Hey everyone-not sure where to put this. If it needs to be moved, feel free.

Does anyone know of a simple design, drawing, or cad-type program? I have to do some plans of different types of microlivestock structures (LONG story!) and need something a little neater than drawing it freehand. If I could also use it for knife design that would be great, although I'm probably too darn stubborn to change from my graph paper & pencils. I'm not a design pro or a computer whiz so the more basic the better.

Thanks
Dave Armour

Dave,
Google has a decent free program called Google Sketchup (http://sketchup.google.com/), I have used it a little and found it to be a great tool. The only thing that I don't like about it is the way you have to dimension lines.
But for the price it is very good.

Brett

There's a low cost drawing program called DeltaCad. It's very simple to use but has a ton of functions. (www.deltacad.com). It can use files that match up with "real" cad files, so you can read and use other files.

How about Autodesk 123D? It's free, but I haven't played with it much.

What is a microlivestock structure? A roach motel?

A quick update- played with sketchup for a bit. It's really easy to use and something that would do the job. Ended up a friend of a friend is an engineer and in return for building him a chicken tractor this spring he's doing the plans for me. Hate to say it, but I'm just too darn stubborn- I probably would have ended up doing them on paper instead.

Rscoffey- a microlivestock structure is small portable or semi-portable housing for keeping a few of some of the smaller types of livestock- anything from quail to dwarf goats. They're mainly used by hobby farmers or urban homesteaders who want their gardens to include animals. "Microlivestock Structure" sounds better to grouchy town boards than "chicken coop", that's all.

I am messing around with iDesign on my iphone right now. Not sure if it works with real cad files, but sure is easy to use.