Ways of sketching out new ideas, CAD, Paint, Pencil / Paper

[nuffer460]

I start with pen, pencil, and paper. Then I would go to Total CAD. That was several years ago. Good program, but could not really do any thing with it. I got Alibre Design 3D CAD. It was not that hard to learn and they have a great training series. I can send a drawing to CAM or copy a drawing to disc and send it to my neighbor. He has a steel fab shop and makes parts directly form the drawing. very cool. It has helped me change a design before cutting up allot of steel. The learning time of CAD is worth the time and money of scrap that did not work.

[mjncad]

It all depends...

Most things are done in my head as I work with available materials (much of which is pre-used). Sometimes AutoBIC (BIC = Pen manufacturer in the UK).

AutoBIC...I like it! We have Bic pens and lighters on this side of the pond too.

[forgeblast]

I dont know if you have seen this, its the bic for women pen, and it has 525+ reviews
http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B004FTGJUW

[mjncad]

Batteries not included no doubt!

[nomad]

I've started with the pencil. At my time when I was industrial high school, there was only pencils with various pencil tips and colors. Later, CAD came to the life, I used Acad and various open code (Unix, Linux) drawing softwares. Lately, only SolidWorks which is very friendly for 3-d solid drawings especially. But, I am getting old and not so easy to see fine lines, etc anymore, so, I call drawing young man to draw for me for a payment, he draws things in an hour that I can do in a day. For friendly use, Solidworks works fine. It is also compatible with engineering calculations softwares such as Ansys, etc. You can transfer 3-d solid model design drawing to Ansys which completes your design by doing all engineering calculations. Solidworks and especially Ansys aren't cheap, but, they close their eyes to the cracked versions for home and education uses.

[bennettfarms]

Used to use AutoCAD but have relied more heavily on Solidworks lately. If you have a student in the family and if the don't need the software you can use their email to get free software from both. The AutoCAD software that i use has lasted more than a year so i think that their is no time limit on the student version I have. Solidworks however claims to be one year use so we will see if that is true also.