PowerCADD Forum

We've all used PowerCADD for many years, some of us all the way back to PowerDRAW. We have integrated PowerCADD into our businesses, into our work flow, like any valuable tool, PowerCADD has become essential to what we do every day.

Sometimes a tool makes a job easier, faster.

Sometimes a tool does a job better than any other tool.

Sometimes the investment spent in becoming proficient with a tool can not be repeated or replaced.

Tell us your PowerCADD story, how this tool enables your work.

Technical skills are not my strength but fortitude and diligence are. When I set out to move from vellum to CAD in 1997, I had no idea where to start. I needed to be able to produce 2D drawings quickly, sometimes in front of a client. I didn’t have time to go to school again and I was fairly committed to the Macintosh platform. I played with a demo from at least 25 different CAD programs but there was only one that responded the way someone would go about drawing the traditional way using a replication of the same techniques one would use with a pencil and paper if you will. The one I am taking about is PowerCADD. I believe it was version 4 at the time.

During the first few years of use, my co-workers were using a few different windows CAD programs but one by one they all migrated to what I was using after seeing what I could produce with PowerCADD so quickly. This later became a job promotion for me and even after completing a 25 year career as Sales Manager, I still support the sales team and staff with their PowerCADD training, setups, and new installs. To this day, I manage templates, toolsets, and preferences so when we have new hardware, no one looses any productivity. Using PowerCADD became the default for 6 users simply by survival of the fittest. PowerCADD made it easy for a CAD novice to learn quickly and produce nice work with very little training.

I keep hearing "just keep an old computer laying around." Without going into every detail, if you have tried virtualizing an install or remaining on a machine that starts to get long in the tooth, you know it is less than optimal. It is frustrating and counter productive when you are always working around the fact that you can't run something natively on current hardware. In the most simplistic terms, PowerCADD represents my most important tool. I have looked at nearly every current CAD package available and honestly, nothing has changed since 1997. I still can't find anything that could replace it.

I built a career on top of how good PowerCADD was and still is. It has been with me for some time now and created value where there was none. I would do nearly anything to keep it relevant to new hardware and beyond.

-Frank

I began my architecture career “on the boards” like a lot of you (I started my career after graduation in 1981). I was constantly looking for a CADD program which would match my love of the artwork we as architects and designers produced with hand drafting and sketching. I found that in PowerCADD. It was the Mac-like simplicity, elegance and ease of use that won me over.

Today, PowerCADD is not just another computer related tool……it’s an extension of who I am and represent as an architect; just like my Mac.

PowerCADD has simplified my work flow. This allows me to spend more time designing and working out details with my clients.

I truly hope that Todd continues with his work.

Todd, it you are reading this, please know I, like a lot of others, want to see you succeed. We are all behind you cheering you on. Let us know what you need and we will support you.

All the best - Frank

I adopted PowerDraw for my Cad work in my architectural practice in 1993. I'd just started my own office and was determined not to do hand drafting on any work from the start. PowerDraw, later PowerCadd was so easy to learn, so analogous to my hand drafting practices that I immediately became productive with it, speeding my production rate over my many years of experienced hand drafting.

Tools that are easy to learn, or strive to build a bridge from older tools often suffer from a low ceiling of utility, hobbled by the very ease they attempt to create for newcomers. PowerCadd never was this way, and experience continued to reward with higher productivity and higher quality results. It was, and continues to be a rare combination of ease and efficiency.

Now with 28 years of drawings and other documents in my archive, the prospect of switching to a different Cad platform is impossible. To walk away from a body of work that is an everyday resource, and to adopt a new software package which simply can not replicate the speed and efficiency of working with PowerCadd is a non-starter. You may as well ask me to begin working tomorrow in a new language which I've never spoken before. I would never voluntarily tie my hands in this manner.

For the past 28 years PowerCadd delivered the promise of CAD, the speed, the efficiency, the profit to ME, where as I see it other CAD software delivered that to their publishers.

Preach it Brother Greg!! Amen!

Thanks Greg and we should add that PowerCADD is a team effort from Todd to Alfred and to all of the users, testers and collaborators.

This company is unlike any other.....it's a family. We want each other to succeed so we do what we can to offer our help to other members of our family.

I know for me personally, I would be willing to help in any way I can. Whether it be testing any new tools or just being there for moral support to lessen the stress of those who write the code to make PC a better product.

My offer is.....give us a chance to help, whatever that might be.

Regards - Frank