Based on my experience and in comparing this software to other programs (MacDraft, Google Sketch, Cadintosh, TurboCAD , etc) this is the best CAD program on the Mac. Absolutely a joy to work with!

I'm learning AutoCad from a tertiary education provider, and because I prefer Macs, decided to buy and try High Design 1.5 Standard for home so that I could work seamlessly between AutoCad and High Design using the dxf file format. I am finding that the CAD drawing conventions that I am learning through AutoCad can be easily applied to High Design. I'm more familiar with the drawing conventions of Illustrator and Freehand, so initially, the CAD conventions seemed unintuitive and awkward. Now I am getting used to them, drawing in CAD is getting easier. AutoCad, possibly because of its age/history has a complex user interface. By comparison, High Design is definitely easier to learn, has a cleaner user interface, and so far (in terms of what I've learned) seems just as powerful for 2D work.

I am tired of being accused of being some sort of "spammer simply because I am a passionate designer who is trying to spread reviews, comments and insights on a product/piece of software that I think other designers,like myself, should take a serious look at and give both its creators and its product software a try.

I'm not peddling Viagra in these forums for crying out loud!!

I thought I was just trying to some good words and positive feedback about this product where I could to get designers to,at least take a look at this product. I am not usually this passionate about a piece of software, but i think that any tool that can make the act of creation and design simpler,more fun and more productive and creative should be reviewed and talked about
For some strange reason I keep being labelled some kind of spammer because I am doing this! Maybe I am using the wrong kind of forum to do this sort of reviewing? I do not know,but I am done with trying to be of help to the designers and users of this forum to try to impart useful info on products
Thought i was doing a good thing here,but I guess not.
No one will hear from me,again at any of these forums. Hope everyone who's seen my posts are all happy now.
Goodbye!

High Design CAD,by far,blows away the competition in terms price,easy user intuitive GUI and feature set. True,there is no native Acad .dwg support (I am not sure why this is,either. Because,many of the lower priced CAD competitors do support .dwg),but the .dxf import/export works great! To Melvin Smart & mac daddy,what versions of Acad are both of you using?Currently .dxf support extends to only Acad 12,14 & 2000. When you export to .dxf you need to make sure you choose a lower Acad .dxf version to export to and everythimg will work fine.
Did both of you even try to work with this program even though you couldn't open a native Acad file? Come on, the UI is cleaner,easier and more elegant to navigate tha Acad,lots of editability/customability of geometry,text and images,Hatch/fill pattern custom creation with ability to layer and combine multiple hatch/fill patterns in a single custom created hatch/fill,in program creation of bit-images, good color support,there is multi-sheet functionality within a single document file,transparency of sheets,layers,objects,bit-mapped images
import/export to virtually every current conceivable bit-map image format in existence. I agree,at its current release(1.1.1),I find,too,that rendering is much easier done in an outside image editing or 3d app.(I use Adobe Photoshop 7/CS,Corel Painter 7),but decent professional-looking rendering can be done within High Design with a some additional effort. (I am currently working on a rendering excercise in this program to see what level of rendering I can get out of just working within High Design).As far as your comments about buying Vectorworks and Cinema 4D that should just about blow two grand. If you want to be able to do an easy to use Cad app but still need to do easy,but professional-looking rendering, Denaba Canvas at $349-399 blows your option away! If you use High Design with an easy to use 3d app,like Sketchup,that still comes in at a lower price point.Price would be about same if you use High Design with a painting/image editing program like I use. Heck, AutoCad LT can't even beat the cost of High Design's Pro version.
Think some of you need to revisit this app and give it the try it deserves. I am a Acad user also, and I was able to learn this program within a very short time with NO help from the manual until recently.
It's only real pain is that you can't open multiple files at once if you need to cut/paste geometry from one document to another.
Other than that,this program works like a Mac CAD package designed and developed for Mac designers.

Very very nice interface design, very user-friendly, nice to use, easy, and easy to draw because you dont have to hold the mouse button down. Very good, i love it.