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Do you work on a tight budget? Is AutoCAD overkill for what you do, but compatibility with AutoCAD a necessity? Do you need to learn CAD, but can't afford AutoCAD? Or are you simply tired of high prices and big companies that seem more interested in their stockholders than their customers? If your answer is yes to any of these questions, you may find a product here that suits your needs very well. Neither of us had delved into these economical packages for a while, and we were surprised at both the quality and the depth of features currently found in these inexpensive applications.
One thing you'll certainly see here is how software in a particular category of applications is affected when there's a dominant player such as AutoCAD. AutoCAD compatibility is de rigueur here, both in compatibility with the DWG and DXF formats and in feature sets. Some of these applications read AutoLISP, some support AutoCAD menus, xrefs, DWF files, and other AutoCADcentric features, and some even use the DWG format as their native file format.
Two broad categories of application appear in this reviewtechnical drawing programs such as Visio 2000 and general CAD programs such as TurboCAD. A product such as Visio, which also supports the DWG file format, is ideal for quick 2D layouts. The use of intelligent objects greatly simplifies many processes, though the given intelligence per object varies. On the other hand, general CAD programs such as TurboCAD offer 31), shading, rendering, material editors, and even radiosity rendering. Whichever way you elect to go, you'll get a lot of bang for your bucks.
Bargain prices no longer mean low-quality, feature-poor applications. Among the products covered in this review you'll find some remarkable programs that may well change your thoughts about what high-quality CAD and technical illustration programs need to cost. They've certainly caused us to reevaluate these economical applications as serious design tools. For the record, we asked Autodesk to send us copies of its two drawing programs that cost less than $500-Actrix and AutoSketch-for this review, but it could not meet our deadline.
IntelliCAD 2000
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At around $150, IntelliCAD 2000 is the least expensive product in this group, yet its list of features and capabilities pushes it toward...