Does anyone have a decent working knowledge of the CAD programs out there? I'm looking for one to do a business/office plan, and tried out a few but no winner yet.

TurboFloorPlan 3D Home/Landscape - Tried out the demo, v14, and it was very XP-ish with oddly configured controls (ie it was a pain to rotate objects). The program in general didn't seem very well thought out. The price report feature was the only thing I really liked.

The BHG Home Designer Suite 6.0 seemed better, more intuitive interface and controls, larger selection of objects. Still a home targeted product, didn't offer a whole lot for the more business side of things.

What have you guys used and what do you recommend? I know AutoCad is the big name and costs a pretty penny, so I'm looking for any worthwhile products that support business designs and layouts without having to design every object myself.

Thanks and happy coding

All of the best "CAD"/Engineering Design applications have terrible interfaces but its what the engineers who use them want, they dont like change and having to learn how to use a new interface whenever a new version of the software is released.

I work for a company that distributes and writes Civil Engineering Expansions for 12d Model which in my biased opinion is the best, especially Civil Engineering Design, but cheaper alternatives are CivilCad, BricsCad(latest version has an ok interface). Autocads latest release has a newish interface also but not that cheap.

The industry standards are AutoCAD and ArchiCAD, but these are professional suites with prices to match. Maybe you could squeeze your project into the evaluation period?

Yeah I checked out AutoCad...needless to say, I won't be building the Coliseum. Aside from the fact that it targets professional civil engineers, I don't have the time/resources to learn the program and make a design in 30 days.

I am currently trying out Chief Architect X4. It seems to offer a decent balance of user friendliness and depth of features/program capabilities.

I may misunderstand the OP. Architecture or engineering? 2D or 3D?
There's a free/cheap alternative to AutoCAD, it's called ProgeCAD. I used it, it's buggy as hell, but usable if you save often. I know it's 2d, maybe it does 3D too, but 3D sucks hard in AutoCAD like software anyway.

Architecture, primarily 2D

You could take a look at QCAD , i found it to be really good for floorplans, the community edition is free (but comes in sourcecode form and i'm not sure if it even compiles as-is on Windows), the pro edition costs 32 euro and has a free trial version. (The free community edition lacks scripting support and some other advanced features but it doesn't sound like you need or want that anyway)

Would SketchUp not work here?

Would SketchUp not work here?

I love Sketchup for simple 3D models. Great for scale floor plans as well