i wonder if anyone can help me, im a carpenter and want to start producing my own architectural drawings because i hate paying someone else thousands of pounds to do something that seems so simple.

ill cut to the chase, is anyone here familiar with CAD programs, if so which one should i go for, and which ones are good for noobs

AutoCAD is the industry standard and is probably what the designers you know use.

The following CAD programs are all free, suitable for architectural design and are also all AutoCAD format compatible (as soon as you select the non-commercial option)

http://www.cycas.de/info.php?s=en#top

http://www.progecad.com/compra/index.as ... 1&lang=eng

http://www.emachineshop.com/download/index.htm

However to get you into CAD design then I definitely recommend you giving http://sketchup.google.com/ a go (again there is a good free version of this), just to get you started.

Sketchup isn't really a fully featured CAD program, although you can use it to draft designs and then export them to a CAD package, but for sure Sketchup is the most user-friendly and therefore a great place to start.

iv got autocad 09 and have no idea how to use it, ill give that sketchup ting a go tho, cheers m8

Can't offer any technical advice, but I reccommend you keep hold of the AutoCAD'09.

You will eventually want to be using the advanced features it offers. My dad is a building surveyor though so he's probably got some promotional materials for CAD packages lying around I could find.

And you live in Luton? I live in Bedford (unfortunately).

what the hell do you mean unfortunately!! have you ever been to luton!! lol

thats funny cos i work in bedford most of the time.

i had a go at autocad today and OMFG its just as bad as photoshop. completely impossible to use without going through the tutorials and the whole bible of hanbooks.

Yeah, everyone knows Luton's a shithole

But Bedford ain't too far behind sometimes.

AutoCAD took me about half an hour to pick up. Not used it in ages though now.

*Shrugs*

cheers just rub it in why dont you!!

making random shapes is easy, putting down exactly whats on paper to scale is quite tricky, but thats what its for so i just gots to learns it

ah ffs, this is a fucking nightmare, how the hell do you fill in surfaces on a model, like filling in the walls n shit, do you know any good tutorials?

try here mate.