Any advice on Software Design programs other than Sketchup?

[EagleStorm26]

As someone getting into world of wood crafting, I am just really beginning, and do not have a whole lot of equipment

needed for future projects that I might have going on in my head and know they will need to wait, until I room, time and money to build them.

I know sketchup is out there for some designing, however my experience with the tool has not been to friendly for other uses, however I was

wondering what other software programs designers are using to pre-build their project and run with ideas.

[dwightbartlett]

I don't have a ton of experience with Sketchup but I do know that there are a couple of excellent books available that give instruction for the use of sketchup for designing woodworking projects.

I currently teach CAD classes using Inventor by Autodesk. I would highly recommend it to anyone considering its ease of use. (my students are as young as 6th grade) The problem comes when you see the price tag, the single seat license is $6390 dollars. The good news is if you can enroll in any class that uses an Autodesk product you can download a student copy for free.

Good luck with your search, for the money I would definitely take the time to work with Sketchup, you just can't beat free.

[Sac]

I have heard of people using Solidworks.. I know nothing about it, but like anything else outside of Sketchup, you have to pay for it. Are you just having a hard time using SU or is ti something else? Have you been to www.sketchupforwoodworkers.com ? It is a great resource for beginners. Also there is Chiefwoodworkers Blog as well. He has a good beginners guide as well. Popular Woodworking also has a video series by Bob Lang that is supposed to be good. And there is of course our own Aaron Marshall. You can find him around here, or ask any question in the Google Sketchup forum. Good luck.

[EagleStorm26]

For me the problem with sketchup comes with line by line drawing, and basically struggling with

locking end pieces in the right positions without knowing if they have overlapped, especially if its a 3D piece design which can screw up the dimensions.

I would also like to in the future be able to draw more fineprint patterns and designs for inlay as well, I know that

is a lot to ask from an inexpensive program, I would just like something that interacts better, and allows more flexibility than sketchup

if anything also allows you to pinpoint what type of screws, bolts etc go where

[Sac]

I think that you should check out those tutorials.. They will really give you a good understanding of how things work and all that. As for where to put the screws, not program is going to tell you where to put those. And you can do about anything with that free program, it is just a matter of figuring out how to do it..

[EagleStorm26]

I wasn't saying for the program to tell me where to put them, just be able to reference where I'd like them to go in the drawing. Example I have two perpendicular pieces of lumber, and would like a certain size nail in one spot. What I would like to be able to do is put in the nail myself in drawing as a representative and also list that as a part/component in required pieces for later documentation and reference.

[AMarshall]

Folks will probably be shocked that I am saying this, but there are other alternatives to SketchUp. Wow! The best software package for YOU will be the one that works the way you expect it to. Here are a couple I have run across.

1. Rhino3D - http://www.rhino3d.com - This is more of a professional package for 3d modeling. Heck, their main home page has terms like "point cloud" and "polygon mesh" so you know you are in deep.

2. SketchList - http://www.sketchlist.com - This one is made specifically for woodworkers. It may work more like you expect it to. You start with boards and typical woodworking lingo, not lines and faces like SketchUp. It looks pretty full featured, and has some videos and a free trial offer on their site.

In addition to those, there is a huge list of software for woodworking at this link: http://www.woodweb.com/Resources/RSSoftwareConnection.html. This list includes CAD and a bunch of other stuff like cut optimizers, sag calculators, etc.

At the end of the day though, I think you will be hard pressed to find anything that competes with SketchUp for the price. Free is good. SketchUp can be just as accurate and powerful as you want it to. The program is certainly capable of anything a woodworker would need, and can easily handle the inlay patterns and everything else you mentioned.

Joe's (ChiefWoodWorker's) site is great and he is a good guy. You might also want to check out www.sketchupwoodplans.comwhere Luca has posted lots of good tutorials and free furniture models.

And of course feel free to ask any questions here, we're always willing to help.

[Sac]

I wasn't saying for the program to tell me where to put them, just be able to reference where I'd like them to go in the drawing. Example I have two perpendicular pieces of lumber, and would like a certain size nail in one spot. What I would like to be able to do is put in the nail myself in drawing as a representative and also list that as a part/component in required pieces for later documentation and reference.

I'm sorry about that. I misunderstood. SU can be tricky to use. But once you get the hang of it, it really is a good tool. I hope that you find what you are looking for.

[sbarton22]

As an architect, I have access to most major design programs. the assembly table I am building I sketched in Revit. Now, obviously, you have to deal with the mountain of $$ to use those sorts of programs.

The funny thing is that in that super expensive software, I really did nothing more than draft it exactly the same as I would have with a triangle and t-square. (not the best use of the software, but effective).

My advice is to give sketchup a try. once you figure out how to make a box, you pretty much have it down. The real trick is to learn to make GROUPS. Anyone who trying to make a sketchup model without doing this is going to go insane. I'm used to much more sophisticated programs, but once I learned how to use groups, sketchup became tolerable.

By groups, I mean if you were doing a table, each leg would be a group. The key thing is that you can "isolate" the object and design it properly without the lines merging with the next piece over. Then, once you have it all designed, you can copy your whole model and pull each piece out, 1 x 1, and dimension them. Think of it as literally building your project in the computer first. By doing this, you will find all manners of issues you might not have ever seen coming.

Another option is to get a t-square and triangle and do it old school. Very cheap, and very effective.

[brtech]

Solidworks is a great tool, but probably not the best for a woodworker. It's also very expensive, and every add on is expensive. For designing machines, it's the way it's done.

Autocad is a drafting tool. If you think in terms of lines on a paper, Autocad is for you. The actual Autocad program is expensive, but there are programs that are an awful lot like Autocad that are only a few hundred dollars.

Some folks like Rhino - I don't have an experience with it.

Sketchup has a learning curve, and I'm not over it. I had to unlearn a lot of Autocad-like behavior. You have to think in terms of 3D shapes, and not lines. It's really a fabulous piece of software, and the price is right. I still struggle with things I think out to be easier, and usually discover I still am being held back by thinking it ought to work like Autocad.

[JohnnyNoName]

After I am out of the pencil sketch phase, I use Adobe Illustrator. I am also a graphic designer, so it's the drawing program I know best. I can create quick elevations of pieces very efficiently. I then use these basic views to base my SketchUp drawings on.

And I agree with SBarton. Pencil and paper are very effective.

Jonathan

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[Salvadore]

There is a FREE, open source program that is as good or better the 3d max maya or any other program on the market.

It Is what I use to draft cabinet jobs for clients. The software could easily be sold for 10 thousand dollars but tile I said it's free.

It can do 3G animation and even has a game engine for video game creation.

Ok sorry getting off topic.

There is a bit of a learning curve but it has endless possibilities and lots of free tutorials.

It is called Blender, check it out here www.blender.org

I was just designing a built in unit with it tonight!

[konkers]

I use Alibre Design. It's a parametric solid modeling CAD package much like Solidworks. The personal edition will only set you back $99 and is probably all you need for woodworking design. The learning curve is pretty high if you've never used parametric solid modeling before but once you've got the hang of it there's no turning back.

The basic idea is everything is dimensioned using parameters (kinda like a variable in an equation) and parts are joined with constraints (like make edge 1 on part A align with edge 2 on part . Once your model is set up like that you make make dimensional changes to the base parts (e.g. I want this piece to be 2 inches longer) and the whole thing updates.

The tutorials and videos that come with it are pretty good and, though you'll spend hours going through them, they'll leave you with a good grasps of the basics.

[Salvadore]

I just thought I'd give an example of what Blender can do..

Here is the kitchen project I am currently working on,

A picture of the rendering from Blender,

and a picture I took of the job in progress

[konkers]

I just thought I'd give an example of what Blender can do..

How well does blender handle dimensions and chaining them? I always thought of it more of a 3D modeling/animation package instead of a mechanical CAD package.

[Salvadore]

Well there are definitely tools to tools withing blender to measure things.

It is used in the architectural field a lot from what I hear.

But it is surely more for 3d animation then blueprint creation, but it is free, and it is awesome!!!!

But you can pick 2 points lets say each end or a board, and calculate the distance between then, and you can choose what measurement you want to use, i.e inch, centimeter, ect.plus it has a grid pattern in the background that is like a piece of graph paper. I could go on, but i will just say, i can get the job done and then some. but it takes a while to learn, just like anything worth doing I guess

[rmac]

Salvadore,

I've produced similar results with a freeware 3-D rendering program called POV-Ray. Just for grins, here's a picture of a dinette set that I made, along with an image I made using POV-Ray before I started working on the real thing. I don't know much about Blender, but I'm guessing that it has a lot more support for animation and such than POV-Ray does.

So ... assuming that you're past the learning curve, the next question is how long it takes to generate a model. It's been a long time since I did the table and chairs, but I suspect it took me in the neighborhood of 10-20 hours to cook up the image shown. Your model of the kitchen looks somewhat more complicated, but it would be interesting to know how long it took you to do that using Blender.

Thanks,

-- Russ

[Salvadore]

Wow!! Russ that is amazing!! Looks just like the final product.

Great job!!

So it was about a year ago that I designed the kitchen, and I did not charge for it, it was more for me to seal the job for myself but what I remember it was about 20 hours.

I did have to model most everything including the room to scale and the fridge but all the extras ( laptop, statue, coffee pot ect.) were free download props I used to add to the feel.

Here is a tutorial on measuring objects and distances with blender.

http://www.blendercookie.com/2010/01/13/measuring-objects-and-distances-in-blender/

Take care

[rmac]

Wow!! Russ that is amazing!! Looks just like the final product.

Great job!!

So it was about a year ago that I designed the kitchen, and I did not charge for it, it was more for me to seal the job for myself but what I remember it was about 20 hours.

I did have to model most everything including the room to scale and the fridge but all the extras ( laptop, statue, coffee pot ect.) were free download props I used to add to the feel.

Thanks, Salvadore. So it sounds like the modeling effort using Blender might be comparable to what I'm used to with POV-Ray. I'll have to look into Blender more closely to see if it will run on my (old) computer.

-- Russ