i guess it all depends on your budget and how often you plan on using it.

personally, i think the autocad student version is a pretty good deal, and it is easy enough to remove the "educational version" stamp in illustrator.

if your a student though, why not just get a bootleg copy...

Because I am using it for some professional uses. OK, I know that you're not really supposed to do that with the student versions either, but I figure that's at least better than totally stealing it. I'm trying to go legit- my Adobe stuff is legit, my operating system is legit, I'd like to have a drafting program that I'm not stealing as well.

Now that you mention it and I've gone back and looked, AutoCAD LT perpetual seems like it might be manageable.

LT has some very crucial things missing that will likely drive you crazy if you are used to the full version of AutoCAD.

If you have a student email, you can download a FREE student version from AutoDesk at http://students3.autodesk.com/?lbon=1

Rhinoceros, best licensed software package..a commercial license at a student price... 139 .00 a perpetual license and great tech support....

www.academicsuperstore.com

oh just so you know aif you use an autocad student version then save it as a dxf the watermark will be removed the next you open it on a regular license Autocad system


so save as dxf ---no mnore watermark

download a free 14month license from the autodesk student community...then when needed save as dxf- no more watermark...

I second Rhino... I find myself drafting in top view more and more these days, and my educational version was only 200 bucks, plus I get access to all the service updates that my friends using the bootleg copies don't. very very worthwhile.

third rhino. they're great. they update and patch often to fix bugs and great amount of free plugins. i bought cause the updates actually are worth the money.

autocad is the worst. if they'd offer it at a fair price w/o the watermark, they'd have so many more buyers. also, stop doing worthless upgrades every year. recognize it as the standard drafting tool and stop making it do all sorts of gymnastics that end up just making the product work.

maxwell render also is offered as a student license which is a great deal.

acfa is right. i am going to start using rhino for my drafting because of this.

Rhino

4th'd

or if you more comfortable in the autocad interface i would say use IntelliCAD, there are many free versions by many partners out there

ewwwww saving to DXF will ruin all your curves to segments NOOO ;)

also McNeel Listens, i feel like many of the features i 'wished' for came true over the time i have been using it. That is what a small company that the workers own it does, listen to their users feedback and implement it. This is why we have some of the most powerful creation tools available today in Rhino.

Perfect example of McNeel listening to customers- I had always complained to my friends that Make2D doesn't have a status bar or indicator to tell you how far along it is. I emailed McNeel about it, and they tell me that they're going to introduce it in V5! Wow!