PowerCADD Forum

I am looking for advice for working in PowerCADD and AutoCAD. I am a self employed interior designer. My work is all residential; kitchen and bathroom remodels and additions to homes in the SF bay area.

My 2d drafting for permits and construction documents is done in PowerCADD. All 3d work for client presentations is in SketchUp. I am looking to expand my work and freelance for other designers and architects. My problem is I have lost two jobs recently because they wanted me to work in AutoCAD. I have AutoCAD LT for Mac but I am struggling with it. I strongly prefer PowerCADD. I would like to work mostly in PowerCADD then convert to AutoCAD to send out.

Is there anyone who is working in both programs converting back and forth? I realize the line colors need to be light for the AutoCAD black background. I also am having issues with text and groups. I appreciate any advice or best practice.

Hi Elizabeth,

I do quite a lot of exchanging PowerCADD drawings with AutoCAD users- usually consultant engineers.
I find the best and easiest way of working is just to use PowerCADD the way I want to work and then do a Save As… DWG using the most up to date version. Having said that, there a few things I've found that help with the exchange:
Most AutoCAD users now work with a white background so the pen colour is not really an issue. You can assign pen colours to line weights but I've tried doing this and it's very frustrating if you try to work it both ways and I've never got it to work. It's really a legacy thing anyway- back to when there used to be pen plotters.
I aways check through each drawing layer before exporting to make sure all elements are where I want them. This is easy to do by hiding all layers except the top one and then repeatedly clicking on the blue down arrow on the bottom left corner of the drawing window. Any rogue items can be cut and pasted into their proper layer. Tidying up layers makes it easier for others to switch off items they don't want to show.
Solid fills don't come through to DWG- they just end up as polygons so if I want to show a fill (like a solid wall) I add a hatch to the fill before exporting.
When exporting I just export the visible layers, otherwise if you have a large number, the drawing looks very messy when you first open it in AutoCAD.
SketchUp Pro exports to DWG as 3D objects so that should work for you too.
Good luck with your work and hope you can continue with PowerCADD.

David

David,
Thank you for your response. I am hoping to continue working in PowerCADD. The more I use AutoCAD, the more I appreciate PowerCADD.
Elizabeth

Having AutoCAD LT does give you an advantage since, prior to exporting files to others, you can use the program to check the quality the translation.

What I do is use Draftsight, a program I downloaded from the internet (free so far) which utilizes openDWG, to check how the document translated.