I’m looking to take rough drawings of mantels and built-in cabinets and convert them into scaled computer graphics. I need a program which has a moulding profile library.
Can anyone recommend a good beginner-CAD program for my purposes? I’ve read some reviews about Cabinet Vision, but I haven’t found any stores that sell it.
Suggestions?
This 654-sq.-ft. ADU combines vaulted ceilings, reclaimed materials, and efficient design, offering a flexible guest suite and home office above a new garage.
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Replies
In a word ... No. Can't be done.
There are several...many...discussions here, mostly in Tools, about cad programs. Yours is the first in several weeks ... that's unusual.
Need to ask yourself a couple of questions: what's the budget, what's your skill level, how much time can you devote to learnuing the program? SoftPlan and Chief Architect seem to be favorites, and if you get the right version they have moulding profiles.
See if you can do a search for SoftPlan or Chief Archy and you might find a good bit of reading material.
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell'em "Certainly, I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it. T. Roosevelt
I've read some reviews about Cabinet Vision, but I haven't found any stores that sell it.
That's because only CV sells it, and direct only. Used to be free SW with a $4000 dongle (a hardware lock you have to have connected to a serial port for the sw to run). Last version I used ran off some very expensive CDs and an authorization code. The complete version of Solid with manufacturing add-on was in the neighborhood of $7000.
In about a week of fooling every day with it, you could get pretty good. That presumes two important things. First, that you were generally pretty comfortable with computer graphics already. Second, that you were modeling a "stock" line of cabinets.
The moulding tool in Solid is pretty good. It was powerful enough to let you get carried away, too. If you didn't know much about moulding, especially turning out production moulding, it won't teach you very much.
It was better than the last version of 20/20 I used, but that's been years.
I've been using CA 9.5 lately, and although (like all CAD programs) it can be very frustrating, it does have a darned good set of molding, cabinet and millwork details included...
Cabinetvision and Cabnetware (which I have), as mentioned are pretty expensive programs aimed at kitchen makers, and commercial cabinet guys if you have the upper levels of either program. They do graphics, but their main benefit is that after the design is done, they are working up cutlists, propsals etc in the background, and if you want you can send the info to CNC....they're manufacturing software.
It sounds like you would be looking for a general CAD program....some of them come with moulding libraries and other construction details, or there are a ton of moulding details on the net; you can find 2d profiles of every moulding in the moulding manufacturers assoc. library for example, and if you know CAD, you can scale them, extrude them etc (the stuff on the net will usually be in .DXF (drawing exchange format) or .DWG (Autocad's native format), so anything you choose should be able to work with files of that type. The general CAD programs come in versions with a relatively quick learning curve and a low price tag (but you often grow out of them pretty quickly), to more powerful (more expensive versions) that you probably won't outgrow, but the learning curve is steeper. You'll find mention of many packages in the archives here; Turbocad and Intellicad are two that are pretty powerful and not too expensive.
John Sprung will no doubt jump in here and tell me I'm all wet about Turbocad, but I've had good results with it, and they have a large and dedicated userbase.cabinetmaker/college woodworking instructor. Cape Breton, N.S
after the design is done, they are working up cutlists, propsals etc in the background, and if you want you can send the info to CNC....they're manufacturing software.
If you build cabinets like 80% of the stock manufacturing world does, true enough. Heaven help you if you are the "computer" and/or "CAD" guy at one of the remaining 20% . . . (done there, been that, didn't want the t-shirts in lieu of bonuses . . . <G>)
TurboCAD got soem good stuff, so does Chief Architect. Both are good mixes of cost-to-features count buys. Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
re: Chief Archy. If you get it optioned out to a decent level, it's gonna cost $1k which puts it in the same range as SoftPlan. Point being that if you're considering starting from scratch, you nee to consider all the programs in that price range. Turbo doesn't cost nearly that much, but it doesn't perform nearly as well either.Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell'em "Certainly, I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it. T. Roosevelt