AutoCAD 2011 LT

Jonathan, if you’re looking for solutions that are cheaper than $1000, then BricsCAD comes to mind. My experience with using older versions of AutoCAD brings at least two challenges…lack of Autodesk support and the pain of having your collaborating design team members save back to the version in which you are working. Though on the surface this seems to not be a problem, other than always making sure they know to do this for you, if there is functionality that is newer than your version, then saving it back, may risk how that gets translated backward to a version that does not support it, and how those objects work in your earlier version. If financing is an option to make the price a little more manageable, I would recommend Vectorworks, as it imports and exports DXF/DWG and is significantly cheaper than AutoCAD…plus you get the functionality of landscape specific CAD and 3D modeling. Throw in the Renderworks module and its like adding photo enhancement software, without having to leave the same application. Best of luck.

I use AcadLt 2008 at home and ACAD LDt 2009 at work (both 2007 dwg format). I believe that I have received only one file from an architect that was using the 2010 format. I’m sure it will be coming, though.

Bricscad sounds like the best way to stay current on a budget. I like ACAD because I work with it every day, but I’m considering Bricscad as my next upgrade, but may just do the LT upgrade (~$500 with a licensed copy of ’08). I have a friend who is going to upgrade LT 2005, but he’ll have to pay full price because they no longer support the ’05. I’m thinking about buying the Bricscad just so that I can dumb down a drawing file to ’07 in case I still don’t like Bricscad (used it several years ago and did not like the way it handled certain things – very few, but enough to mess with my habits).

Try a demo, it is free. Henry Cohen swears by it.