I too, am a small 1 man business, drawing mainly house and deck plans, for 1 engineer. It took me quite a while to come up with my own, somewhat, efficient ‘system’. If I could go back I would purchase, learn and use the Condoc system. My 2 cents
What work is your firm doing ?
if it is 1-3 storeys residential or warehouse type work or some more simple shapes OK, but if your work is more than say 2 storeys, generally I think there is no way you could be as efficient and productive / cost effective, with Sketchup Pro and your firm should look at a far more expensive solution that is designed for commercial work and efficiencies.
I am not knocking SU here - I really like SU Pro, but you simply cannot compare SU Pro, with an ArchiCAD or a Revit or an AutoCAD.
Perhaps VectorWorks would be a good solution for your firm as the capital cost is nothing like ArchiCAD and Revit and it has a suite of solid and very comprehensive tools and has a substantial user base - agreed, nothing like AutoBAD or Revit or AC but it is solid and produces anything you want for commercial AEC.
Another thing is about how many in your firm and how many licenses they need, the upgrade costs over time , the type of licensing model they are using and so on but clearly, your firm is in it to make money and in terms of architecture, SU cannot compete with something like Revit which while an outrageous price now, and offered now on a draconian and rip off licensing proposition, can do virtually anything you need in the industry as a stand alone package.
You always need content - content is king eh ? and it is crucial that in SketchUp you can access free content but more importantly I think, you can make your own anything, anytime which is crucial.
In this sense also, Revit is outstanding, ArchiCAD is a complete dog unless you spend a lot of time learning the GDL language and if you don’t you are limited to whatever you can get on the web.
If you are researching software on behalf of your firm you do should sit down with the boss or leadership group and really scope out what work you expect to be handling and realize the parameters involved in that work, what outputs will be required, how you already know or expect to be able to deliver them.
If you cannot properly assess what type of work and what tasks will be involved and, how you are expecting to go about generating those outputs, your decision making when assessing a software package is flawed in my view.
Once you have a scoping document you can properly seek comments from punters like us who all have different experiences, knowledge, qualifications and of course opinions !!
When I bought into Revit in 2002, I actually read every single page of the available documentation, every article and related technological article about the history and formation of the founding company and the software that I could find , and a large amount of documentation about competing products which for me then was VectorWorks (becuase it was affordable and ticked all of the 3D boxes i was interested in). It took me around 2 months.
I did something similar for SketchUp.
As my Carpenter mentor hammered into me (haa) measure twice, cut once.
Hi, I am am a one man band right now and doing residential up to 3 storey (working on a 3 story house right now and I have worked in commercial fit out for 2.5 years and used autocad for technical drawings and sketchup for 3d. My autocad skills are intermediate and sketchup beginner. Previously I worked on small industrial schemes and commercial office design and builds supporting the design team by producing drawings and I was becoming more fluid in AC. I made friends and connections in the industry and since starting alone have secured two small fit out contractors that would like me to work with on a adhoc basis producing drawings and design packages. The first request I have had is to draw up a new doorway that is being replaced by a fire rated glazed door that needs approving by building control. So you see the level right now but I have great hopes for the future.
Thank you for the insight!
Layout has virtually no tools to assit quick drafting, but it is useful for assembling page layouts (adding detail callouts, tables, etc) and for annotating and dimensioning plans.
You would SketchUp as the drafting tool. Upgrade it with free /cheap extensions such as 1001bit tools, 2d tools (and many others) to give it some of the CAD capabilities of AutoCAD.
More in the comparison pot; condoc, draftsight and autocad LT. This is where it gets complicated because I am so indecisive. I will free trial all first. Thanks @PaulD and @gsharp
Little background info:
I am am a one man band right now and doing residential up to 3 storey (working on a 3 story house right now and I have worked in commercial fit out for 2.5 years and used autocad for technical drawings and sketchup for 3d. My Autocad skills are intermediate and sketchUp beginner. Previously I worked on small industrial schemes and commercial office design and builds supporting the design team by producing drawings and I was becoming more fluid in AC. I made friends and connections in the industry and since starting alone have secured two small fit out contractors that would like me to work with on a adhoc basis producing drawings and design packages. The first request I have had is to draw up a new doorway that is being replaced by a fire rated glazed door that needs approving by building control. So you see the level right now but I have great hopes for the future.
Sure this can be done in any other 2D CAD software but I’d say this can easily be done in Layout alone using the scale drawing feature
If you are going to do simple construction documents for permitting homes and want me to show you what/how I do mine, I don’t mind sharing. I’m not sure how to connect with just you, rarely visit here and I think you are my first comment.
I have only ever used AutoCad for 2d so that’s why I came on here for expert advice. I have leant a lot regard what alternatives there are. I want to produce the quality drawings as I have done in AutoCad but cheaper.