Last fall threw a guild conference workshop, I took a three day course to learn and use D-Cam, Dietrich's North America 3-d timber frame drawing program. By taking this workshop I was allowed to take home the program for a trial period and use it to make some timber frame drawings.
I found this program a lot easier to draw frames with as it draws timbers in 3-d automatically and then you can define the type of joint(s) you want to use to connect your timbers together and insert them into your drawing with only a few mouse clicks.
With AutoCad you can draw anything but you have to draw it all one line at a time, with D-Cam you can insert whole joints, or whole beams with joints already drawn on them, from a timber library, it seems much faster.
If anyone is interested in privately discussing this D-Cam drawing program, drop me an email or call me, I'm listed in the resource guide.
I'd be interested in hearing about other timber frame drawing programs.
What other programs do you use to draw timber frames? Jim

Jim

I too am interested in either add-ons to AutoCAD (e.g., TimberCAD {are they still selling this?], or hsbCAD) or stand-alone 3D design packages such as Deitrich's Dicam 3D software. AutoCAD's 3D seems cumbersome, and dimensioning seems overly clumsy in 3D.

I would like to hear some opinions from users of each of these packages - preferably those who are timberframers as well. (The websites of each of these companies claims to have thousands of liscenced users...)

I'd also like to hear of someone who has lots of experience with AutoCAD and now uses one of these other packages.

Mark Gillis

Just for your information, I believe TimberCAD is currently off the market. But plans are in the works for new version, maybe, in the future. Jim

Jim is correct that TimberCAD is currently not available to new users AND existing users will continue to be supported. There are updates available to run TimberCAD with the newest versions of AutoCAD through Ed Levin or myself.

We have considered making TimberCAD available as a shareware program in its current incarnation with the possibility of end user improvements included and maintained by the developors.
Your comments on this subject are welcome and I think would be an appropriate discussion for this forum.

While we appreciate the interest in our software by new users, our concern is that we are unable to provide adequate time for support, training, updates and maintenance of the software. In the meantime, however, we continue to develop timber framing tools for use with AutoCAD and hope to implement many of these improvements in a future version of our software.

hello, All.

I'm a Mechanical Design Engineer who basically just dabbles in timber framing at this point. I have been building only for myself thus far, in the form of additions (2) to my home and have also been gaining experience by dismantling peoples unwanted barns in my area.

I use AutoDesk Inventor and PTC's Designwave (a lite version of Pro/E) in my work and have been using them also for timbeframing designs.

I'd have to admit, while I am quite fluent in these packages, a program more directly suited to timberframing would be nice. A catalog of pre-made joints would make life so nice. I typically don't bother representing joint detail in my drawings, but when I do, i have to draw out the profiles line by line then extrude.

If you are using Autocad or similar, you could build your joints seperately and save them as symbols or seperate part files then open and attach/import them to the ends of your timbers.

Shaun

Shaun, you've just touched the tip of the iceburg. Not only can you save the joinery but you can include information in the joinery that can be extruded for estimating. Such as time required to cut that particular joint. What I have done is written a program that draws pieces. First I locate the posts and specify their height (by predefined level codes D1, D2, R1, R2, etc) then add the horizontals, braces, and rafters. Since each post has embedded information that is added by autolisp prompts when building the post, then the horizontals can see what the post center and size is and attach themselves accordingly. Then they add a mortise to the post and tenon to themselves. When finished I have a program that unwraps each piece, showing the attached tenons, shoulders, etc., locating them with dimensions, and prints out the sheet for production. I can build an entire 2000 sf. timber frame home in less than 4 hours with a complete stack of layout sheets sitting in my printer for each post, tie, beam, etc. I don't do rafters yet.

Ed and I have talked about combining this functionality with TimberCAD which is similar to this but in Tcad we're really just automating the profile creation and extrusion process...its not "object oriented" as described above. We are also considering releasing Tcad as shareware and allowing people to improve upon it themselves and submit their improvements for inclusion, creating a truly commnunity developed software program!

Internet time sucker!....gotta get back to work!

Hi guys, I'm new to this forum. I have been repairing and studying 18th and early 19th c. TF in south Louisiana for many years. I am an Architect (which, by the way, didn't teach me anything @ old buildings) I have taught myself AUTOCAD 3D and agree that it is very difficult to master. I am not familiar with some of the other programs mentioned, as I find AUTOCAD able to perform all (and more) than I am capable of using. It started as a way for me to "construct" buildings piece by piece and has developed into a system (work in progress) to "manage" old buildings. All of my clients own old buildings and many of them are historic house museums.
I am now interested in getting in touch with others who have 3D experience to find out where I stand in this community and I mmay have found it with you guys.

Sid:
What did you want to discuss about drawing in 3-D?
Jim

when you guys say "AutoCAD 3D" are you refering to AutoDesk's relatively new Inventor Series(rev. 8 just showed up on my desk today) or the older, and very clumbsy) quazi-3D feature of AutoCAD (r14, 200, 2002 etc...)

If you have not tried Autodesk Inventor, you may want to try a demo, it is very nice and models parametrically in true 3D fashion. If you are familiar with Pro/E, it is very similar, but a little more user friendly and 10X less expensive.

Shaun