DraftSight addresses CAD users, allowing them to create, view and manage DWG and DXF drawings in a professional and streamlined environment that can be manipulated by both beginner and professional users.

DraftSight is yet another CAD application that rises on an already rich software market, but uses a more easy and comfortable approach therefore targeting a larger audience. It’s fit for students, teachers and engineers who want to explore CAD drawings intuitively and elegantly.

DraftSight’s design is simpler than most professional CAD applications, but this is not to say that its purpose isn’t served right. The GUI doesn’t sport the complex and heavy appearance characteristic to CAD software, but a tidier, cleaner look that appeals more to the crowds.

It has support for formats such as DWG, DXF and DWT, which are some of the most popular model formats of the CAD field. You can equally create a new design or open an existing model for further exploration.

Highlights include support for layers, animated rendering, a wide array of formatting tools (various styles for texts, tables, scales and unit system options), as well as the possibility to insert shapes (lines, polylines, rectangles, arcs, circles, rings, splines, ellipses, sketches, text, masks, etc).

A model can be modified using features such as offset, mirror, spit, weld, chamfer, extend, trim, rotate, scale, stretch to name the most important ones. You can also insert hyperlinks, reference drawings and images and various objects such as PDF documents, equations, charts and so on.

As far as the export options go, you’ve got the possibility to save the drawings to BMP, WMF, PNG, JPG, SVG, EPS, TIF, STL and PDF format. If you have eDrawings installed, you can send the model directly to its publishing module for sharing purposes.

All in all, DraftSight can come in handy for virtually anyone in the CAD field, providing users with a set of tools that’s easy to understand and manipulate. However, support for a wider array of formats would definitely boost its value.