Software for Schematics

[alidesigner]

Other than Autocad and Rhino, is anyone using any other software for drawing schematics. I have looked at Visio but cant be sure if the sysmols that come with it are based on recognised standards or not.

Thanks

[Tim B]

That depends on what sort of schematics you're dealing with.

If it's circuit-board schematics, have a look at KiCad which is available for Linux and Win32 (and MacOS, and the PlayStation 3 amongst others).

For piping diagrams and cabling diagrams, Rhino (esp. V4) is hard to beat. Don't even bother with Visio, there are 101 other programs around that are far more suited to the task (and very few people can read visio format).

For the symbols, you'd be best to start building a library, as and when you need them. Rhino has a block manager that will handle that nicely, and I believe AutoCAD has something similar.

Personally, I'm still waiting for a port of Rhino4 to Linux, then We'll only need to run one operating system.

Hope this helps,

Tim B.

[alidesigner]

Sorry yes I meant schematics for piping systems.

Does Rhino keep the pipe lines associative to the valves etc so that when you start moving things around, the connections are maintained or do you have to keep re-connecting the end points ?

Thanks

[CGN]

Free2D Cad from Unigraphics "kinda" does this for free I say "kinda" because for example the crossovers has to be added manually they do have a smart block for it but as i said needs to be added manually, and you need to create your blocks but it works fine and free.

Other software that may work fine is SmartDraw.

And specific for piping layout and calculations

http://www.daxesoft.com/pressurelosscalculations/flowsoftware.php?_path=/522/523