honest review to decide if a debian install is worth the effort.

edit/Installing was less painful than expected. Initial impression? Bears some resemblance to Mastercam Design (that's a good thing). Haven't used it enough to share a real review.

Thank you, everyone. It would be great to find something like Solidworks but I did not expect to find something with such 3D functionality at low or no cost. It is not really necessary for what I am wanting to do at home right now, but it would be great to have or atleast know that such programs are out there if they are needed in the future.

I came across BlenderCAD in a search, but nothing seems to have been done with it since 2004. Does anyone know whatever became of this project?

Blender is a great 3D modeler that is very much in development. BlenderCAD is just a script that adds CAD functionality to it.

This page has some references to it through the end of 2005. And here is a link to a file created last Wednesday.

Thank you. I guess I did not search enough. Have you used BlenderCAD? Is it any good. I have seen that Blender is suppose to be a really good 3D modeler, so I thought it might be nice if it was blended with CAD.