I have been reading an article   at engcom.net which gives a very good review of a product called progeCad which runs on the Intellicad engine.I am very close to buying a copy of this software because of the price compared with Acad .  Does anyone out there have any experience or comment ?Thanks

There are many CAD programs trying to mimic the AutoCAD user interface.  It may work well in many situations but do not count on the DWG compatibility - none of these AutoCAD clones creates true DWG files (the extension is DWG but the contents is not the 100% DWG file format).

Hello, everyone:
 
I know a CAD can be compatible with AutoCAD.
 
you can download it
 
Professional Version: http://download.hccad.net/icad/ICAD2007i%20Pro_ENG%20R070731.exe   50.74 MBStandard Version:     http://download.hccad.net/icad/ICAD2007i%20Std_ENG%20R070731.exe   34.43MB
 
Lisa Qin        Email: qinrui@hccad.net   
Skype: Lisa9712
MSN: qinrui971@hotmail.com

Claims to be compatible - yes, is compatible - no.
Its functions and file format are different.

ZWCAD is an excellent .DWG editor.   Our Autocad trainer has tested this every which way and we just finished a project with it.  There is a free tiral download at
zwcad.us
 ikimbrell2007-09-07 12:20:27

The chinese ZwCAD is one of those applications which reads and writes files with the DWG extension but the internal format of these files is slightly different (and not 100% compatible) to the AutoCAD DWG format.

We have been passing ZWCAD files back and forth with Autocad with no lost information or change in format.   They seem to be 100% compatible.   When you say
 
"the internal format of these files is slightly different (and not 100% compatible)"
 
what do you mean?  I want to know what to look out for.
 
IK

The problem is that DWG is a non-open (not documented) file format by Autodesk and all the AutoCAD clones are just guessing its structure. As a result, the files produced by these non-Autodesk applications are not true DWG files. They are also not able to interpret all contents of DWG files produced by AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT - so some of your CAD information may be lost during processing.
 
You can e.g. try to load the BUDWEISER2008 DWG drawing (from plain AutoCAD 2008) into ZwCAD - see www.xanadu.cz/budweiser

I think the majority of CAD users looking to use an alternative to Autocad for creating DWG files, should download the test dwg as mentioned herein and see what differences, if any, they can live with.  Many of our clients have been using Intellicad based products for the past couple of years and exchanging dwgs with their respective clients (firms using Autocad) and have had minimal issues. 
If you require arx or ADS functionality, the clones won't help but if you're like most of the CAD users we've interfaced with over the past 20 years (e.g. using less than 25% of the power of an Autocad product), you owe it to yourself to evaluate some of the clone products out there.
 
Bring your dwgs into the product you are evaluating and compare some of the conventions that are shown in the Bud... test dwg.   For small shops, the benefits of paying big bucks for Autodesk products may be outweighed by the differences that you can live with in a product costing thousands less.

i downloaded zwcad 2007 pro,it works perfectly with my current dwg file.
 
to mgm1,one of their live support man told me that arx functions is going to be added in 2008beta version

The arx applications must be recompiled to work with ZWCAD which is great if you happen to have the source code that created the arx.  Most companies are using 3rd party ARX applications and as such, do not own the source code to convert for use with ZWCAD and/or iCAD.  Many third party developers for Autodesk (e.g. large applications like HydraCAD or SprinkCAD) are not interested in recompiling their applications for use in non-Autocad applications.  This is obviously short-sited but unfortunately, that is their narrow view of the present market.  The third party developers who are flexible enough to convert their apps to run on all platforms will ultimately derail these short-sighted mentalities but that will take some time.