Mechanical field

I have used Autocad for years and now I am thinking about doing up grade to the 2000 version, but the problem is the price. So I am looking for an alternative software that could do the same thing. We are a tool maker, and we need a software for 2D drawings, most of the time we need to handle with big parts. Is intellicad good for my field??thanks a lot folks.

Comments

  • We are a consulting engineering firm and deal with 2D floor plans. We used AutoCAD for many years and our staff was very accustomed to it. There was a reluctance to change, but cost was the issue for us as well. After a couple weeks of difficulty/adjustment Intellicad is working fine for us now. The learning curve is minimal. There are still some bugs in the software, however some are attributed to the customization we have done in-house. Briscnet updates the software pretty regularly. After much research, we found this program to be the closest clone & most compatible with AutoCAD. Good luck.

    • Adam Kilbourne/Tim Pool-J TempletonThanks a lot for your comments.
  • We use CAD for mechanical and electrical drawings as well as flow diagrams and such. Apart from the occasional isometric view we are strictly 2D. We were using AutoCAD but needed to upgrade from R12 for DOS to something (anything) a bit more up to date. We looked at a lot of programs but with 12 stations (all needing new hardware) price was a big issue. We settled on Intellicad and have found it easy to use and learn. There are a few tweeky things (they call it parallel instead of offset for example and defpoints are inserted even when not using associative dimensioning) but it mostly drives like Autocad. It works as well as Autocad for what we do. The main drawback is the bugs. Lots of bugs. I found so many bugs in the first week of using it I wonder if they really bata tested it at all or realeased it anyway. I have found Support fairly responsive and helpful though, and they do release upgraded versions every few months but some bugs they are aware of have not addressed in the last 3 releases (like the extend command often wont) so there as been questions as to thaw they prioritize. Our electrical guys have threatened to dump icad and go back to acad out of frustrasion over bugs. So if you go with icad be prepaired for some problems. After saying all this though, It is not a bad program for the money and the more people that buy it and complain about the proplems, the more intellecad will feel the heat and respond to our needs (and have the money to keep making the product better).Jef

  • i'm pissed to see who replied to you saying that icad was a good product for a professional environment. i work with him, and he does not use cad, nor know the first thing about it to suggest that it is at all compatable with autocad. icad is an unstable childs toy, and only resembles autocad on the surface. i would suggest going back to autocad and using it for the next 10 years like you did with R12, it was a rock solid investment. i don't blame anyone for wanting more from bricsnet. i believe that the bricsnet support guy is "sander", i'd continue to rip him a new one daily.

  • I am using Icad and now I know what you mean. It´s so dificcult to use this software, It keeps crashing all the time.

This discussion has been closed.