CAD - Computer Assisted Drafting?

A friend of mine is planning on building a kayak. There's coordinates in a book of her's that are meant to be used with CAD apparently. She asked me for help, although I'm not quite sure myself about how the whole thing works.

From what I can see, Excel doesn't actually support CAD, however, I read that many programs can in fact read from Excel spreadsheets.

Basically, I'm asking what would be a good program to use (I think Adobe Illustrator supports a plugin?) and if there's anything else I need to know.

If anyone can help me out, it'd be greatly appreciated, thanks.

You could always find a full CADD package like AutoCad, AutoCad LT and so on.

They are expensive, however. AutoCad LT is ~$600 or so.

Most CADD programs aren't exactly the easiest things to use either.

AH HA! I actually took a course and TA course in AutoCAD and Solid Works. Only problem those software packages will cost you a bundle. Next problem is they have a very steep learning curve. If you really want to learn I suggest you a find a local college or school offering a course or two in any CAD packages and take them.

Well, I just got ahold of AutoCAD2k5... I'll just leave how that happened to your imaginations...

As far as learning goes, I'm still in high school and I won't exactly be able to take any courses at the moment, and this is only needed for one project anyway. After I format, I'm going to install this mofo and see how it goes... I even got ahold of AutoCAD2k5 For Dummies [insert dummy joke here], so I can always refer to that if I need to... I'm sure I'll be able to figure it out if I have some time.

Thanks for the info though.

Soniku17 said:

I even got ahold of AutoCAD2k5 For Dummies [insert dummy joke here], so I can always refer to that if I need to...

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No offense, but you'll probably be referring to that book... a lot.

slerch666 said:

No offense, but you'll probably be referring to that book... a lot.

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Heh, probably... I'll let you know how it goes when I get to mess with the darn thing... It should be a simple project, so I'm hoping it won't be too hard. I don't know anything at all about drafting, so maybe between me and my friend with our different abilities, we can work something out.

Soniku17 said:

Heh, probably... I'll let you know how it goes when I get to mess with the darn thing... It should be a simple project, so I'm hoping it won't be too hard. I don't know anything at all about drafting, so maybe between me and my friend with our different abilities, we can work something out.

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Hey man, you need any help just shoot me a PM or an IM. I am more than willing to help you out if I can