Retired (after 36 years at the keyboard) CAD/CAM software systems engineer. Used/familiar with numerous CAD/CAM systems (from Applicon, CV, Calma (worked for them) to CATIA). Worked with a Lisp based software system named ICAD that allowed object-oriented modeling of complex engineering designs.

However, now being retired, I looked for a good/free system that would allow me to model most of my basic home needs…and I found SketchUp! Having used object-oriented programming for the last 25 years of my career, SketchUp’s component based modeling was very familiar to me.

That said, I DO sorely miss having the high powered software systems that I was used to Maybe someday I’ll invest in an upgraded version of SU so I can see what it can really do! For now, I’ve been able to do most of what I need with the free web-based version (I usually use the desktop client).