Overview

Let Your Imagination Take Flight

DesignCAD 3D MAX is an easy-to-use, versatile CAD tool that's perfect for novice designers, but powerful enough to create high-quality 2D/3D designs, models and animations. The intuitive interface and extensive online help make it easy to design anything, from simple hobby projects to professional precision drawings. It's everything you need!

• Precision 2D Drafting Tools
• 3D Solid Modeling Tools
• Mechanical Design Tools
• Architectural Design Tools
• Realistic Rendering
• Intuitive User Interface
• Online Help

Easy to Learn & Use 2D/3D Design
Design 2D drawings fast and easy, then create complex 3D shapes simply by extruding (pulling) them from your 2D shapes.

Powerful Drawing Compare Technology
Drawing Compare is an invaluable aid when working collaboratively on a project, or when picking up an older project and looking to see the status of updates. Use it to compare a design and an ‘As Built' drawing to see where changes have been implemented. 

Beautiful Rendering
Apply a variety of materials, textures, colors, brush styles, and light effects to create stunning images. Customize material textures to further enhance the realism.

Animations & Walkthroughs
Create animations and walkthroughs of your finished drawings.

Valuable Content
New DesignCAD 3D MAX version 21 includes 600 colorful, texture-mapped 3D models for easier architectural design. In addition, access over 10,000 2D/3D symbols and speed design as you quickly drag and drop them into your design. Retrieve millions more mechanical and architectural symbols with a free, 3-Month subscription to CADsymbols.com®!

AutoCAD® DWG/DXF Compatible & More
Share files with built in file filters for dozens of popular CAD and graphic formats, including AutoCAD®. Import DWG, DXF, WMF, and HPGL files and many more formats for editing in DesignCAD. Just as easily export to DWG, DXF, RIB, VRML, WMF, WPG, PDF and more to share your work.

Perfect For:

• Architects
• Engineers
• Illustrators
• Builders
• Contractors
• Hobbyists
• Educators
• Students

Features

Versatile, Easy to Learn & Use
DesignCAD 3D MAX is a general purpose CAD tool for easily creating precise, high-quality images, models and animations. 2D drafting and 3D modeling have never been easier. Design everything from furniture, decks, floorplans and architectural drawings to engineering layouts, electronic schematics, plats, maps, elevations and even toys for hobbies.

Easy to Use 2D Drafting & Design
Intuitive yet sophisticated editing tools, advanced geometric construction capabilities, drawing short cut keys and complete layer management make 2D drafting a breeze.

• Usability Tools
• Workspace Tools
• Macros
• Image Tools
• Drawing Tools
• Editing and Measuring
• Dimension Tools
• Groups, Blocks, Symbols and more!

Precision 3D Modeling
Access a full range of powerful 3D modeling primitives, including box, sphere, hemisphere, pyramid, cylinder, cone and torus. Utilize Boolean operations, including solid add, solid subtract, and slice, to shape your 3D parts. Add materials to your model to create presentation ready designs.

• 3D View Settings
• 3D Primitives
• 3D (Solid) Editing Operations
• 3D Visualization

Realistic Visualization and Lighting
Render your 3D models with applied materials or texture maps or use transparency and fogging for added impact.

• Shadow Tool - smooth the edges of rendered shadows
• Procedural Textures - add marble, wood, cement, grain, patch, perlin noise, brick, cells or wood extended textures to your designs.
• Image Fills - Use an image as a fill pattern.
  

Layers
DesignCAD utilizes layers that can be independently switched on and off in order for users to have a better visibility of the drawing. For example, if one just needs to see the outline of the component, he or she can switch off other layers containing center lines, dimensions, etc.

DesignCAD can also lock layers, so that they are visible but not editable, in order to prevent accidental changes to the locked layer. Some features of objects, such as color or linestyle, can also be controlled on a per-layer basis, so for example objects drawn in a particular layer can automatically have a certain color and/or linestyle applied. DesignCAD allows users to switch these by-layer settings on or off at will, or allow the settings to change automatically as they switch to and from layers with color or linestyle presets.

Symbols and 3D Images
Choose from more than 10,000 2D/3D symbols to quickly drag and drop into your design. Plus, get access to millions of additional mechanical and architectural symbols with a free 3-month subscription to CADSymbols.com!

Animation & Walkthroughs
Create stunning animated presentations with a moving view of your 3D model.

Drawing Compare
Select two DesignCAD drawings or .BMP images, and Drawing Compare will perform a visual comparison of the two.

There are options to switch from one to the other, to show only the differences, or to have the differences blink, quickly highlighting where changes have been made. Zoom In or select to Zoom to Differences to quickly spot any updates.

The drawing comparison is an invaluable aid when working collaboratively on a project, or when picking up an older project and looking to see the status of updates. Use it to compare a design and an As Built drawing to see where changes have been implemented.

Added Flexibility when Sharing Your Work

• User Notes - Add notes to any drawing
• Save for Sharing - When you save a drawing, all files referenced externally (textures, symbols, images) are saved to a subfolder with the host drawing's name.
• Paper Space Mode - Create a view frame and choose a specific scale or enter a custom view frame scale.
• Print Scale Options - Select from a standard set of print scale options or create your own.
  

AutoCAD® DWG/DXF Compatible
Read and write AutoCAD® files through 2011 and enjoy excellent compatibility with AutoCAD® layouts and PaperSpace, plus support for AutoCAD® layers, linestyles, views, and blocks in both DXF and DWG file formats.

DesignCAD imports DWG, DXF, WMF, HPGL and XYZ files and exports to DWG, DXF, WMF, HPGL, RIB, VRML, WPG and PDF.

DesignCAD also supports several image formats including .BMP, .TIF, .JPG, .TGA, .WMF, .PSD, .AWD, .EPS, .WPG, .TIF, .PCX, and .PNG

Extensible
Use the built-in BasicCAD scripting language, or OLE Automation, or both, to add new tools and enhancements to DesignCAD.

NEW! 3D Model Content for Easier Architectural Design
New DesignCAD 3D MAX version 21 includes 600 3D models you to quickly drag and drop into your design. Each colorful, fully texture-mapped symbol can be modified to your exact specification. Choose from:

• 129 structural models - doors and hardware, windows and window treatments, fireplaces, wood moldings and more
• 234 kitchen items - cabinets, appliances, faucets, sinks, counters and more
• 52 bath items - tubs, faucets, sinks, vanities and more
• 134 residential items - furniture, lighting fixtures and home décor
• 51 office items - desks, file & storage cabinets, tables, shelving and more

NEW! AutoCAD 2011 Support
Work with the latest AutoCAD® files. Import/Export support for AutoCAD 2010 and 2011 .DWG and .DXF file formats has been added so users can collaborate with people using even the latest Autodesk® software versions. This includes compatibility with AutoCAD® layouts and PaperSpace, plus support for AutoCAD® layers, linestyles, views, and blocks. New DesignCAD 21 even offers limited support for Architectural Desktop (ADT) objects, which are now recognized and exploded to DesignCAD equivalents.

IMPROVED! Layers
DesignCAD 21 now offers support for long layer names, up to 255 characters.

IMPROVED! Paperspace
DesignCAD 21 is now able to use the same paperspace template more than once in a drawing.

IMPROVED! Dimensions
Dimension tools now have an "outside" text placement option similar to that in other CAD programs.

Usability Enhancements
New DesignCAD 21 offers enhancements to the management of default settings and custom workspaces to improve ease of use.

IMPROVED! Shadows for Directional Lights
DesignCAD 21 offers improved resolution to shadows cast by directional lights when rendering a zoomed area.

Screenshots

Requirements

PC  : 
Windows® XP, Vista or Windows 7
Pentium III class processor
Microsoft ® Windows XP 512 MB RAM, Microsoft ® Vista 1 GB RAM
110 MB of free hard disk space
256+ MB of swap space
Super VGA display 1024x768
High Color (16bit) graphics card
CD-ROM Drive
Mouse

Recommended:

2.0+ GHz Pentium 4 or better processor
2 GB RAM
1GB or more of free hard disk space on your primary system drive (C:)
3D Graphics accelerator card with TrueColor (32-bit) graphics capability
Wheel mouse
Internet Connection
Microsoft® Internet Explorer ^TM installation required for Internet activation.