DraftSight - free 2D CAD software

Dassault Systemes, the makers of Solid Works and Catia now have a free 2D CAD product that reads and writes DWG files. I haven't had a chance to test it yet but it does look interesting and has an interface that may be familiar to AutoCAD users. It is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Has anyone tried this out yet?

If not, take a look here: http://www.3ds.com/products/draftsight/free-cad-software/

It looks as though it may be the most feature complete/robust free 2D CAD software available - although I have yet to try it.

I tried it out during the trial period. It wasn't bad.

I liked it better that Doublecad XT. No lisp or vba if I remember correctly, but other than that it worked fine. It makes use of Ruby Scripts, so if you are familiar with that you can get around the lisp thing.

Interesting, looks and feels the same as autocad, lots of the hotkeys are the same, all the basic commands, are there. I would say after a few hours play you could be quite productive with this.

It's very nice, I've posted about it in a few posts before as an alternative from looking for a cheap DWG editor. I am glad to see it. This should put AutoDesk on notice. LT for over $1000? I agree in that I like it better than DoubleCAD XT but I wished DraftSight could save .skp files.

I tried it out during the trial period. It wasn't bad.

Is the program "free" or just a "free download" that comes with a trial period?

Is the program "free" or just a "free download" that comes with a trial period?

Draftsight is free Tank. I used it for a while before buying Bricscad for my laptop. It works very well, just no lisp or vba.

Is there a concern as to how accurately it (DraftSight) would interpret Autocad dwg files? From what I've been told, Even though it's the same format, once imported to another program other than ACAD, it's interpretation of that format, will vary, once imported into a different program other than ACAD.

I used it on several drawings and never had a problem with it. There's no lisp or vba though.

I have yet to really do a file read comparison but I might take a look at it today at lunch and report back what I see. I do think it is a great alternative to LT especially for the cost difference.

Is there a concern as to how accurately it (DraftSight) would interpret Autocad dwg files? From what I've been told, Even though it's the same format, once imported to another program other than ACAD, it's interpretation of that format, will vary, once imported into a different program other than ACAD.

I have yet to really do a file read comparison but I might take a look at it today at lunch and report back what I see. I do think it is a great alternative to LT especially for the cost difference.

Absolutely. I do not see why anybody would buy LT for what....$1200, when this is $0. By the same token, Bricscad is around half the price of LT and you get LISP and VBA, and 3d and rendering if you need it. I liked it a lot better than Doublecad XT. I used Draftsight on my laptop for a while till I bought Bricscad. I do enough 3d work that it was handy to have 3d capabilities if I met a client for lunch or at his location so that's why I finally sprang for something with 3d. Draftsight doesn't put huge demands on a system, so the lighter weight machines can run it.

There are some sacrifices in that it doesn't support dynamic blocks so if you are a big fan of those, you're out of luck. I don't know if LT does that or not, don't recall. Bricscad doesn't do that either, but they have promised it in upcoming releases. For the money though, Draftsight is a good buy!

I'm going to see if i can get our LT users to give this shot. Thanks for heads up on this software as well as all the feed back on it.

... Bricscad is around half the price of LT and you get LISP and VBA' date=' and 3d and rendering if you need it. [/quote']

 

I watched the new direct modeling video from BricsCAD the other day. That looks pretty cool. Very similar to Inventor/Fusion/123D. Looked like a very nice feature.

 

http://youtu.be/bjv2N0Un_I0

In AutoCAD 2012...

In current DraftSight..

We have lines, rectangles, spline, hatch, gradient hatch, dims and colors.

Created in Acad and opened in Draftsight.

The spline is there just does not show up in the jpg for some reason as well.

I'd be curious to know if you could do an ID check in the two programs and see where the geometry landed in each...On the surface it looks great. I hope that made sense.

I need to make a file in Acad, open in draftsight, save and then open in Acad.