DesignCAD Express 14

by IMSI Design

Product Features

• Draw virtually anything -- the advanced tools make it easy to manage layers, construct advanced geometric shapes, and edit in a snap
• Sophisticated editing features and extensive text manipulation
• Multiple drawing shortcuts for making accurate drawings, faster than ever
• Extensive dimensioning and annotation features
• Compatible with files from other CAD programs such as AutoCAD, TurboCAD and CADKey

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000TQ15O
• Item model number: 3024
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 17, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,617 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Don't be misled!, October 30, 2005

By 

S. Maleki - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: DesignCAD Express 14 (CD-ROM)

Even if you're a computer geek (as I sorta am), if you haven't worked with CAD programs, don't think that this'll allow you to draw a 2-D pentagon within a few hours. (Yes, I meant, not even hours.) There's a requirement to relearn everything your brain ever thought it learned at age five about drawing even a line. I'm not knocking this particular software; I'm just saying that if you have an image in your mind that you want to get on paper in a structured way, and you think this program will help you -- an inexperienced CAD user -- it ain't gonna happen any time soon. Unfortunately, there really doesn't appear to be any other software that would serve that purpose efficiently. Only positive note: user forum is terrific -- but still insufficient to get the job done in a reasonable time frame.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Powerful and a Great Price, August 11, 2006

By 

A. Wolff (Oklahoma) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: DesignCAD Express 14 (CD-ROM)

I have owned Designcad Express 14 for about 8 months now. Each time I use it, I find a new feature that makes drawing easier and more accurate. As with any full featured CAD program, it takes an investment in time to learn all the features to make you productive. For example, I recently spent an hour placing 90 evenly spaced marks around the circumference of a circle. Later, I found the Tickmark command will do this in about 2 seconds. If you are new to CAD, there are many books available and Designcad includes a tutorial to get you started. After learning the basic commands, I was amazed at the power contained in a program that cost less than $20. (I purchased version 14 after version 15 was released.) Printing is very accurate, but sometimes problematic. Drawings printed to scale on a laser printer are precise within the limits of my measuring abilities.

This program would receive 5 stars except for a couple of program bugs that sometimes occur. The toolbar for zooming in and out of the drawing will sometimes just disappear. Closing the program and restarting will bring it back, but that should not happen. The second problem is more serious. If I spend a lot of time using print preview, changing print settings and other functions associated with printing, the program will crash. Saving the drawing before printing and limiting the use of the print preview function are the workarounds I use. Hopefully these problems have been fixed by now (version 16 is available at the time of this review.)

If you just want to draw basic shapes, there are other programs that will better suit your needs. But if you need to create accurate, detailed drawings, Designcad is hard to beat and at a price that is much lower than almost any other CAD program.