Alternative for Autocad?

[alexthg]

Since we've been modelling from scratch in 3dsmax, investing in Autocad seems like a huge waste of money. But the problem is, many of our clients sends data in 3d dwg format.
And we need Autocad only to clean up some layers, have a quick view, check scale, etc before exporting to 3dsmax.
Is there any alternatives to Autocad that can do those stuff at lower cost?

[bluescreen2]

autocad LT, if you only get 2D files

[Nek]

Rhino, imports and exports dwg perfectly, in addition to very good tools of visualization and verification. Also it has very good price.
Alternatively you could work directly with him with the version of vray for rhino.

[alexthg]

Thanks for the inputs guys!

I think I'll give rhino a try

[glorybound]

Alt to CAD

Revit 100% Never modeled faster!

[gilpo]

Bobby, Revit doesn't totally take away the need for Autocad (or some substitute). You still need to clean up the DWG from clients before they are usable in Revit (or some other 3d program).

To answer the OP, we are looking at Autocad LT for our techs for CAD cleanup.

[glorybound]

Alt to CAD

I usually model off the hard copies. The 2D drawings are pretty useless to Revit. You don't extrude like you would in MAX

[gilpo]

Ahh, I see. I use them so I can snap and align to them. Takes a bit of guesswork out when the architects don't properly dimension their drawings.

[glorybound]

Alt 2 AutoCAD

I use to follow that work flow as well until I started using Revit. I use to outline everything with close poly's and import it into MAX and do my attaching, rotating, and extruding. In Revit modeling is so fast and easy I just model measuring off of hard copies.

[EricCamper]

I have found that trying to downgrade costs more money in the ling run...The time you would spend importing and all the other stuff would far out way the price of one seat. In my opinion. But I also thought Road House 2 was a good movie..Oops