Drafting Software to Draw My Garage?

I'm looking for good cheap/free drafting software to draw my garage so I can plan upgrades. What do you guys & gals like?

Ideally, it would be cheap/free, awesome and run on OSX. But I'm up for software that runs on Linx/Windows/Whatever. What software have you used that makes drafting up a simple building a good experience? I'm willing to spend cash if I have to.

Ooooh, this is relevant to my interests!

Sketch-up works to an extent. It takes a bit of manipulation to do things which I thought the likes of CATIA did without much of an issue. There's a bit of a learning curve to it and its free though.

Since I don't have access to a multi-thousand dollar CAD system anymore it's what I use to do planning.

Google SketchUp

Once you figure out the controls you can build something in it pretty quickly.

Stuff I've designed in SketchUp

12x12 Shed

3 bin compost container

Kitchen Remodel

Guest Bathroom Remodel

A pencil, ruler and paper still works pretty well for this sort of thing.

In reply to t25torx:

Thanks! looks great. I'll go grab SketchUp

Sketch Up like others have said. Draft Sight is also a free one I believe and is more similar to 2D drafting for AutoCAD.

In reply to stuart in mn:

Yes, but (nerd alert!) I like software for this kind of thing

A friend from inside the White House tipped me off to nanoCAD. It is Free and is amazingly close to AutoCAD. At the website you have your language choice of Russian or English. Should I be concerned that the startup message on my computer now say "Good Morning Comrad"?

Cnet says - NanoCAD is a full featured, fast, lightweight and reliable 2D design tool. nanoCAD has been designed with ease of use in mind. Migration to nanoCAD will hardly take you more than 10 minutes since nanoCAD delivers: Classic CAD interface. Any engineer could easily master nanoCAD since everything is in their right places: menu, button icons, panels, command line, and the commands theirselves are easily recognizable. This makes nanoCAD easy to migrate to since enterprise needs no time to retrain its engineers.

SketchUp is awesome and I love it to pieces for 3D work. The learning curve is shallow, you can easily draw to scale, and you can dimension stuff. The hardest part is going to be getting output printed to scale, at least in the free version.

Here's my 2¢ worth of advice: almost everything you draw should become a Group or Component. The line-and-plane geometry is "sticky", meaning anything you draw that touches something else will adhere to that other object. Then, if you move it, it will stretch and warp the other object in bizarre ways.

Making things components or groups will allow you to move them and align them accurately, without sticking together.

Could one of you guys point me at a good sketch up user guide?

I set it up, once, to try to make an autocross course, and even after I uninstalled and reinstalled it, I can't make the parking lot go away from the back ground, or figure out how to actually make a garage with studs and accessories and such.

I also can't find where I made the parking lot my Background image/fresh page thing to make it go away.

Spitsix wrote: A friend from inside the White House tipped me off to nanoCAD. It is Free and is amazingly close to AutoCAD. At the website you have your language choice of Russian or English. Should I be concerned that the startup message on my computer now say "Good Morning Comrad"? Cnet says - NanoCAD is a full featured, fast, lightweight and reliable 2D design tool. nanoCAD has been designed with ease of use in mind. Migration to nanoCAD will hardly take you more than 10 minutes since nanoCAD delivers: Classic CAD interface. Any engineer could easily master nanoCAD since everything is in their right places: menu, button icons, panels, command line, and the commands theirselves are easily recognizable. This makes nanoCAD easy to migrate to since enterprise needs no time to retrain its engineers.

If you want an autocad clone, just use Draftsight.

In reply to ProDarwin:

I do use both - nanoCAD is way to closer to AutoCAD

RevRico wrote: Could one of you guys point me at a good sketch up user guide? I set it up, once, to try to make an autocross course, and even after I uninstalled and reinstalled it, I can't make the parking lot go away from the back ground, or figure out how to actually make a garage with studs and accessories and such. I also can't find where I made the parking lot my Background image/fresh page thing to make it go away.

Did you use my Autocross Toolkit?

If you geolocated the model (which I assume you did), then in the Model Info panel, delete the location information. If you want to just hide it, look in the layer panel and turn off the terrain and image layers.

To make something like a garage with studs and accessories, you have to make the parts (or download them), then just start building. You can manipulate objects in 3D, including rotate, mirror, etc. But ultimately it's a polygon modeller, not a solid modeller, so you have to draw all the faces of everything.

https://www.sketchup.com/learn/videos/826

Duke wrote: SketchUp is awesome and I love it to pieces for 3D work. The learning curve is shallow, you can easily draw to scale, and you can dimension stuff. The hardest part is going to be getting output printed to scale, at least in the free version. Here's my 2¢ worth of advice: almost everything you draw should become a Group or Component. The line-and-plane geometry is "sticky", meaning anything you draw that touches something else will adhere to that other object. Then, if you move it, it will stretch and warp the other object in bizarre ways. Making things components or groups will allow you to move them and align them accurately, without sticking together.

Yeah this for sure. The other thing I learned was if you copy/paste something, and need to edit it, be sure to "Make Unique" before editing, or it changes all the other components you made.

I usually start by making a standard 2x4 (really 1.5x3.5), make that a component. Then just copy paste and edit it for the parts I'm doing.

stuart in mn wrote: A pencil, ruler and paper still works pretty well for this sort of thing.

Some of us are old school!

In reply to Duke:

It was your tool kit actually, think I found it on an scca forum.

I'll have to try your suggestion later when I can actually use my laptop. It may have been a location grab and not a screen shot template base like I thought, I just got frustrated trying to change it and bought graph paper instead.

Spitsix wrote: A friend from inside the White House tipped me off to... ...you have your language choice of Russian or English.

White House?! Tip Off?!! English or Russian?!

Thanks for all the great ideas + resources on drawing my garage!

Edit: One last question: will I be able to add measurement notation to SketchUp drawings? -- So that someone looking at the drawing will be able to see the wall dimensions etc.?

In reply to LuxInterior:

Yes, there is a simple dimensioning tool in SketchUp. As I said, though, in the free version, it's going to take a little trial and error to print it at a given scale (though it will be drawn to accurate dimensions). There is a corollary program called LayOut that comes with the paid version that makes that easier.

I would see if you can get an older copy of AutoCAD. 2002 while dated compared to the new stuff is still a very good bit of software.

stuart in mn wrote: A pencil, ruler and paper still works pretty well for this sort of thing.

Yeah. Thats what I was thinking.

AutoCAD is now a free download for students. You're learning, aren't you?

http://students.autodesk.com

AutoDesk RevIT is a 3D design software, and a little awkward at times, but does do some sweet work.

Revit is awesome, but it has a very steep learning curve. And unless you're a genuine student, it's very expensive.

SketchUp is no longer part of Google, it's part of Trimble. Unfortunately the geo locate from Google is no longer avaialable.

I am a full blown SketchUp user for my design work. SketchUp is remarkable for 3d objects, and creating images as shown above. However, the program provided in the paid version for creating scaled construction documents, Layout, is equally remarkable in it's lack of intuitive interface and confounding elements. And I use it regularly. After a couple years of serious work, I can manage with Layout now.

For homeowner use, SketchUp Make (free version) is the way to go. With some effort you can produce scaled prints. But really you can keep the information on the computer and it's great. Or print a dimensioned drawing without worrying about the printed scale.