Computer graphics help

I'd run Windows 8 as a secondary OS, and get a copy of Corel Suite x6.

You may want to look at Sketch Up. A lot of woodworkers use it for its details.

Sketch Up looks to be 2D only, so I don't think that would give me what I need.   I'll do some more looking at it, though, and see. 

Corel seems to fit my needs better and I spend some more time investigating that one, too.

Thanks guys.

Any more?

SketchUp, in fact, is one of coolest 3d Programs available and if you're not going for commercial use, it's free. You can project the views into a flat, no-perspective, view and print it that way if you just want a flat drawing. I'm using SketchUp almost exclusively for my design work. I will say that I use Adobe Illustrator to create the files that would go to a laser cutter, and Illustrator's not free, nor can it be bought outright. You have to pay a monthly rental of 20 bucks to run it, but it's upgraded for free whenever it's needed. BTW: I export the Illustrator files as PDFs which can be read by CorelDraw and then to the laser cutter. It was a long road to figure that out. It's too bad that illustrator and CorelDraw can't directly read each others' files. I mean seriously folks...

Although my MacBook Pro can run Windows using Boot Camp or Parallels, I've been reluctant to go through the effort and expense to set it up. You need a native version of Windows, which is unavailable on the market and, although Microsoft will generate one for you, it won't be cheap. When I was a Windows user, and I was one for over 25 years, I used Corel Draw exclusively and frankly miss it. Illustrator doesn't scale nor do dimensions. You have to buy another add on to do that. If you purchase the pro version of SketchUp, it comes with Layout. Layout works hand in hand with SU to convert their 3d images into fully presentable 2d documents with dimensions and any other text and graphics you need, but... SketchUp Pro is expensive and unless you're going to generate lots of work with it, I can't imagine justifying the expense.

When doing drawings in SketchUp, it likes to do them in 1:1 scale. It works best when you're drawing large things. I then do the scaling to 1:48 when I import the images into Illustrator, by setting up some guidelines representing some known measurements and then expanding or contracting the imported image to conform to these guidelines. It works well, is accurate, but just takes a little effort.

Unfortunately for us Mac users, CorelDraw has no intention of making a OS ported version. And most laser cutters and CNC routers only work on Windows-based software.