Date:         Thu, 25 Apr 1996 10:02:49 -0700
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         mwest@cdsnet.net (Mike West)
Subject:      Mechanical Drawing Package

>From time to time we have this problem of needing to make a sketch
of the particular item we are discussing and thru some rather clever
use of the ascii characters, have largely managed to get the job done.
 I'm not as clever or maybe lazy so I put together a small CAD program
and then capture with a screen capture, then crop to cut the extraneous out
and I've got a *.gif of the mechanical dwg. 
 I'm pleased with the results, a bracket I used as subject was 300K
when I did screen capture, was only 79K when cropped and only 3.6K
when compressed. What this means is that you can send a schematic
or dwg attached to your post and anyonne with a graphic viewer for
photos can bring it up and view it.
 All software is available on the net as Shareware so heres the poop:
GammaCad Pro by Gamma Software.  Screen capture by Professional Capture
Systems. I use Graphic Workshop f/Windows by Alchemy ??? 
for a viewer and Cropper. Free Agent itself handles the encoding 
and compression and allows me to send by E-mail or News post.
 If both parties have the Cad program you can just use the *.dxf
which is a text format itself and would need no encoding etc.
 If you have an interest or want a free Bracket.Gif in your mailbox
or more likely you worked this out better in 1941 then let me know.
 For any who think this is all greek(can we still use that?)then I
apologize for being an inarticulate oaf (which is why I need pictures). The
cad program is a nice little (3.3meg) package only a 
couple steps removed from PC Paint so it's easy to learn and use.
                                                      west