CAD Software
Computer Aided Design usually refers to a group of software applications for creating technical drawings. These can be either 2D or 3D. Sketchpad is historically considered the first one. Well known commercial examples of this type of software are AutoCAD (no Linux version yet, 2008), SolidWorks (no Linux version yet, 2008) and Pro/Engineer (has been ported to Linux).
Comparison of CAD, CAM and CAE Software
| Application | Latest stable release | Manufacturer | Environment | Software licence | Open source | User Interface Language | Stable? | Imports | Exports | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AutoCAD 2008 | AutoDesk | 2009 | Windows, WINE[1] | Proprietary | No | English_language (incomplete list) | Yes | DXF, DWG, IFC, (incomplete list) | 3DS (requires addon), DXF, .dwg, DWF, IFC, (incomplete list) | QCAD Community Edition | 2.0.5.0 | RibbonSoft | Unix, Linux, Mac OS X | GNU GPL | Yes | DA, DE, Dutch, Estonian, Greek, Czech, English_language EN, FR, Hungarian, IT, NO, Polish, Punjabi, Russian, Slovak, SP, Turkish | Yes | DXF, (incomplete list) | DXF, (incomplete list) |
| QCAD Professional | 2.2.0.0 | RibbonSoft | Unix, Linux, Mac OS X, Windows | Proprietary | No | English_language EN | Yes | DXF (incomplete list) | DXF (incomplete list) | ||||||||||
| Pro/Engineer | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ||||||||||
| VariCAD | 2008 2.02 | VariCAD | Linux, Windows | Proprietary | No | EN | Stable | STEP (3D), DWG (2D), DXF (2D) and IGES (2D) ref | STEP (3D), STL (3D), IGES (3D/2D), DWG (2D), DXF (2D) ref | ||||||||||
| SagCAD | 0.9.12 | SagCAD | Linux | GNU GPL | Yes | English, Japanese (incomplete list) | Unstable | DXF | DXF |