The IntelliCAD Network
AutoCAD to Zwcad/BricsCad/ProgeCAD - to move or not to move?
Hello everybody!
I just joined this forum. I just stumbled upon it luckily. I started browsing the various groups and I
am very impressed.
I am an Architect and I have a 5-user license for AutoCAD LT and 2 user licenses for Full AutoCAD.
I still use 2006 version. Before the end of this month, i.e. March, I have to either upgrade (forced by Autodesk) or lose all future upgrades to Autocad. They are retiring AutoCAD 2006 products and closing all upgrades from 2006 products by the end of March 2009.
I do not find the investment of upgrading from 2006 to 2009 - as far as I am concerned 2006 itself
is quite overkill for my tasks.
I tried out Zwcad, Progecad and Bricscad. I was very impressed by Zwcad. It's speed in saving big
drawings is much closer to AutoCAD whereas in Progecad and Bricscad it was terribly slow. I am
not talking about the spped of the CAD software - please note - I am talking about how fast it
saves. This is because in our office we save after every few commands. We do not rely on the UPS
as sometimes UPS also fails during power shutdown suddenly. So the time taken for saving in Progecad and Bricscad will really kill our productivity.
I have not deeply explored other features. Our main work is 2D drafting. (For 3D I resort to SketchUP Free).
Is switching from AutoCAD to Zwcad really worth it? Is Zwcad superior to Progecad and Bricscad?
This force upgradation after every three releases by Autodesk is really sucking my hard earned money.
Any advice will be very valuable to me.
Thanks in advance
PRSS
I just joined this forum. I just stumbled upon it luckily. I started browsing the various groups and I
am very impressed.
I am an Architect and I have a 5-user license for AutoCAD LT and 2 user licenses for Full AutoCAD.
I still use 2006 version. Before the end of this month, i.e. March, I have to either upgrade (forced by Autodesk) or lose all future upgrades to Autocad. They are retiring AutoCAD 2006 products and closing all upgrades from 2006 products by the end of March 2009.
I do not find the investment of upgrading from 2006 to 2009 - as far as I am concerned 2006 itself
is quite overkill for my tasks.
I tried out Zwcad, Progecad and Bricscad. I was very impressed by Zwcad. It's speed in saving big
drawings is much closer to AutoCAD whereas in Progecad and Bricscad it was terribly slow. I am
not talking about the spped of the CAD software - please note - I am talking about how fast it
saves. This is because in our office we save after every few commands. We do not rely on the UPS
as sometimes UPS also fails during power shutdown suddenly. So the time taken for saving in Progecad and Bricscad will really kill our productivity.
I have not deeply explored other features. Our main work is 2D drafting. (For 3D I resort to SketchUP Free).
Is switching from AutoCAD to Zwcad really worth it? Is Zwcad superior to Progecad and Bricscad?
This force upgradation after every three releases by Autodesk is really sucking my hard earned money.
Any advice will be very valuable to me.
Thanks in advance
PRSS
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Guido Sevi on -
Having read all the thread, I wonder if tehre is anyone who can make a report comparation table of all this CAD programs. This would be a great tool to objectively know which is better...
Guido
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Permalink Reply by Deelip Menezes on -
Even if someone were to make a comparison table, it would work only in the short term, because all the old IntelliCAD 6 variants (all expect Bricscad) will be moving to the new IntelliCAD 7 platform in the near future. This will render the comparison table more or less useless.
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Permalink Reply by Royal on -
PRSS--
It is now official... as of yesterday (Monday May 11th), our first DoubleCAD XT and XT PRO maintenance release v1.1 started shipping.
Easier to say now that it was slightly delayed because we put some extra stuff in it.
Really happy to say that we are knee deep into the next full version upgrade.
Note, you may not feel much of a difference with zooming and panning speed... but we are laying the ground work for a potential major speed-up in these areas with the next release.
Curious to know your opinion on the other differentiating features in free DoubleCAD XT v1.1 (self-healing walls, .SKP compatibility, solid hatch transparency fill, prioritization for object snaps, insert/embed/bind an image in a drawing, draworder settings by layers, smart dimensions, flatten 3D to 2D views, bezier curves, etc.).
Thank you for your input.
Regards--
--Royal.
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Permalink Reply by PRSS on
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Thankyou Royal
I shal certainly do that. I shall download it now. For want of time I shall give the feedback sometime later.
With best regards
PRSS
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Permalink Reply by abhk on
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hello prss
I am using a CAD software , very simple and equivalent to autocad ;a good alternative of AUTOCAD and better then ZWCAD in every feature. in expenses also
you have not to worry about paying again and again on every release.
it is CADian , a simple and easy cad software almost equivalent to autocad except GUI
www.cadian .com
why not you try it .
its new version will be launched in 6 months with new features
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Permalink Reply by PRSS on
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I have already tried this. IMHO there is no AutoCAD Clone at present which is as fast as AutoCAD. Cadian is definitely not even close to AutoCAD speed. I have come to a point where I am willing to pay the price of AutoCAD for its stability and speed. It is really unfortunate that no clone can do this (speed as well as stability). Since recently I am also fed up trying out every other AutoCAD Clone. I am now once for all settled for AutoCAD!
With best regards
PRSS
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