The 2D drawing, drafting, and annotation features that AutoCAD offers, allow you to control the appearance of texts, create dimension styles automatically, link and update data between Excel spreadsheets and tables within drawings, and work with dynamic blocks.

It also offers those same students the opportunity to download free licenses for the bulk of the current suite of AEC packages.ĪutoCAD is the perfect software for a student in need of making 2D drawings, drafts, and documents, as well as, 3D models and visualizations. Though not free for commercial use, AutoCAD offers a free, fully functional version to students and faculty members where the only limitation is a watermark.

It is also used for 2D drawings, drafts, and documents on top of 3D models and visualizations. Autodesk’s most prolific CAD software is AutoCAD, arguably the most powerful 3D CAD tool on the market.ĪutoCAD is built and developed for product designing and manufacturing planning, building designing, civil infrastructure, and construction. The most popular 3D design, engineering, and entertainment software and services you can find today are all made by Autodesk. In this article, I’ve provided an overview of the single best CAD software option that I feel stomps all competition regardless of your particular focus and experience level. Which is the right choice will depend entirely on you.

Some of the free options fair better for beginners while others are for more advanced users. This is especially true depending on your experience in the use of such software. When choosing a free CAD software program, though it may not be as sophisticated as a commercial version, so long as you know what you’re looking for you can make the smart choice based on the features that you need. There most certainly are completely free options. But even those will often offer a free trial period to test out the software and see if it’s to your liking prior to purchase. Most of which come with a hefty price tag. There are plenty of choices out there when it comes to CAD software. Made for designers, drafters, architects, and engineers, CAD can help you draft construction documentation, simulate a real-world design, and visualize concepts through 2D/3D renderings. Computer-aided design and drafting software, CAD (or CADD) is a technology that replaces the manual drafting process with an automated one.

2d drawing in freecad