# What is best program to run windows CAD on Mac?



## Cadillac STS (Dec 19, 2014)

I have Mach 3 on an old pc to run the mill.  Have a powerful iMac and would like to run CAD on that.  What is the best way?


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## COMachinist (Dec 20, 2014)

Cadillac STS said:


> I have Mach 3 on an old pc to run the mill.  Have a powerful iMac and would like to run CAD on that.  What is the best way?


Hi
I'm not a Mac/OSX expert, but I think you need to have a CAD program that is specific to the Mac OS.
I know AutoCAD make a version for Mac. I think Mesh Cam has some Apple stuff. Apple also has AppleCAD  they may have a Cam package  for Mach has well. I know my BobCAD/CAM will only run on a windows computer.
Good Luck
CH


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## dholby (Dec 20, 2014)

Never heard of any cad/cam system that runs on a mac.

maybe someone ones of one, but I not hopeful you'll find one.


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## Cadillac STS (Dec 20, 2014)

There are a few ways to run Windows programs on Mac.  

One way is called "Bootcamp" and is an Apple product (And is free within the newer Mac software.)  That lets you boot into your Mac hard drive as either Mac or boot in on a completely different partition with Windows.  So booted as Windows it is Windows to the core completely.  Operating system is a fresh install of Windows that you buy from Microsoft.  Issue for me is I would need to reboot and restart into Windows partition but then no access to the Mac (Which has my email, etc..)  

Other way is there are a few apps that Mac can use to run Windows programs within the Mac operating system.  "Parallel" is one.  So just load and run the CAD program inside the Mac operating system and seamlessly go between Mac and Windows programs.

There are a couple CAD programs specifically for Mac including Autodesk for Mac

I contacted Bobcad directly and they say it needs to be Windows and they can't say any other operating system.  BUT the guy also let me know their main Bobcat trainer uses exclusively Mac computers to train and does run it on Mac.


*My question is this:  Second option above, which is the best Mac app that would run CAD programs best?*  Bootcamp is moot because IT IS Windows on the Mac hardware.

Asking here just in case someone here had specific experience with CAD on the Mac.


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## Ripthorn (Dec 22, 2014)

Depending on how complicated you want to get, you can do a few different things.  If you are doing 2.5D milling, which is what I do, you can use inkscape inside of the Quartz X11 framework to do your CAD.  I don't know if the gcodegenerator extension works on a mac, but I would imagine it does.  Alternatively, you can get a windows emulator (Wine is a popular one) and run it on that.  Another option is to dual boot the computer with Windows.  All of that is ignoring the fact that there are probably programs out there for the mac that run natively just fine.


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## rklopp (Dec 22, 2014)

Take a look at Autodesk's Fusion360 CAD/CAM for the Mac. It's not up to par with SolidWorks as an engineering design tool, but also costs much much less. It is cloud based. I am just starting to learn it. I have not gotten very far, due to lack of time and perhaps too much familiarity with SolidWorks.


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## f350ca (Dec 22, 2014)

I run with Bootcamp, have an old version of Autosketch that I like and don't want to spend the time to learn new software that won't improve the end product. 
As for email and surfing you could still do it on the windows side, I don't because of the susceptibility  to viruses.

Greg


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## Cadillac STS (Dec 27, 2014)

I ended up using Bootcamp and installed Windows 8 from that.  It is a separate partition on the hard drive and it just Windows 8 running with the great Mac hardware.  So no emulation, just Windows 8.


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## j ferguson (Dec 28, 2014)

I run VirtualBox from Oracle (free) on both our Mac and Linux machines. VirtualBox is a virtual machine environment which means it runs inside MacOS.  It requires installation of a working Windows system, in my case XP, but runs Autosketch very well. It has the advantage over bootcamp of not requiring a reboot to run and can exist in a window(?) in the mac environment which can be closed if something Mac needs attention.  

I also run AZpost in this environment which works fine.  I would say that installing VirtualBox requires care. Novices to this sort of thing may find it challenging.  Once installed, though it is quite robust.

Our original purpose in installing VirtualBox in the Mac was to run Quicken14 on a better system than the old ASUS which we'd used previously.  

For the CNC it made a lot of sense.  I use LinuxCNC which runs on Ubuntu Linux 10.04 on a PC.  I installed VirtualBox on the same machine and do the post processing with AZpost in a VirtualBox Window and then dry run on LinuxCNC, edit CL file, or G-Code as needed until i get something that works.

If you don't understand what I've written. let me know. I probably wrote badly.


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