Design Program

[Rookie Wood Worker]

Is there a good program out there that will help develope plans for a shed/worshop any info would be appreciated.

Thanks
Rookie

[Ken Weaver]

Visio is good, and there's autocad/turbocad. I haven't had the patience to learn them enough to use them to the level of detail I've seen others use them. I end up finding an existing plan and then pencil from there.

[Pappy]

If you are just looking for a floorplan/tool layout, Grizzly has a decent program on their website.

[LarryG]

I make my living (such as it is) running CAD. As software goes CAD has a fairly steep learning curve, so if you're only interested in a one-shot use, it's really not worth the time and effort. So I'd suggest starting with the Grizzly applet that Pappy mentioned; if you want to go beyond that, maybe look at one of the $29-$50 "home architect" programs at Sam's Club, Costco, etc.

Even though I literally run CAD all day long, and have been doing so for over 18 years now, I still find graph paper, a few #2 pencils, and a Pink Pearl eraser to be a lot easier and faster when I'm doing the conceptual stuff, whether for a building or a woodworking project. (CAD does work great for cranking out the actual working drawings, though.)

[SteveR]

Rookie,
Similiar to Pappys suggestion, if you are looking for a tool layout program for your shop.try here too http://tinyurl.com/43rcl 8th shareware program down. It is called easyshop designer.

If you looking for a bit more of a CAD program...take a look here
http://www.deltacad.com/ Cheap and you can take it for a test drive for 30 days or so. I have it..and as far as CAD goes, it seems easier than most...although I am not any CAD expert.

Here is a wicked cool CAD type program that can be D/l'd for an 8 hour trial. http://www.sketchup.com/ Be sure to do the video tutorials first - they explain ALOT and get you drawing right away. A guy in the office did all the video tutorials and then was messing around with it....I was impressed with what he was able to do after a short period of time. I think he only used up about 2 or so hours of the free time. But it is pretty expensive, for me anyway, to try and justify the cost. But if you utilize the 8 hours of free time, you can prolly get a pretty decent idea of what a building will look like for conceptual purposes and see if you like it the program.
LarryG....if you read this, have you tried sketchup? There are some users of it that post on Sawmill Creek...some of these guys are very good at the program and produce shaded/colored project drawings are just simply awesome.

And then there is always good ol pencil and paper...and eraser

HTH
Steve
Edit: to correct bad link THANKS RAY!!!

[RayintheUK]

Steve,

The included period in your first link stops it working. This one should work:

http://tinyurl.com/43rcl

Ray.

[kenshep]

I think ms excel is the swiss army knife of programs. I do flow
charts in it, use it as a database, use it for source data for merge/mail letters from word.
If you set the columns to the right width and have the gridlines turned on it looks like 1/4 grid paper. View the drawing toolbar and you can have whatever shapes you want at your disposal. You can even shade multiple cells to represent your infeed/outfeed requirements.
Need to go vertical, you can represent your wall space with a grid and plan multiple planes. I will put my planer (when i get it), below my mitre station on a drawer slide mechanism, and I'll put cabinets above the miter. The view from above perspective doesn't work too well, so I can design each wall with known obstacles.
Cardboard is your friend. Keep that fridge box and buy some duct tape. You can knock together some cabinents, tools, etc... and see how they fit in your space. Start on paper tho' it's much easier.
If you don't have excel, here's a free package called tinycad.

Download it from here: http://www.sss-mag.com/swindexa.html#cad

I puttered around in it and it looks like you can turn on gridlines and you can draw sqaures and rectangles...

I'll mess around with it a bit more...

[mudder]

quote:Originally posted by LarryG

I make my living (such as it is) running CAD.

What program do you use?

I've been muttling through Solidworks for a little over a year and a half (off and on). I found the curve to be real steep but the program itself is fantastic.


Mudder

[LarryG]

quote:Originally posted by mudder

What program do you use?

We use DataCAD. The ownership has changed a couple times over the 20+ years it's been around, but it was originally published by a start-up company that was an offshoot of an existing architectural firm. The marketing slogan in those early days was, "Software for architects, by architects."

www.datacad.com

Although it has 3D capabilities, we don't use them; our CAD usage is strictly as a 2D production tool. One of DataCAD's strengths is that it was designed to work like an experienced hand-drafter thinks; i.e., it "feel" more like drawing and less like running a computer than some CAD programs do. Also, pretty much everyone who has come to it after using something else agrees that it is very easy to learn (as these things go, anyway).

They have an "LT" version that's pretty inexpensive, although not as cheap as those $50 packages I mentioned up the page.

[J. Fred Muggs]

I run Auto CAD 2002 on a daily basis. It's as high powered as it comes, but way way too expensive for home use. I was just introduced to DeltaCad by a fellow woodworker. It sells for under $50 and has everything that the average Joe Woodworker should ever need. Comes with major help/instructions on the CD. Has vey nice DXF(data exchange format) capability that allows it to interface with any other Cad program that would be worth having. and on and on.

Check it out at WWW.deltacad.com

As a Cad professional, I highly recommend it to cad non-professionals.