Originally Posted by
RCaffin
Been there, done that, gave up.
TurboCAD was designed for making house plans and visualising them. It may be good for that.
It has an arcane and obscure method of working in 3D which involves moving a 'working plane' around and building on that. It does NOT seem to have any concept of actually working with 3D objects. At least, the version I had didn't. Equally, it did not seem to have the idea of importing separate objects into a build and joining them up.
AutoCAD was a right pain: obscure and a very long learning curve.
SolidEdge was better, but the version I have was buggy and they would not upgrade me without $$$. Significant learning curve.
Solidworks was powerful but it had a long learning curve.
Alibre was less expensive and somewhat easier to use - but only sometimes.
Other older CAD SW like wireframes are just 'old'.
What you may not know is that the same few guys developed Solidworks, then SolidEdge, then Alibre (afaik). They kept letting the accountants and 'managers' take over and dictate to them - and so they left each time.
I am old fashioned, stubborn, and difficult to teach. I still think and design in 3D, but I draw (very, very fast) in 2D. It works - for my stuff.
cheers
Roger