Is there any good CAD software that will run on a mac? Or howabout under Virtual PC? Thanks.
Look at http://www.architosh.com/
It has all of the CAD packages available for the mac. Basically Mac has a good selection of modeling tools, but doesn’t have Autodesk products nor Solidworks. Autodesk was promising Autocad and Inventor to the mac, but that was 2 years ago and I haven’t heard anything since.
Vectorworks seems to be the most popular choice these days for macs.
One day when I get enough money and also a computer that can run it, I’ll be buying the VectorWorks suite:
HTH,
Dave
The only professional CAD software for the Mac that I’m aware of is from Ashlar. They were pioneers in parametric design and I’ve used their 3D drafting software for about 10 years, first with Ashlar Vellum and now with Graphite. Their current offerings are Mac OSX and Windows native. Unfortunately, their prices are larger than their following and I think Cobalt, their solids package, costs about the same as Inventor.
I have Graphite (a 3D wireframe app) loaded on my Tibook, though I use Inventor on my desktop PC. I use Graphite to sketch concepts for work and FIRST as well as for home construction plans, but Inventor is a much better application for engineering design.
File import and export are a little dodgy with Ashlar - I can generally export dxf and iges successfully, but they’ve never put much effort into their import functions.
Ashlar’s programs are extremely easy to learn and use effectively, but they’ve never really made it into the majors, though according to Ashlar, “The Scaled Composites design team confirmed that they designed the majority of SpaceShipOne and its companion aircraft, White Knight, in Cobalt.” Rutan has figured heavily in their ad campaigns over the years.
For quick and easy work all the way up to exact detailed work I use SketchUp 4.1, it’s awsome. I find it to be a better suit for me than some of the big CAD programs on the PC. It’s easy to learn, and you can draw just about anything with it. Although it does have it’s limitations in the fact you can setup a drawing like you could in Inventor or AutoCad. But it is a good tool none the less. The web address is http://www.sketchup.com/ and it has loads of movies and tutorials to help you get started. You can get the 8 hour trial version for free, and for students the cost is $99. I would recomend taking a look at it.
ivey
Sanddrag,
You have a lot of answers here, but I wanted to add a history lesson. Autocad was written for both platforms at one time. Autodesk stopped supporting the Mac platform because their customer base was moving towards PCs due to their ease of use on large networks, support for multiple monitors and other peripherals like graphics tablets and big plotters. Big businesses need standardization and although Apple did have some of this same support, it was not enough to attract the big customers. I think the last version was Release 9.
Does anyone know if Inventor will run under VirtualPC or is it just something that will not happen anytime anywhere? If it does work, how bad is it? See the thing is, we have a whole lab full of G4s available for our use right in our build space, so, it would be nice if we could Inventor on them.
Unfortunately it is not going to happen even if you had a quad g5. Inventor is a very processor and GPU intensive suite. Virtual PC only emulates a very basic video card that won’t suite it. That is why Virtual PC can’t emulate games.
You might be able to start it up, but it won’t be useable in any sense and will probably crash.
im sure some older releases of inventor like Inventor 5 might work. IF i remember correctly they kept using mroe and more memory as the newer versions were released.
I run Inventor 3 on Virtual PC 7 occasionally, and it is usable, though slow.
Virtual PC is just as stable as a real Windows PC…I’ve never had any trouble with it at all. It’s a little slow, but it gets the job done 
Hey Sandrag! I believe that you are out of luck here. I tried to do the same with 3dsMax version 4 back in 2001, and I tweaked every setting I could on both sides of Virtual PC and the best I could get was that the program would open, but just wouldn’t run. (That was under the old Mac OS 9 on a 333Mhz Blueberry iMac.)
You may have better options once the Mac converts to Intel chips, especially with the Wine and Darwine initiatives. But that’s a few years off, so it doesn’t help now. (BTW: did you ever score a co-processor?)
Al, this is a history of many Mac applications, and is certainly not restricted to CAD. But if you are suggesting that Sanddrag switch platforms to conform to what “big business” does, I disagree. First off, not everyone is going to work for a big business with a phlegmatic IT department, as you and I do. Most are going to work at smaller or mid-sized businesses, and they need to be adaptable to whatever that business uses. Today, businesses are using Windows, Linux, Unix and Mac, adaptability to more than one of these systems can seriously increase your chances of being employed. People need to learn how to “operate” the computer, not just press the keys and click the mouse – a fact that almost everyone ignores as they focus on an OS battle that has long since ended.
In 1999, I was providing volunteer computer support to a local school, when a parent came up and lamented how he thought the school should change to PC’s. He was worried that when his daughter entered the workforce, she would not be readily employable since she only knew how to use a Mac. His daughter was in fourth grade. I wanted to ask him, “So, if your daughter learns to drive in a Chevrolet, she’ll never be able to drive a Toyota cause the buttons and knobs are in different positions?” I didn’t press the SmartA** button that day, instead, I tried to explain to him that computer OS’s of 1999 were not going to be anything like computer OS’s when his daughter graduates from college. She will have to relearn as they change over the next 12 years. I wasn’t successful in my explanation, so I shut up and let him enjoy his misery.
In my job, I still run computers using DOS and Windows 95 in my lab, and my main computer is running Win98 (not Second Edition). I occasionally use Unix and mainframe applications as well. I assist my boss with his Win2000 machine and other folks running XP. At home I use Mac OS X and OS 9 (mainly to still use Pagemaker). Oh, and my job has nothing to do with IT or IT Support, it’s polymer research; my formal computer training consists of 1 FORTRAN programming class punching out cards to be fed into a mainframe.
Adaptability is the key folks. Your job will not be the same 10 years from now (when I retire), or 20 years or 30 years from now. The tools and systems you use will change, and you must be able to adapt along with them. That is the key to making yourself marketable over the long term.
If you want to run any Windows OS program as hardware-intensive as Inventor, I think you’ll have better luck dual-booting these machines (rumored to be introduced in January)](http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0511intelibook.html). Though I suspect that you’ll have to wait until Apple releases high-end Intel desktop machines to get it to run properly.
I couldn’t agree more! I’ve found that my work has undergone major changes about every 3 to 5 years. I started out doing analog circuit development and data acquisition and 30 yrs later I’m doing lab automation, process development for pharmaceutical research and (mostly) project management and paperwork.
BTW, my first desktop PC was a Mac IIcx (with dual monitors), which I used for CAD (MacDraft, Claris CAD and Ashlar Vellum). I didn’t have a Windows box on my desk until about 6 yrs ago, though I used them a lot for machine control before that. However, once I got the opportunity to switch to Inventor (at v5.0), I quickly abandoned the Mac for CAD, though I still use it for most other things. Ironically, a PC-centric design engineer I work with has been oogling my 3-yr old TiBook - amazed at how well it handles sleep and power management, and how easy the screen is on the eyes compared with PC displays.
Seeing how Microsoft currently has Virtual PC for PowerPC Macs and Virtual PC for running a Windows OS inside of an x86 Windows machine, I suspect they will release Virtual PC for Intel Macs as well. If not, it won’t take long for Darwine to do the same thing. I really wouldn’t want to have to take down OS X to run Windows.
2006 should be an great year for Apple…
Bill,
I fight this battle everyday with the host of applications that are available in broadcasting. Unfortunately, this is an end user battle. It is not what platform is best, it is what platform will produce the best return for our software development. Autodesk supported both platforms at one time (a long time ago) but found that there was not the return in sales for the Mac software. So the question still remains as to which platform one should choose based on CAD software (Autodesk), database apps, dedicated control software, etc. For Autodesk products that is a Windows based OS. We do have a variety of Mac machines here running primarily graphics generation software. This is not because the Macs are better at it (an argument for a different day) but simply because the software is written for Mac OS. Those in the graphics world know that artists prefer the Mac (and therefore a significant customer base already exists) and so target that market. Many of the apps that were traditionally Mac based are now written for both platforms. Photoshop (Adobe family) is one of these and Protools (audio workstation) is another. However, even Protools is sliding in the Mac forum and support for raid editing systems is not available to Mac users at the present time.
At the recent Inventor training I attended, the instructor told us that applications are migrating to the intensive use of video cards and a future (1-2 years) “hot” setup will use dual monitors driven by video cards costing up to $10K or $15K each. Again those developers may choose to support only Windows users and Mac people will be left out in the cold.
http://www.hardmac.com/news/2005-11-20/#4756
It seems some people already ported WINE to MAC OS X, which is good.
Crosssover, which is a better WINE, has already promised a Mac OS X version when the first x86s versions come out.