Floorplan Software for Macs? 80
jgardner asks: "I was asked by my employer to create a scale drawing of the floorplan for our company's buildings. Using Illustrator or Freehand and building everything from scratch seems too time expensive. I spent a long time online looking for a program which is designed to create floorplans, but only found expensive, high-end products. I need something inexpensive, and it just needs to draw flooplans. No 3D modeling, or walkthroughs required. There are plenty for PCs that are under $100. So far for the Mac, I have only found Architecture 3.03, by Abracadata. This program was originally written for OS 6.x, so it is very old, and has severe limitations. Does anyone know of a better Mac alternative? Maybe even an inexpensive set of tools for Illustrator or Freehand? Preferably OS X, but I can boot into 9 or operate in Classic if forced to."
Graffle it? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not the most exact in the world, but it's something at least, no?
Re:Graffle it? (Score:1)
Re:Graffle it? (Score:1)
Re:Graffle it! Here's the key (Score:5, Informative)
On top of that, it comes with pallettes of objects (desks, network access points, chairs, server cabinets, etc.). You can download extra pallettes, and you can make your own pallettes by dragging and dropping images.
I used it to draw out plans for a kitchen conversion in our office. I've also used it to draw out network diagrams; diagrams of where data is stored on the server... It's a great app!
Re:Graffle it? (Score:1)
Re:Graffle it? (Score:2)
For quick sketches and graphs, its an amazing little tool.
Re:Graffle it? (Score:3, Informative)
Stone design has Create (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.stone.com/Create/Create.html
MacDraft? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:MacDraft? (Score:2)
Worked great. Simple and cheaper than everything else I see suggested.
--Richard
QCad (Score:4, Informative)
Re:QCad (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.qcad.org/
Re:QCad (Score:1)
All due respect to the QCad developers - but you have to make better documentation, or have a big splash page warning users that your interfaceface conventions are severely different than most other apps they've ever used.
-shpoffo
Re:QCad (Score:1)
different from anything you've every used: not if you get out much
once i figured out the basic idea (about 2 minutes), i found the interface makes perfect sense, and is quite easy to use. could be better, of course, but perfectly adequate, and better than most in some ways.
Re:QCad (Score:1)
Visio? (Score:1)
Just my $0.02.
Not on MacOS X (Score:3, Informative)
I liked someone's suggestion of using OmniGraffle. It's awesome for UML, and flow-charts. Wonder if someone could make up a pallete with walls, windows and doors...I like that idea...
Re:Visio? (Score:5, Informative)
I've used both Omnigraffle [omnigroup.com] and Visio. Visio is a very good program and very comprehensive. The problem is, it's not very easy to use. It's fairly difficult to make it do what you want it to do. Make a mistake or need to resize your chart, you are in for hours of editting.
Omnigraffle is much easier to use! Very intuitive interface, easy to adjust things -- and yes, it does come with an office layout pallette. You can even import your own graphic elements, if you choose. The new version 3 does even more cool stuff!
If the folks at Omnigroup ever decide to take on Excel (my favorite M$ product), I've got some money I'd like to throw at them...
Re:Visio? (Score:2)
Re:Visio? (Score:2)
There is no Mac Publisher, either. Or at least not for awhile. So there you go.
Re:Visio? (Score:1)
Xfig! (Score:5, Interesting)
URL, btw (Score:3, Informative)
Re:URL, btw (Score:2, Informative)
DIA (Score:1)
thnx for the info
greetings, tijger
Re:URL, btw (Score:1)
my $.02: xfig is an incredible chore to use. (i really do just write postscript instead)
Re:URL, btw (Score:2)
Re:Xfig! (Score:1)
Re:Xfig! (Score:2)
Try ConceptDraw (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you looked into ConceptDraw? It's a Visio style drawing and flowcharting program. There are a couple of versions at different pricepoints. I've used it for flowcharting, site mapping, wireframing, org charting, and, well, designing my new kitchen. :-)
Here's a link to the libraries. I think even the cheap version supports floor plans.
http://www.conceptdraw.com.ua/en/tours/libtour/cdt ours.php [conceptdraw.com.ua]
I've used ConceptDraw a lot in a work setting. I don't think it's quite as good as Visio, but it is the most full featured program of its type for MacOS. I found it very stable but with quite a few UI quirks. (Not as polished as an Adobe or Macromedia product.)
floorplan hackers! (Score:5, Funny)
Paper (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Paper (Score:1)
Just use an emulator... (Score:2)
The only question is price. If your time is worth the price of the VirtualPC software. But this would seem to be the simplest answer to your question.
And please, spare me the philosophy. I understand the reasons for going pure-mac, or pure-linux, or pure-whatever, but the question is "How to I get from A->B most effictively" and that is how I answered t
Re:Just use an emulator... (Score:2, Insightful)
You forget to mention that users are also required to pay for a licensed copy of the Windows operating system to run Windows programs using the Virtual PC software.
There are plenty of solutions much simpler than resorting to an emulator.
No.
It's seems unjust to recommend giving money to a convicted felon for no good r
Re:Just use an emulator... (Score:2, Informative)
SketchUp (Score:4, Informative)
Re:SketchUp (Score:2)
Canvas (Score:4, Informative)
I'd highly recommend Canvas [deneba.com] from ACD Systems (formerly Deneba Software). It's a mite expensive (~$350) but it excels at doing technical drawings/illustration particularly to scale. I've been using Canvas for doing starship deckplans [mac.com] for the Traveller game, and I can set the scale to be 1 X to be 1 Y and then have all of my drawings/measurements displayed in the Y units.
Canvas is pretty easy to learn though it has its quirks. On the plus side, while it is geared towards technical illustration, it's also a general purpose graphics package that can handle bitmap editing (subset of Photoshop functionality, and some photoshop filters work with Canvas), light page layout, and flow charting. Canvas imports and exports a wide variety of formats. I couldn't live without it for my work (user interface design).
There is a free 15 (I think it's 15) day trial version available.
You may want to look at these... (Score:4, Informative)
You may want to see if these fit the bill for you.
CADintosh X 4.4 - 2D CAD - 2.6M - Shareware
CADtools 2.1.4 - CAD plugin for Adobe Illustrator
Omnigraffle (Score:1)
The professional version is very cool.
You *could* try Linux CAD... (Score:1)
Phil
Mac Architect's Site (Score:5, Informative)
--
They don't list QCAD, a free Mac OS X native 2D only program. I recently loaded it on my 64 450 it has worked well so far and should do what you need. QCad uses the AutoCAD
PowerCADD X is also a good choice, simple and stright forward. The new Mac OS X version is $895.00 with $150.00 extra for a AutoCAD translator. Cheap for a CAD application but still a good outlay of cash for something you may only use once or twice.
Free option! (Score:5, Funny)
Design your entire home from the ground up and test it for paper-airplane-friendliness!
CAD / 3D Resource for Macs (Score:2)
It might be more than you're looking for but whenever CAD is mentioned don't forget an underappreciated Mac resource in architosh.com [architosh.com].
The site for all things CAD.
=tkk
you need to go to ... (Score:1)
Floor Plans, etc = SketchUp (Score:5, Informative)
You can also use walkthroughs; literally walk through the model. You can build on different layers and hide any/all of them, and even deaignate a plene on your model, such that everything on the positive side of the plane is hidden, but the rest is visible (perfect for cross sections, cutaways).
SketchUp costs $475 for the full version, but you can get a demo, which can either work for 30 days, or for 12.0 hours of actual use time. THere is a windows client as well. The best part about SketchUp is the versatility. You can actually save drawings as
SketchUp is definitely the way to go.
Re:Floor Plans, etc = SketchUp (Score:1, Insightful)
http://www.sketchup.com/ has several demos and tutorials to try out. The thing has automatic scaling, several libraries of objects and materials, a bustling community and the people behind it must be some of the nicest businessm
Illustrator plugin (Score:2)
While OMNIGraffle and Stone's CREATE will take a smaller chunk out of the expense account, consider the notion that you'd be extending Illustrator's functionality rather than investing in a stopgap solution.
New to OSX - High Design (Score:1)
Re:New to OSX - High Design (Score:1)
Re:New to OSX - High Design (Score:1)
You are all silly. (Score:3, Funny)
The original one.
The original concept of the application was to design a layout design program. Yeah, it's "semi-3D" but you can view it from multiple perspectives.
so yeah.
Intaglio (Score:1, Informative)
Pencil and paper (Score:3, Funny)
You might want to have the office supply staff invest in a straight edge and a drafter's/architecht's scale and a few circle/shape templates. If you want to go overboard, a few different hardness pencils and a small colored pencil set.
In all the hardware mentioned should run less than $100.
Unless you already have them, aquiring the measurments of the buildings will take more time than drawing them, whether on computer or by hand.
Use Kivio (Score:2)
Pov (Score:1)
Hm? (Score:2)
Try DrawWell (Score:1)
Do you really need this? (Score:1)
MacDraft for OS X just released! (Score:2)
Just announced today, 8.15.2003
Re:MacDraft for OS X just released! (Score:2)
I used an OS X native version of MacDraft a year ago.
--Richard
call your Architect! (Score:2)
Another alternative would be to hire an architecture student to do the work. The de
If you already have Freehand (Score:2)
Now, if you don't already have it, that's another story.
Vectorworks (Score:2)
Look at "Design Your Own Home(R) 3D WalkAround(TM) (Score:1)