Bearboat Pro, a free program for kayak design, is now capable of exporting created designs as a DXF files. DXF is a file format that is accepted by most CAD programs. This provides the capability of starting a design in Bearboat Pro and finishing it in a CAD program if the designer feels the need to use this strategy. For someone facile with a CAD program, it would be possible, for example, to add small deck details that Bearboat Pro itself cannot create.

I personally have never gone this route, but I have corresponded with people who used and liked various CAD programs for kayak design. This new feature of Bearboat Pro offers a bridge to these designers.

Since I personally have not needed a CAD program, I do not own one. They can be fairly expensive to buy for a lark. There is a product for the PC, VoloView, that is provided by AutoDesk as freeware. It is capable of "looking at" a DXF file but not actually manipulating it. One might think of it as viewing software similar to Acrobat's capabilities of view text documents.

My own testing is thus somewhat limited. I debugged the program using VoloView but I would be very interested in feedback from people who own and use products such as AutoCAD. Reports of any experiences, good or bad, moving a design from Bearboat Pro to a CAD program would be greatly appreciated.

The "export to DXF" function is accessed under the File menu (menu item -- Output). I would consider this functionality to be in beta. It will be hard for me to find the "problems" in that, to date, I have not really felt the need to use a general CAD program for any stage of my own designs. Therefore, I do not have a "feel" for the process. Feedback is thus actively solicited.

The most recent versions of BearboatPro are always at
http://www.homepage.mac.com/rlivingston