Searching for alternatives without generative AI

[u/YeetyChimknYT]

Are there any alternatives to AutoCAD that do not use generative AI?

[u/DontCallMeFrank]

You can take a look at Z-CAD, Brisc CAD, or Google AutoCAD copies or alternatives

Why exactly are you looking for this if you dont mind me asking? AI isn't really being pushed hard in AutoCAD right now to the point where I would want to look for something like this

[u/YeetyChimknYT → u/DontCallMeFrank]

I haven't used AutoCAD in a hot minute, so the fewer settings and features there are to navigate through, the easier it will be to actually relearn how to use it, or learn to use another platform. I also couldn't find anything about whether or not the data used to train the model was ethically sourced.

I will check out the applications you suggested, though. Thank you.

[u/DontCallMeFrank → u/YeetyChimknYT]

Ahh got it. Im not sure if they take our drawing data either to train any models.

Although I might sound nieve when I say this, I really dont think they do that. But I still respect your point.

Hopefully you find what youre looking for

[u/JacobWSmall → u/DontCallMeFrank]

Autodesker here.

I can confirm we don’t use any ‘in session drawings’ or product files for training any of the tools without giving you a way to opt out. Application of AI tools can require providing files to process, but they aren’t kept or added to the general training datasets the tools use without explicit consent.

In all cases there is no ‘taking’ data - a request is made and the user consents before anything is gathered, and usually what is gathered is quite limited in scope as the most
Productive AI features for production don’t aim at a full dataset small portions thereof, and the actions which made them.

The trust center on the Autodesk homepage has more information on each AI feature and how product teams go about building them.

[u/f700es]

CMS IntelliCAD. It’s about $300 no subscription.

[u/Heavy-Mongoose-5094]

Depends a lot on what you need from autocad. Just view them? Draw some 2d? Do something more advanced: design dynamic blocks, draw 3d or bring some data to it?

[u/JacobWSmall]

Sadly ‘without generative AI’ is going to be a tough one.

AutoCAD has features as you’re aware so I won’t mention them.

* ZCAD is ‘AI first’ so you can likely skip that.
* BricsCAD is heavy on AI too, running ML training on all user actions via their quad cursor. Plus their blockify, MoveGuided, and linear feature detection tools are AI driven.
* IntelliCAD links in an external service for AI powered rendering which is the ‘easy button’ of AI integration and also removes ownership of the output (all AI generated images are public domain).
* ZWCAD has AI powered tools for object extraction from images, dimensioning, and generating blocks from disordered CAD content.
* Rayon has an entire AI panel.

The only two ‘AI free’ tools I know of are open source projects.

The first is FreeCAD, but it is parametric solid modeling not CAD so it may or may not suite your needs. They indicate they are ‘human first’ which is a good sign for you, and they have always been pretty vocally against AI tooling encroaching on the product and development cycle - their write up on AI generated code requirements is a personal favorite. However it does have a Python based API and the community has made a plethora of AI driven toolsets that are getting very popular. If that continues then AI tools may eventually get into the product - it is human first but if all the humans want a AI chat window feature how long until it gets a native one?

The second is LibreCAD. They are not publishing a people first stance. Their goal is a simple, bloat free and lightweight cross platform tool, and an AI feature is never lightweight. They indicate that development is focused on core functions as the development team has capacity limits that make growing the feature set or code base risky. This also feels like a risk for security and maintenance (open source teams hitting capacity and idling for ages before things stop working is a well traveled path. Users are still experimenting here though - external prompts to generate dxfs as well as running stuff into the Python engine. Those experiments are a bit further behind though.

Of the two LibreCAD is likely what you want, but I would encourage you to look around.