RiscCAD vs ProCAD

I’ve just scribbled out a sketch and some measurements for a new shed and combined garage-and-shed roof. I thought this might be a good excuse to try my hand at CAD, especially since the measurements may be changed. Remarkably, there is still a choice on RISC OS when it comes to CAD – RiscCAD and ProCAD+. Now I know ProCAD has a demo, but RiscCAD does not. So, any preferences, pros and cons, user experiences of either/both would be most welcome. My use for now will be garden and outbuilding design, but into the future I will be designing woodwork projects and might even get some metal parts machined, so the software being capable of that would be preferable.

Although this doesn’t relate directly to your question (I have no first-hand experience of RiscCAD), David Snell has sent me the ProCAD+ sources, and I have it compiling correctly on my system here. It fitted into my build system rather well, as David’s code uses similar libraries to my own, and is therefore somewhat familiar to me (translation – it uses RISC_OSlib which is what I’ve always used for my programs). This should (I hope) ensure that the software has a future should new hardware require recompilation etc.

I’m not planning to make unsolicited, wild changes to the program, as I know a lot of users love it “as is”, but I may make small cosmetic tweaks (style guide etc) as I go. So far my biggest change was to alter the splash screen so that it multi-tasks with program load, rather than artificially delaying startup on faster machines.

The good news … Both are suitable. ;-)
The rest of it, from my experience, is very subjective.
During my studies (mechanical engineering until 1995) I use WorraCAD on my A5000 later (at home) RiscCAD, now ProCAD for 2D and FreeCAD 3D (Titanium Linux).
For me personally, ProCAD is closer to what I expect from a CAD program. But this is very much related to the CAD programs that I had to use for business purposes. The import and export function of ProCAD is better (in my eyes) and with ProOSM there is a tool to quickly generate maps.

Andrew is !Procad going to be available on !store ??

Rob, its already on !Store look for ProCAD Plus

I haven’t uploaded my build of it yet – the !Store version is still David’s last/latest build (from mid 2019, if memory serves). I just need to finalise some details with David.

Would been interesting if the windows version could be revived.Could updates be added to ARM store – did get someone to ask at 2020 SW Show -but received no info on updates.

Colin – I did ask David at one point, but the response I got suggested it was dead, and probably past point of resuscitation. However, as things progress, I’ll investigate whether source still exists. I’m trying to be sensitive/delicate, as I’m aware that I don’t have the CAD “pedigree” of David and many of the users.

I always thought RiscCAD had a pretty UI, and it seemed nicely priced in recent years. However, I was always a bit disappointed that we didn’t see Dave Buck (RiscCAD author) at shows, and so I never got much of a feel for how it was progressing. I think he did a couple of Wakefield user group talks over the years, though. His website gives a version number, but not a date.

As Raik says, my impression of ProCAD has always been of a more technically able piece of software, but perhaps not so cosmetically pretty/friendly. However, all this may be down more to the size of the toolbar buttons than to anything remotely sensible, and I’ve really only ever seen (quite pretty) screenshots of RiscCAD. ProCAD traditionally sold for a very high price, as it was one of those “killer” (maybe not quite the right word, but certainly “heavyweight”) apps for RISC OS that lived alongside Impression, Ovation Pro, Artworks, DataPower, Prophet, Sibelius, Easi/Techwriter etc. In recent years its price has dropped to reflect the fact that there are fewer users running their business/livelihoods on it, largely due to the passage of time.

(thinks) maybe that’d be a nice feature for me to investigate for ProCAD – a “large buttons” UI mode, as a configurable option in the choices. Might be nice for people with high res screens (ProCAD on ARMbook?).

I cannot comment on RiscCAD but I bought ProCAD and it meets all my simple drawing needs and it is good news that Andrew is intending to develop it further. Where ever possible I like to buy RISC software that continues to be developed.

New to this forum, although RisOS user since A310

I use computerdrawing in a lot of ways and have both RiscCad and ProCad+ (besides AW / drawplus)
I find the userinterface of RisCad is easier, but The big issue with RiscCad is the lack of an UNDO-button.
I think that is an essential function for any modern computerprogram. There are so many possibilities that you easily make a wrong choice and did not save in time.
I remember how happy I was when I first used Artworks (long ago) with the unlimited undo!

Hello All

I understand the frustration of RiscCAD not having undo, I did look at it a while ago, but for the current market, the sales do not justify the work to put it in. Remember, RiscCAD was started in 1988 !

I don’t want to get into a RiscCAD vs ProCAD+ debate too much, both are capable programs. Briefly, RiscCAD can do accurate pattern fills, I only ever saw ProCAD+ attempt to fill complex shapes and not really trim to the edges with the fill pattern, and RiscCAD does have automatic dimensions, whereby if you stretch an area of the drawing to adjust a shape, the dimensions will change to reflect this. In terms of what ProCAD+ does which RiscCAD doesn’t, it has a few more dimensioning types (not automatic though) and it imports more data types, particularly bitmap and mapping I believe.

Release 10 of RiscCAD is the current release, additions added in release 10 include outline fonts, Bezier curves, multiple views and improved DXF and Draw import/export.

Let me know if anyone wants to know more.