numberwrong Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 Is Autocad LT suitable for lighting design or do I need full autocad for this? I just want to create 2D plots and deal with rigging loads etc. Do I need plugins to make it more geared up for lighting design? ie will it tell me how many spare lamps I need and deal with things like DMX addresses and universes. Would Cast Wisiwyg be a better program to put the time in to learn? Autocad seams to be the industry standard. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 Is Autocad LT suitable for lighting design... No. It might be suitable for documenting your design but has no design tools at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
numberwrong Posted April 21, 2015 Author Share Posted April 21, 2015 Is Autocad LT suitable for lighting design... No. It might be suitable for documenting your design but has no design tools at all. So, does the full version have design tools? I posted this because I've got to the stage where I need to be able to put my designs on to a CAD so crews can rig them and clients can sign them off. One of the companies I work for use Autocad for all their event planning and suggested I learn it so I can add a lighting plot to their drawings. I was also under the impression Autocad was what everyone else uses so it would be good to learn. Autocad LT would be the only version I could afford to buy/rent Would I be better off learning wysiwyg report as this is more specific to lighting design? I've heard it's not so good at importing and exporting as a .DWG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jevans Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 AutoCAD is the industry standard general purpose CAD program, and is a very useful bit of software to know how to use. The main difference between the full version and LT is that LT is 2D only, not 3D. If you put the work in, you can draw anything in it, and I know people who do use it to draw their lighting plots - there's no reason you can't import the correct symbols in and arrange them just as in any other more specialised CAD program. However, AutoCAD itself does not "know" anything about lighting, so you must keep track of channel assignments, universes, etc. yourself and produce the paperwork separately in Excel or similar. On the other hand Vectorworks Spotlight, which is what I've always used to draw lighting plots, "knows" what a light is and what properties it can have like gel colour, dimmer, channel etc. and so can produce the paperwork more automatically or in conjunction with Lightwright, which is a very specialised piece of software for lighting paperwork. I've never used WYSIWYG but it looks to have similar capabilities. There are plugins for AutoCAD I think that try and do this too. Certainly for the tasks you list (keeping track of spare lamps, inventory, patch paperwork etc.) base AutoCAD won't help you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gareth Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 What John says. AutoCAD is great for straightforward 2D/3D drafting, and is used by the vast majority of people in this business for that purpose. But as a tool for creating and managing lighting paperwork, it's only really of any use if you also have the LD Assistant plug-in (or similar) so that it understands what you want to achieve and how to achieve it. The venue that I work at is in a bit of a daft situation CAD-wise - historically the venue has always used FastCAD (which I really don't like) as the in-house standard CAD tool. A couple of years ago a decision was made for all departments (production, workshop, LX) to migrate to AutoCAD - very sensible. Consequently, many AutoCAD licenses were purchased, and most departments now use it all the time. However, the money 'ran out' before the promised LD Assistant licences were purchased for us to use for lighting paperwork - so our department is now sitting on three AutoCAD licenses which we virtually never use. Most people still suffer with FastCAD for drawing plans, and I personally prefer to use TurboCAD, which I've been using for many years for the purposes of drawing plans and which I much prefer to FastCAD. What I'd really love to have is a couple of licenses for Vectorworks Spotlight - from what I've seen of it, it runs rings around pretty much any other lighting drafting software out there. Back in my freelance days, I used to own a licence for WYSIWYG Design for a few years - but Cast Software's primary aim seems to be to invest as much time and effort as they can in separating WYG users from their money, with the implementation of requested fixes and improvements running in second place, so I knocked that on the head at Release 19. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Ripley Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 you must keep track of channel assignments, universes, etc. yourself and produce the paperwork separately in Excel or similar. Not strictly true. Once you have the symbols (Blocks in AutoCAD parlance) you can add all this info (Attributes), if they don't already have them and export them to and fro between AutoCAD and Excel. You can edit an Excel doc and import it back into AutoCAD to update the drawing and so on. Lots of symbols are available online, the Modelbox ones certainly have attributes on them. The most difficult bit of transferring the info from LT is creating a template file but there is loads of this stuff online or give me a shout as I have some lying around the place. If you want to make pretty pictures, show beams or preprogramme, you do need WYG, Capture or for AutoCAD, LD Assistant. VW can do the renders but stops there. Of course you get what you pay for, so the choice is ultimately yours and if it is just 2D drawing board replacement work you want to do then AutoCAD LT is more than capable. If you have any further questions on AutoCAD, feel free to PM me David ABTT AutoCAD Tutor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boac Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 You may also want to take a look at Capture Argo. It works a little differently from standard CAD programs but it is specifically made for lighting design similar to WYG. You can work in 2D and 3D, produce plots, renders, fixture and equipment lists, hook it up to your console or lighting software and pre-program your show... I've found it to be very powerful software with a friendly learning curve and good customer support. No affiliations, just a satisfied customer! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
numberwrong Posted April 21, 2015 Author Share Posted April 21, 2015 Thanks for the advise guys, I think Vector Works looks like the best option objectively but even the fundamentals version is still way out of my budget. Wyg report is a good price and if I'm right has enough users to make it worth learning (I'm thinking skills for the CV) gareth, in what way do Cast try and fleece you? DO you need to pay for a new licence if you want to use the latest fixtures? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkBarl Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 If you are just wanting 2D cad, a cheaper alternative is Draftsight by Dassult Systems (Makers of Catia) It is free and will open edit and create .dwg files.http://www.3ds.com/products-services/draftsight-cad-software/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jevans Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 What I'd really love to have is a couple of licenses for Vectorworks Spotlight - from what I've seen of it, it runs rings around pretty much any other lighting drafting software out there. I have a student license for Spotlight, so at least I don't have to pay for it - I'm not certain I would/will when I'm no longer able to get the student version unless I have a very good reason to. It's certainly the most complete solution for lighting drafting but as a general purpose CAD program it's horrendous coming from AutoCAD. The keyboard shortcuts don't make any sense, clicking on things never seems to select the desired object... I could go on. It's only worth using for the actual lighting features IMHO - I draw set/venues in AutoCAD and then only move it to Vectorworks to place fixtures. Additionally you can hire AutoCAD per month now for a very reasonable sum so even if you just need it for a specific project it's more than affordable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gareth Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 gareth, in what way do Cast try and fleece you? DO you need to pay for a new licence if you want to use the latest fixtures? Oh yes! They require you to renew your license every year, at exorbitant cost, and if you don't they cut you dead in terms of library and program updates. When I first purchased WYG in 2004, there were regular releases every 3 months (alternating between library releases and software/bug-fix updates), and the company seemed to genuinely care about their users. However, not long after I renewed my subscription for the first time, there seemed to be a shift in the way the company operated. The release schedule slipped, a couple of the really good people that I'd been dealing with left the company, some of the really essential library updates that I'd been asking for for ages (e.g. a simple two-section 4'6" stand) still hadn't materialised event though some really pointless items like chafing dishes and coffee pots had, and there was some really fundamental CAD functionality (e.g. some of the basic snap modes which even my £40 copy of TurboCAD could do) which I felt really ought to have been part of the software but which they really didn't seem to give a damn about. I suddenly felt a lot less valued as a user. I renewed for a third year, but nothing much changed so after that year I cut my losses and stopped renewing my license. I still have my R19 dongle lying about in the office, and I very occasionally fire it up to do something specific or open an old drawing file - but by and large it sits in a drawer and gathers dust. My experience with WYG was one of the less satisfying experiences that I've had over the years as a user of a high-end professional product! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom_M Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 I'm the technical manager and set deigner for an am-dram and I use TurboCAD for the set design and room layout work as it is fast, cheap and easy to use. I then export the finished set plan or room layout and import it into lx free for Java to do the lighting design. TurboCAD can be as cheap as £20 if you don't mind being one version behind the current release or if you lucky like me you get the day job to buy you a copy of TurboCAD 21 platinum for a project. LX free for Java will run on just about any old windows pc and produces good enough prints to keep the local pro theatre happy with what I give them for our shows there. The best pit of course is that it is totally free.Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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