I cover things in Linux, from simple things like a poker game, to more serious things like... whats coming next. I cover the simple things for the curiosity of Windows and Mac users while the more serious things are for Linux users looking at a niche interest. If you read the 'About me' page of my blog, you would come to know that I am a civil engineer. If you happen to be one yourself and use Linux, you would come to know about Linux woes facing a civil engineer.
Linux, by default have no love for civil engineers. Some love seems to have gone to mechanical and electrical engineers, a whole full loving embrace to computer engineers and IT professionals. The lack of love for civil engineers have been in the form of absence of CAD (computer aided design) software that helps architectures do their thing; design and model structures.
That said, there have been a few propriety software for Linux targeting civil people to do their deeds. Since I don't like to spend a dime from pocket, I never paid attention to those software. The open source, free software that I known till very recently is QCAD and it is suffice to say my experience with it is non-existent because upon installation, I found the user experience is very different from that of AutoCAD, the mother of all CAD software. The problem with this mom is that it is owned by AutoDesk, a company that focuses on propriety software for the propriety OS. There is no Linux love there and probably never going to be any
So along came DraftSight, a software boasting to be along side the likes of AutoCAD, minus the 3D modelling capabilities and the huge overhead cost of the latter. Inability to make 3D models is a major turn off, but still I had to give it a try, seeing how there aren't many contenders in Linux for AutoCAD.
The user experience for Draftsight turned out to be... well... better than QCAD, lower then AutoCAD. The interface looked like a ripoff from AutoCAD which I don't mind much. What bugged me was the slow performance and the buggy experience I had while I designed a floor plan in Draftsight, which can be attributed to my legacy laptop and its old Celeron processor. All in all, the experience was similar to AutoCAD, similar but doesn't beat AutoCAD at its game. Perhaps a pros and cons list in order
Pros
- Runs on Windows, Mac and Linux; cross platform
- Free software that promises to be free
- AutoCAD users can identify the interface and start working on it immediately
- Simplicity. AutoCAD users will know the complicity of that bloated software. Many instances of such things being simplified is evident on DraftSight.
- Experience of drafting is similar to AutoCAD. There are snapping guides and helpers that one would be used in AutoCAD
- Runs fine on legacy systems such as my laptop. Don't expect to open any other applications at the same time, though.
- The interface itself is native to Linux, with drop-down menus having colors matching my theme. QCAD look more like a wine application with its grey buttons and menus (even though it is a Linux based software)
- A helpful guide on online training available from within the application
- Outputs DWG format (AutoCAD native)
- A small installation file in .deb format
- Doesn't eat away resources like AutoCAD (which eats away everything)
Cons
- Doesn't support 3D modelling as of yet. In this modern world what are we going to do without 3d modelling capabilities of CAD? Till this is sorted out, its blender to make your application 3D
- Annotations are not user friendly.* I would have rather finished my drawing and outputted as a picture on which I make annotations using Inkscape or even the GIMP.
- Output in jpeg, pdf, etc results in a pixelated image... see screenshot (and don't shit your pants)
- Zooming in and out is difficult (need to experience first hand what I'm talking about)
- Still in beta release (which is probably why they ask for registration). Don't worry, it's not like a nagging question that comes on the screen every now and then (like it does in Windows software sometimes). The software is in no way limited in functionality even if you skip registration. The catch is you have to register in 30 days after installation or the software pops up a menu upon saving the file for the first time. Registration is free of course.
- Hangs from time to time (maybe because of my limited system resources?) This was more evident when I tried to chill out to some music on rhythmbox as I did my work.
- Not able to pin application to dockbarX (of very small importance). I so want the cool logo of this software sitting on the sidebar panel within dockbarX. For now its a no-go on that road
*In DraftSight, annotations are made by using tools called note and simplenote. While note is difficult to use (you have to set the dimensions of the note itself first and then enter the text), simple note is easy 2 use but results in text that are not editable once entered. The over all experience of entering text is different from AutoCAD.
Preview
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| DraftSight starting up. Notice the very awesome logo |
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| My CAD work done in Linux :D |
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| QCAD, an alternative 2D CAD program available for free. Not anything like AutoCAD |
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| OMG!, WTF is that?! All my hard work to get a floor layout that looks as if its been hand drawn |
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| Adjusting colors and line weight got me this. A lil' better but still not on the same level as AutoCAD |
So enough been said. My verdict is that while this is ground breaking CAD software for Linux, the same doesn't apply to Windows as long as support for 3D modelling is absent from the application. As far as 2D drafting goes, some improvements and polishing up is required and soon colleges would replace AutoCAD with this free software for the beginner's phase into CAD. Maybe their full release will bring about changes to a much required application for civil and mechanical engineers using Linux so that the experience is streamlined and the features in the program can directly take on AutoCAD.
Bring it on AutoCAD! Soon we would be competing against you from an open source peaceful land.
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