[nzlug] Architectural CAD

[Johann Schoonees]

Hi

Is anyone here in the architecture field - architecture as in buildings?

I need to advise an architect on a free (mostly as in beer) 
architectural CAD program to run on Linux.  She has limited CAD 
experience from some years ago and now wants to give it a try again. 
If the CAD solution is good enough it may become the practice standard.

http://www.free-architecture.org/?q=node/2 has an overview but, not 
being an architect, I found myself getting confused about what the 
various tools actually do.  What would an architect use for drawing up 
plans, elevations, etc. of an existing house, and for designing major 
extensions?

Octree http://www.octree.de/ looks like a candidate but its no-source 
licence seems to limit it to non-commercial purposes only?

BRL-CAD http://www.brlcad.org/ is under BSD, GPL and/or LGPL licences 
but looks more like solid modelling than architecture.

Should I be considering Scribus http://www.scribus.net/ or Inkscape 
http://www.inkscape.org/ ?

Other suggestions?

Thanks,
Johann

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