Drawing for photo etching at home

jhande wrote:

tjberres2 wrote: I want the accuracy (but not the cost) of AutoCAD. There was a discussion about this awhile back and links to free programs popped up too. I can't help with free programs, but I can with paid versions I understand, AutoCAD is too expensive for a hobby, how about - AutoCAD LT or IMSI has different CAD programs. I have quite a collection of CAD software (those already mentioned and a few others) and they all work just fine, even the lessor expensive IMSI programs are accurate. Probably for your needs the TurboCAD Designer v12 would do just fine for $39.95.

you can get a limited versino of turboCAD for even less than that, i think like $30.  it's only the 2D tools but that's all you actually need.  there are also plenty of free tools that do basically the same thing but the interface is often not quite as nice.

That TurboCad 2D package and my laser printer is all I ever need for etched brass parts now. 

I believe 'Prodesktop' is an affordable CAD program. It is used by my school, its pretty good but i'm not a big fan of CAD.

Will

tjberres2 wrote:

I want the accuracy (but not the cost) of AutoCAD.

There was a discussion about this awhile back and links to free programs popped up too.

I can't help with free programs, but I can with paid versions
I understand, AutoCAD is too expensive for a hobby, how about -
AutoCAD LT or IMSI has different CAD programs. I have quite a collection of CAD software (those already mentioned and a few others) and they all work just fine, even the lessor expensive IMSI programs are accurate. Probably for your needs the TurboCAD Designer v12 would do just fine for $39.95.

Try here:

http://www.freebyte.com/cad/cad.htm

and here

http://freeware.intrastar.net/cadsoftware.htm

Than type "free CAD software" at Google.

Try this program, I haven't used it because I use Corel Suit to create my graphics.  I understand GIMP is very good.

http://www.gimp.org/downloads/