BSA Committee on Design Software
12. Free Software Downloadable from the Web
2D CADD :
TurboCAD Light -------- http://www.imsisoft.com/
IntelliCAD 2000 ----- Run by IntelliCAD.org = http://www.intellicad.org ---- Downloadable from = http://www.cadopia.com/
DaveCAD --------
3D Modeling CADD :
DesignWorkshop Light -------- http://www.artifice.com
SoftCAD 3D Light -------- http://www.softcad.com
Evaluation Software : (fully working and printing software for a limited time)
DataCAD 8.50 Demo (30 days) ------ DataCAD LLC = http://www.datacad.com
ArchT for AutoCAD (5 days) -------- http://www.archt.com
LightScape (8 days) -------- http://www.lightscape.com
FormZ (30 days) -------- http://www.formz.com
AutoCAD Demo (30 days) -------- http://www.autodesk.com
dhShadow macro for DataCAD (30 days) --------
Demonstration Software : (no saving no printing)
MiniCAD / VectorWorks -------- http://www.diehlgraphsoft.com
AutoCAD 2000 -------- http://www.autodesk.com
Revit Demo -------- http://www.revit.com
Sources of free (and shareware) software :
Tucows --- http://www.tucows.com
Shareware.com ---- http://www.shareware.com
Drawing and Image Viewers --- Free
ACDSee Classic ---- http://www.acdsystems.com (this fantastic views should be on every Windows system views gif, bmp, jpeg, etc. instantly)
Objects --- Free
http://www.digitalanimators.com/HTM/Resources/3dModels/3dModelsMain.htm
3D Animals, 3D Futuristic, 3D Interiors, 3D Galactic ,3D Aircraft, 3D Miscellaneous, 3D Vehicles
Matt Saunders
http://homepage.dtn.ntl.com/matt.saunders/objects.htm
A Dozen or so misc. truespace format objects
Meta3D
Over 50 misc. 3DS objects.
Geometrix Gallery
Some wrl objects produced from Geometrix's 3DScan, video scanning technology.
The 3DStudio
http://the3dstudio.com/index.phtml?models=1
Max models: Characters, Furniture, FX, Household, Misc, Plants, Sculpture, Space, Vehicles, Weapons
Textures --- Free
AliasWavefront Texture Library
http://www.aliaswavefront.com/assistant_online/entertain/maya/library/sourceImages/index.html
Construction, Environment, Textiles and Patterned fabric, Fractals and patterns. Buildings and patterned glass, Miscellaneous patterns and materials in color, Miscellaneous patterns and materials in grayscale, Miscellaneous noise patterns and distortion, Plant images and materials, Reflected images and reflection maps. Images of rubber, Animal skins and patterns, Marbles, Stones, and natural textures, Markers for texture mapping, Wood
Graphtallica
http://graphtallica.ingava.com
Textures created primarily for use in 3d games. Therefore, they are in multiples in 16, and most are square (256x256).
Astaroths7thsphereii
http://astaroths7thsphereii.webjump.com/
Material Libraries for Truespace: Sci-fi ship hulls
User Comments :
Date: Wed, 03 Nov 1999
From: Michael Smith <wmitrop@tiac.net>
Subject: IntelliCAD FAQ
Anyone interested in the fate of IntelliCAD should check out the FAQ page of its web site: http://www.intellicad.org/faq/index.htm
Here are some of the highlights. Note that at this site you only get the SOURCE CODE, not a finished product:
End users can get the source code for free. However, there are costs associated with dealing with that source code: purchasing a compiler and compiling the code; licensing relevant components such as VBA; developing documentation and support for company-wide use; and so on. For all of these reasons it makes sense that many users will prefer to purchase a shrink wrapped version. A number of members plan to sell shrink-wrapped versions of IntelliCAD that include the licensed components, an installation routine, printed documentation and support.
Q.Is this like open sourcing?
A.Open sourcing works best with a technology that is a required piece of infrastructure. From that perspective, IntelliCAD is a perfect candidate for an open source approach. It is also true that some members of the ITC have expressed interest in offering shrink-wrapped versions of IntelliCAD in much the same way that Red Hat offers shrink-wrapped versions of Linux.
Q.Will IntelliCAD 2000 be Architectural Desktop or AutoCAD 2000 compatible?
A.IntelliCAD 2000 will fully support the 2000 DWG format, as was demonstrated at the A/E/C Systems show in June of 1999.
Q.Why hasn't Visio released IntelliCAD through the OpenDWG Alliance? Will Visio release the source code for the OpenDWG toolkit to the public as well?
A.The ITC is talking with the OpenDWG Alliance about possible cooperation between the two organizations. The OpenDWG Alliance is an independent organization so any such decisions will need to be approved through their board.
From: "Scott B. Roberts" <scottr@dhc.net>
Subject: IntelliCAD
Geoff Ward_Able wrote:
> Anybody successfully installed the free IntelliCAD from the source code at http://www.intellicad.org ?
Go to -- http://www.cadopia.com/ for a compiled version of Intellicad 2000. You will have to register, download a zip file then unzip the file with a lock code they will send to you via e-mail. This version does not include a renderer and a few other items. My copy installed just fine. It looks very much like Icad 98.
TurboCAD
If anyone is looking for a AutoCAD.dwg capable CAD system that can also utilize Paperspace check this out:
http://www.imsisoft.com/turbocad/2d/index.cfm?param=000003-1-1
They a giving away TurboCAD 2D for free. No strings attached. After you register for the download they send you an unlock code. It is a native 32bit Windows program, you can cut & copy to the clipboard, link to Office apps and open multiple drawing files at once. I thnk it might be useful for the windows functions and the paperspace/dwg capabilities. Personnally though it is primarily an icon based program, I prefer our cleaner DataCAD interface.
Check it out if the functions I listed would be nice to have, besides its a free CAD program. "Free" Tony Blasio
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000
From: "Steve krapek" <skrapek@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Free Web Page
There are plenty of sites where you can get free space. tow that pop to mind quickly are Homestead (which Tony Blasio uses for his web site) , and Yahoo (GeoCities) which I used for a website not related to Architecture. There are at least a dozen others that I ran across when I was looking to publish my website. However, with the free websites you should watch for the following:
1) The free one's, although they may give you even more MB than your ISP actually count it differently and may use it as advertising and to collect information about your users. make sure you understand this aspect. For instance, the site I built, on Yahoo geocities always has their banner displayed and it will show different advertising messages as you go from page to page within the site. I suspect that they have a way of reading cookies or collect them from different machines, because the messages are different for each visitor, and usually tailored toward a subject matter that they have shown interest to in the past.
2) If you use a free site, you may have to build your site online, with the software or web page builder they provide. For instance, I built my site with Microsoft FrontPage 2000 before I knew how to publish it. Turned out the Homestead site I signed up for would not convert the pages (in .htm format) to the .html format that was needed. So I was faced with rebuilding it or finding a service that could make this conversion.
3) Some of the free sites load very slow. I am not sure why, this not being a field I hold a lot of interest in, but if they load really slow, people will lose patience during loading of your site, and log off. Photos have the potential of really loading slowly, so if you have a site dominated by photos, you will want to make sure this is not a problem for you.
4) The free sites are rather vulnerable to change and being bought as the companies get larger, and therefore, renamed. A website that is name specific to you may be really important to its success and longevity, and you are not assured this on the free ones.
5) I think that if you use a free site, it is potentially harder to get your URL (this is probably the wrong term) set up so that it can be found by search engines (I might be wrong here, and if someone can point this out and show me how to correct this aspect, I would be grateful for the advice). If it is important to your business to pop up on the search engines, you should check this out.
6) Sometimes the sites on these free services go down for a while. I have been unable to get to mine at times to maintain and update it, and if you forget the password, you are pretty much toast.
Steve Krapek
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