You guys are often good for random questions… so here goes…

I occasionally need to provide a technical sketch to illustrate a particular point. I can use full CAD if I need to (but I’m not an engineer so slow and it is overkill). I can draw by hand and scan but its a faff – and I don’t get vectors which are easy to edit. So I often revert to using powerpoint. Its not intended for the purpose but it kind of works.

Does anyone have a better solution (typically 2D diagrams perhaps to highlight how something is made or dimensions we are discussing, or quite often to accompany a proposal so that the project scope doesn’t creep to a completely different idea). I’d quite like it to have the “feel” of hand sketched so its clear it is not intended to be a full technical drawing – so ‘the techy drawing equivalent of comic sans’!

This is the sort of level of complexity I am talking about but I’d like it to look a bit more professional without looking like it is the finished article?

Any suggestions? Obviously I’d like free or very cheap. I use a mac. Happy with cloud based stuff.

Tried Sketch Up? Free, runs on Mac, 2D/3D & it’ll do that wobbly hand drawn thing if you want (in Styles).

Google sketchup is what I`d be using in that instance

EDIT, too slow 🙂

I’ve been using the drawing thing that’s part of Google Drive a fair bit. Free and works fairly well for simple sketches.

May have a look at SketchUp.

google drawing is nice and simple – available as a webapp through chrome browser or direct from google drive.

Sketchup is a downloaded application IIRC, not a webapp…for now at least.

Thanks – google drawing is essentially a direct alternative to “powerpoint” for this as far as I’ve seen and not “that” great at it.

I have used sketchup but only for 3D stuff. I didn’t realise it could go “wobbly drawing mode”… I will investigate.

+n for Sketch Up. Loads of You Tube help available too.

Thanks Sketchup appears to do exactly what I need.

Autocad WS is pretty good especially if already know cad