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Which is the most suitable CAD program?

I'm looking for a free/open source CAD program. I'm an inventor and often want to sketch out an idea before I have any idea of dimensions, so I want to be able to add dimensions later and have the CAD system scale the drawing to fit the later dimensions. It needs to be able to create excellent line drawings, 2D and 3D renderings from any angle. Ray tracing would be nice too. I know of the existence of FreeCAD (the one by Juergen Riegel), and BRL-CAD, but have no idea whether either are suitable for my needs.

Public Comments

1. BRL-CAD is by far the closest to what you want, but you'll find yourself climbing a steep, difficult, and unfamiliar learning curve. BRL-CAD is really the only game in town that excels at line drawings, 2D/3D renderings from any angle, ray tracing, and is open source. That said, casual design sketching is not a strength of any open source CAD system and you'll find yourself struggling with even basic features.