[BPT]

Anyone know of any good, relatively easy to use (and hopefully not too expensive) software to illustrate speaker cabinets (baffles in this case) in detail. Something that will allow me to take an illustration with measurements to a cabinet maker and say, "This what I want, can you build it?".
Chris H.

[tubamark]

Anyone know of any good, relatively easy to use (and hopefully not too expensive) software to illustrate speaker cabinets (baffles in this case) in detail. Something that will allow me to take an illustration with measurements to a cabinet maker and say, "This what I want, can you build it?".
Chris H.

Google Sketchup.   Basic version is free download.  Like any such product, there is a learinng curve.
--Mark

[Cacophonix]

Second Google sketchup.
Awesome tool ... There is a bit of a learning curve, but there are several training videos that are really good. So spend an afternoon learning the tool, and you should be able to draw most cabinets.

[BPT]

Downloaded Sketchup and it definitely has a learning curve. It looks great for drawing images, but I don't see much if anything technical with specified measurements, angle degrees, etc.
Chris H.

[ultrachrome]

Keep plugging away.  It is deceptively simple.  There are tons of tutorials on the web.

For example, with the rectangle tool, draw a rough square and then immediately type the dimensions you intended which appear in the bottom right corner of the screen.  Don't bother trying to interact with the dimension box, just start typing as soon as you've placed the second point.  If you made a mistake, just retype the dimensions.  It will take fractions as well as metric units.

Dimensions are accomplished by selecting Dimensions from the Tool menu.  Click on the end points of what you want to dimension.

[AK]

solidworks is excellent application for this purpose. it will generate blueprints out of 3d model with all dimensions.
but it is very expensive.
the cheapest cad modeling software I know of is Rhino3D. they also offer evaluation version.