sketchup.

it's easy and free

or you could get tutorials online and practice. rhino is a good one to know.

Are you looking for 2D or 3D programs? SketchUp and Rhino are 3D programs.

I'd go for 3D, personally, which will help you avoid the cad monkey scenario (at least a little). You can learn CAD later on, no need to learn it now.

SketchUp or FormZ would be what I'd suggest.

Both are much cheaper than Acad (although you can buy Acad LT, which would be fine)

Rhino 4D - It's fast becoming the most versatile program in architecture, some people even use it in a similar fashion to CAD. It's also compartively cheap, and intuitive.

Rhinoceros does a fine of a job of CADD as if not more than the intellicads and autocad i feel. @ 150$ full commercial lic. for a student and can be learned in ~2 days
plus you get some of the most powerful 3d commands avail.

Progecad 2006 LT is free if you need 2d simple and 100% acad compatible, down to the LISP


of course i would recommend looking at example sets of Construction Documents of different projects and learning some IBC and other code.

AIA line weight and layering standards too will help to make your stuff easy to manage and make it 'POP'

rhino is a hot shit 3d modelling software. it's what the kids are using in schools and what the top design offices are using, i.e. it's not used commonly in practice. i have a feeling it's not what you'd be interested in. i think you're on the right track trying to take a drafting class at a community college, preferably using autocad/architectural desktop. my advice is as tim gunn would say "make it work" with your work schedule. there are going to be a hell of a lot of sacrafices you make working your way through architecture school. this may be your first. good luck. it's a very long road (one year prereqs, 3+ years grad school, 3 years internship, registration exam), but if you really want it, you'll find a way to get there.

Hey if I work for one of the top 3 architecture firms in the world and I use it daily in design and production I can dispute that.

Thank you everyone for all of the help!

I'm looking for the software I can use and learn that's closest to what I'd be doing and/or using once I eventually received a job in the field (Thats reasonably affordable - under $500). I'm hoping to get a taste of what work on the computer is like.

One of the architects I talked to told me this -

"AutoCAD is the defacto standard, used by probably 90% of offices. ArchiCAD, Revit and Microstation together probably make up another 7%, and leaving maybe 2-3% of us (if that) who work on Macs. We use a program called PowerCADD, which I still think is the best way to do residential work on CAD. Then there are the 3D programs, like SketchUp, Maya and Form-Z. We use SketchUp."

(I didn't know SketchUp was free)

If this is correct, it looks like I'd want to learn AutoCAD first and foremost, right?

I did find a 3 credit introduction to 2D CAD at a local community college that I think I'm going to try. Am I on the right track?

And today, I put my Ikea stereo cabinet on SketchUp. I thought looked amusing (but I can't get it to link up, doh)

Thanks again

Actually to be honest you may want to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. While the above comments are great and I agree with them all, I feel that you are doing yourself a great disservice by jumping a step and asking about computer software.

As you have already stated, you will most likely start as a draftsperson for a few years utilizing cad. Linking into what you mentioned about making the drawings legible, and others about making the drawings pop, I feel you cannot understand this without first learning the basics behind hand drafting, sketching, and graphics. Without this as a base of development you will not have a concept of what lineweights are, how to set up drawings properly, or even how to enable someone to legibly comprehend what you are trying to convey to him or her.

I hate to sound old-fashioned because I myself am guilty of getting through school just on computer software, but I attribute so much of my knowledge to the simple tools learned through becoming familiar with the scale, angles and compass. It is from these techniques that you will be able to better draw in cad, because there is much less room for error on the computer.

I hope you take some of this into your upcoming education and I wish you great luck in a field that can be very satisfying.

I'll agree with BluLite. I'm not gonna say you need to spend a year hand drafting all the parts of a 454 big block engine, learning basic hand drafting really does help. (BTW, my buddies and I won a state drafting competition in high school by hand drafting a 454 big block...)

Understanding what you're trying to accomplish with the computer gives you the upper hand. Instead of learning CAD for the sake of learning CAD, you learn CAD as a way to quickly draft precisely. Hand drafting also teaches you lots of geometrical tricks that are uber-fast on the computer. Sure, ACAD has some of those tools built in, but by the time I fill out the parameters and pick points, etc..., I can do the same thing 20 times over using hand drafting tricks.

Also, architecture is SO much more than just cad monkey work. I think there will be plenty of opportunity to polish up on your drafting skills in your classes if you do pursue a career in architecture.

My suggestion would be to swing a hammer for Habitat for Humanity, or go drive around a nice neighborhood or a downtown urban center. Buy some architectural history books. I would take this time to start learning how a building goes together. Or learn how to appreciate architecture.

Find your love for architecture, not your ability to CAD monkey.

well, after taking the drafting class at the community college, i would try to leverage your inner cad monkey into an intership/draftsman's position at one of the firm's you've been in contact with. the best introduction to the profession is office experience. it will give you the best sense of what you are getting into.

WARNING (flashing lights, flashing lights): i see you're in your thirties so be prepared for a major pay cut. this is what you have to look forward to for the next five to seven years of your life. if you have a family, be sure to understand what you are getting into in the short term. it would help a lot to have a fair amount of money saved to coast through the next several years. it's hard enough to get through the grad school/internship phase in your twenties. i can't imagine going through it in your thirties, especially if you have a family.

if this profession is really for you, be smart about what you are getting into, but don't get discouraged. i started later than most as well, and thoroughly enjoyed the new life i was entering, even if it does come with a fair amount of financial anxiety and very hard work.

depenz on whether you want to be a cad monkey or a graphics monkey. they both like bananas.

i'll echo a couple of the above posts in suggesting that if i were you i wouldn't be too concerned with picking up software just yet. programs come and go, change and evolve quite frequently. even if you learned one today, it's not likely to be the same as the one that you use when you finally do get a job (and even if it is the same, the firm will likely have their own way of doing things such as naming layers, using blocks, etc.)

more important would be to learn the basics of drafting and even if it's old fashioned, hand drafting and drawing is recommended here. hopefully your community college offers a couple of these coures. spend a semester doing each on of those first then proceed to a course on computer drafting. unless you want to limit yourself to a career as a draftsperson then there's no point in jumping into the computer drafting too quickly...and besides, you might as welll just go to a vocational/tech school in that case. and as a bonus, the hand drafting/drawing classes will provide you with some good early material for your portfolio. and you will need this when you eventually apply to architect school. and you will need architecture school if you like to be an architect.

one more anecdote, when i was in graduate school i took a real estate course with students from business, law, public policy, etc. schools and for the final project architectural drawings and renderings were very valuable. most of those drawing were produced by architecture students like myself, however, there were a few non-architects who attempted to use programs like sketchup. not surprisingly they learned the basics of the computer program very quickly but nonetheless their "designs" were just ridiculous. they completely lacked any visual sophistication and even such basis items as the placement of windows and doors were very questionable. and that reminds me of something that i learned from an architect many years ago when i was curious about the profession myself: that it's much easier for a good firm to hire an architect and teach him the drafting/computer skills needed for the job than it is to hire a draftsperson and teach him architecture.

Mitch Rhinoceros evolved from Autocad

and Intellicad that is free, Progecad 2006 lt, is exactly what Autocad it, it is a clone


good luck.

Besides 2d drafting, If I was you, i would also take a look at BIM software like Archicad or Revit. BIM will be the future, even though the implementation process is slow. The problem with BIM is that it isn't as sexy as Rhino and therefore not many firms and students use it. And like any normal human being, architects and students also fall for the "What's good for Zaha Hadid, should be good for enough for me." I've seen firms using Maya to model colonial style mansions, just because it's a hot product while autocad architecture would suit there needs much better.

So judging from the position you are in your life, you need an efficient tool to get the job done. You probably don't have the time (like a 20 year old) to be drafting all day and night while you could be working on your design. So therefore i suggest a program like Revit and if you need to model organic shapes, wait until the next release in spring.

i integrate Rhinoceros solid NURBS model data and other stuff i can't do anywhere into Revit BIM solutions often.

Mitch: the architect who told you that AutoCAD has a 90% market share is incorrect. Also I agree with others here who are telling you that jumping into a 2D CAD software isn't necessarily the best first step. (For one thing, examples of amateur 2D drafting - especially of your own house - are a kind of cliche bad portfolio filler amongst M.Arch admissions people.)
At this point pursuing something more 3-dimensional is probably a better idea - and if you are thinking of future portfolio material for admissions purposes you should look toward more expressive mediums - anything from painting to life drawing to furniture making are usually better for that purpose.

No single CAD software holds a majority share of the architecture market. MicroStation sells by far the most stations to architects, but this is mainly because several of the largest firms use it, and the US military uses it extensively in architectural pursuits. AutoCAD is certainly widely used, and most people want to have at least a working knowledge of it before they graduate from architecture school, in order to feel "marketable". But many, many firms use VectorWorks, ArchiCAD, and various other alternatives as their primary software for the production of construction drawings. I learned AutoCAD in architecture school but never used it again, and in over 40 interviews I rarely even interviewed anywhere that used it. I worked in 7 firms in five cities before going out on my own and none of them used AutoCAD. It's true that it's widely used by engineers, so usually it's what your consultants will be using, but these days there are few issues with file conversion and most consultants are used to working with architects who are using other software.