SpudFiles

What do you use to draw pictures of cannons on posts?


Edit by MrC: Please use a more descriptive title when making a topic. Read the Posting Etiquette:
http://www.spudfiles.com/forums/viewtop ... tml#136508

to draw... microsoft paint...

Anything from free-hand on paper to AutoCad...choose your weapon...

I like to use gimp when I'm drawing schematics that need to look good. As starman said there's a bunch of different options for different people.

Next time when you post something give it a descriptive title so people don't have to read the thread to figure it out.

I personally like sketch up for 3D drawings MS word for simple diagrams and free hand for complicated diagrams and ideas.

google sketch up is a pain in the @ss!! It is very time consuming and not nearly as good as a Cad program

If you ask me it is simple to use and looks good, on the other hand I never tried anythign else and when your school has PCs that take 20mins just to load ones account. Our Desighn tecnology(the closest we ever get to learnign about PCs) teacher has certain problems and doesnt know how to make an exel spread sheet so i do not use or know computers alot. Personally the easyest way to make a diagram is to draw it and then scan, but thats just me.

How do you draw and scan something?

Ok first of all you get a piece of paper and a pencil then you use the imigas in your head and DRAW them using a series of hand movement so that in the end you ahve made a plan of you idea. You may use rulers and other such utensils to help you. Now take the papaer with the plan on it and inser it into a SCANNER which you ahve connected to your computer. You push a button and then the machine makes a virtual copy of your plan. You save this plan and then UPLOAD it onto spudfile sin a post.

I really like AutoCad. It's a great program. I sometimes use google sketchup too. (That'd be my second choice)

Goggle Sketchup
3d CAD/ Autocad
Adobe Photoshop CS3/CS4
MS Paint

Then I use photobucket or my own personal site to upload them. Sometimes people also use imageshack

Sory I'v never scaned something on to a computer before.

mach10 wrote:Sory I'v never scaned something on to a computer before.

http://www.videoprofessor.com/

I use paper usually. Paper has to be the easiest way to START a drawing. If I need low tolerances, (or if I feel like it ), I will use solid works.

Solid works is a great design tool for cannons if you want to be able to use the drawings without haveing to add any more detail. With autoCAD it is much faster, but with solid works, once a part is designed, it will have EVERY dimension ready for you to use.

I would also try inkscape if I had no CAD program. inkscape is a vector drawing program versus a raster drawing program (paint). Vector drawings are good as you can move parts around without having to redraw sections. GIMP can do this too if you use layers. GIMP does take a bit of time to learn, but once you do it is a very powerful tool.

All in all, I recomend you try inkscape. Inkscape is easy to use and does a nice job with a little effort. If you have used GIMP already then I suggest that. If you have any CAD programs avaliable then you should learn to use those. They do make construction much easier.

I could count the number of cannons that required autocad to be made on the fingers of a very small finger necklace round a pygmy cannibals neck.

It's standard pipe. Standard fittings. Maybe a bit of light fabrication with an accuracy of +/- 1mm.

I did all the drawing to scale of my cannon in MSPaint with a 1pixel tool, lines and curves.

Example:

Still, whatever you can handle competently is absolutely fine.

Engineers used ye olde pencil for vastly more complex things than these for many many years.