downloading a cheap form of the autocad architecture program?

Question

downloading a cheap form of the autocad architecture program?

Answer 1

You should try progeCAD.

Answer 2

Here is direct link: http://www.download-genius.com/download-k:Auotocad+2014+(architecture).html?aff.id=4249

Answer 3

if you happen to be a college student, you can get AutoCAD for free at this website.



http://students8.autodesk.com/

Answer 4

Yes. progeCAD is a low-cost AutoCAD clone. It can edit, view, convert and print AutoCAD DWG files. There are two versions: progeCAD Professional which costs about 240 Euros, or progeCAD Standard IntelliCAD which costs about 160 Euros. That should be affordable.



We have several architectural companies here in Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales that use progeCAD for a lot of their work and are quite satisfied.



You can download it and try it out for yourself for 30 days before you have to buy a license, so you might try it out.

Answer 5

A lot depends on what type of CAD you want to do - spatial design or technical drawings.



The coolest software of spatial design is the free SketchUp from Google:

http://sketchup.google.com/

It is particularly orientated towards orthogonal 3D forms such as those of architecture and there are very good tutorials for it:

http://sketchup.google.com/training/



More funky / organic forms can be achieved with some other software. The most professional of these is Blender - an open source project and hence free forever...:

http://www.blender.org/

Also for more intuitive modelling check out the cheap "Moment of Inspiration" at:

http://moi3d.com/



However if what you need are technical drawings the you need software more akin to AutoCAD. You can find an old version of the 2D only AutoCAD LT by Autodesk for under $400 on EBay.



There are free CAD programs come AutoCAD. Here is a good list with reviews:

http://www.eland.org.uk/pages/Misc/cadnotes.html

Some of them blatantly imitate AutoCAD using a shared CAD 'engine' called IntelliCAD. Ther is a long list at the Intellicad.org website but one which caught my eye was the free ProgeCAD:

http://www.progecad.com



However if you just want ot get your head around it then you can dedicate a month to the trial version which you can download from the Autodesk website:

AutoCAD:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/mform?siteID=123112&id=9106363

AutoCAD LT:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/mform?siteID=123112&id=10387411



Once you have run through the great tutorials that come with AutoCAD you should be ready to either beg or borrow a copy. Remember that if you are with an educational establishment there are very cheap educational copies availible.



Finally as ever there are a 'torrent' of totally illegal copies floating around the web the use of which I do not condone.



Of course the real value of learning this is probably to advance your job prospects and so once you have work you should be using a legal copy...



All the best,

Mike