No one should be designing products in Illustrator, but if you’re a Mac user, you don’t have many options. Yes, a new version of AutoCAD just came out in 2011 for the Mac, but I have no training in it and it’s over $1000 for a non-student. Sooo… Illustrator CS3 for me currently.
Illustrator CS3 has an abysmal arc tool: you can’t specify an arc of a specific degree width. You have to manually build arcs of specific widths (in degrees). One kind soul has provided a mini-solution. Thought I’d share:
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Perhaps I’m reading this out of context, but what on earth do you mean that no one should be designing products in Illustrator? Illustrator is excellent for design work and has been for years. Are you talking about, say, architecture type designs? Or something specific? for designs that deal with specific measurements, I may agree. However, you can grid out illustrator if you need to. On the whole, I can’t live without Illustrator for a typical design day – no other product (adobe or otherwise) comes close to it.
-tanya delaney, tanyadelaney.com
Sorry I wasn’t more specific. I’m using Illustrator to design parts for machines. It’s all I have at the moment. AutoCAD is really what should be used, but I don’t own it nor do I know how to use it. So, I curse at Illustrator regularly. My hangups are most likely cluelessness about the program – I’m no Illustrator expert by any means.
Thank you for the well-worded, balanced comment.
I prefer Freehand over Illustrator but it has the same problem.
CAD programs are accurate but don’t seem to work like I want.
I wish I could find a cheap CAD program that works like Freehand.
I might as well wish for the moon.
The most painful part of design is learning a new software program. Which is something I’ve avoided but really need to confront. The freeware Draftsight is what I’m gunning for: it’s available for OSX, PC, and Linux. And its free. Thank you for the comment by the way!
You should try Google SketchUp?
At first glance it may look too simple for what you need – but all of the measurement, chamfering, boolean(ish), etc tools are there – just not obvious to get to because of its “mass appeal” positioning. Plus there’s a free version.
Hi Jim – yes Sketchup is great. I use it just because it’s so easy to use.