At 13:01 -0800 14/1/08, Terence Miller wrote: >Does anyone have any feelings about the CAD software they use? Do you use a PC or a Mac? For the last few years I have been doing all my drawings (on Mac) with SmileLab <http://www.satimage.fr/software/en/> but I emphasize that this is not "CAD software". I detest all the CAD packages I have looked at and especially Autocad. I used to like the old Claris CAD for Mac, which still works under the latest system, but I rarely use it now. SmileLab is free if you don't want to do 3D stuff. For the past few months, though, I have been using SVG. If you're quick (before I delete it!) you can have a look at a little work in progress using SVG at <http://pianomaker.co.uk/cgi-bin/action2.pl>. You must be using FireFox or Opera (NOT Internet Explorer) to see this properly. This page allows you to specify certain dimensions and redraw the key. To see how the drawing is written, view the Source in the browser. I emphasize that this is at the moment just an experiment and not very far advanced. SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) is absolutely free and is a W3 standard mark-up language, like html. The standard is published at <http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/index.html#minitoc> and there are various good sites to learn about it. It is pretty easy to learn. The only advantage for me of Smile over SVG is that Smile will produce a vector PDF and that can be converted to DXF for CNC machine. There are ways of doing the same with SVG but they are either clumsy or expensive or both. If you must use a CAD program, look at <http://www.ashlar.com/> but in my opinion all CAD progams are a waste of time and money. JD
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