Electronic Drafting Tools

Modern electronic drafting tools are often specialized computer-aided design packages. Basic drafting tools are included in all CAD programs, but some offer advanced automation specifically designed for drafting and architectural design. The tools that are right for you will depend on your budget. AutoCAD Architecture is the most capable, but also the most expensive. FreeCAD is very inexpensive, but only offers basic features.

AutoCAD

AutoCAD is a commercial product made by Autodesk. There are many versions of AutoCAD, including one called AutoCAD Architecture. AutoCAD Architecture is designed for architects and has purpose-built features specifically designed for architectural drafting. In addition to design tools for initial architectural conceptualization, it offers tools to make designing building renovations faster and easier. Productivity tools include those to help architects reflect the actual design of walls and other structures. AutoCAD is able to maintain precise dimensional spacing among components such as walls, beams, columns and doors. AutoCAD Architecture offers a library of pre-built components to help speed up and automate the design and construction process.

TurboCAD

TurboCAD is a powerful 2-D and 3-D design system that, although initially designed for engineering applications, offers functions that are useful for 2-D electronic drafting. It offers such architectural features as self-healing walls to help prevent drawing errors, curved walls to help in designing architectural features and tools to help create and manage doors, windows, stairs, rails and roofs. TurboCAD allows for styles and interoperability between TurboCAD and AutoCAD by supporting AutoCAD Architecture's .DWG files. It also features powerful tools to help recreate the actual terrain on which the construction will occur.

FreeCAD

Although FreeCAD was initially intended for 3-D modeling, it offers features that make it useful as an electronic drafting tool. An open source package, FreeCAD doesn't require payment or licensing. It supports simple planar geometry, such as rectangles, arcs, lines, circles and other shapes. It also supports text annotations such as dimensions or other text labels and supports graphical transformations such as rotating, scaling and mirroring, among others. Drawings made with FreeCAD are exportable to Autodesk's Drawing Exchange Format (.DXF) and can also be saved in the Open CAD formats of .OCA and .GCAD. FreeCAD also supports .SVG.