CAD software recommendations?

[Great_scot_selfbuild]

Any recommendations for a free or cheap/reasonable price CAD software. I only need it for about a month to produce a small 2D & 3D design for some spiral stairs.

 

TIA!

[DevilDamo]

You can download a free trial from Autodesk for 15 days. Alternatively, SketchUp should do what you need. 

[Nick Laslett]

  On 02/04/2025 at 21:31, Great_scot_selfbuild said:

Any recommendations for a free or cheap/reasonable price CAD software. I only need it for about a month to produce a small 2D & 3D design for some spiral stairs.

 

TIA!

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I came across this website when researching stairs. 
 

https://www.knostairs.com/kno-how/draw-stairs/

 

They seem to have lots stuff to support this process. 
 

https://www.knostairs.com/kno-how/draw-stairs/staircase-and-handrail-drawing-courses/

 

They use RhinoCAD, which has a 90 day free trial. 

[Super_Paulie]

im a 3D tech and i use Sketchup for room designs, Rhino for architectural stuff and Fusion for things with moving parts. No idea on cost but id imagine the order i wrote them will also be the order of cost from low to high.

[ETC]

  On 02/04/2025 at 21:31, Great_scot_selfbuild said:

Any recommendations for a free or cheap/reasonable price CAD software. I only need it for about a month to produce a small 2D & 3D design for some spiral stairs.

 

TIA!

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Might be cheaper to get someone who knows how to use CAD to draw it for you.

[Great_scot_selfbuild]

  On 03/04/2025 at 21:56, ETC said:

Might be cheaper to get someone who knows how to use CAD to draw it for you.

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This is the first choice, but I’d quite like to do this myself too. 

[IanR]

  On 04/04/2025 at 07:14, Great_scot_selfbuild said:

This is the first choice, but I’d quite like to do this myself too. 

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What is it you want to do with the CAD software?

If you want visualise the staircase within it's environment, then a lighter-weight software such as Sketchup will be quicker to learn and it's polygon/tessellated database is sufficient for the task. If you wanted to create photo-realistic rendered images of the staircase then Blender is a good option, and completely free.

If however you want to create an Engineering 3D model of the staircase, with accurate models ,thicknesses, fillets, holes with the ability to build associated assemblies, with a catalogue of stock hardware (bolts, nuts, screws, rivets etc.) and sub-assemblies where global changes to the staircase automatically update through to all parts in the assembly and the ability to develop blanks of folded brackets, cutting lists, weld details and associated 2D Engineering drawings that update when the 3D model changed, then you need a NURB/Bezier based CAD system, which will tend to have a steeper learning curve.

If you are wanting to create something that was going to be manufactured from, at a fabricator, then I'd be looking at a mid-tier CAD system such as Solidworks, Creo, Solid Edge etc. most of which can now be leased monthly. Free for 6 months is OnShape, which gets close to these systems for the basics.

However, if you're going to just do this once, it may not be worth the trip up the learning curve, there's a lot of content in a design like a bespoke spiral staircase if you want to fully define it "in CAD" and have a workshop manufacture it for you. In this case I'd suggest a seasoned professional.

[SteamyTea]

I downloaded a cracked copy of Turbocad.

Easy to use.