I am experimenting with ViaCAD Pro at my boss' request and I like the software so far. I am more experienced with AutoCAD, but they both seem to have their pros and cons.

One thing I like about AutoCAD is that you can draw a solid model and then render it in paper space in as many views as you like. I have not used AutoCAD to do machine work though, so I don't know if this is a useful feature or not.

The reason I bring this up is that we do prototyping and small production on a gantry router. The easiest way that I've found so far for making drawings for the mill is to do the drawing in AutoCAD, make a dxf out of it, transfer it to Cut2D, transfer that to Mach3 and do my cutting. If I have a more complex object to cut that will require rotating the work piece (by hand) and then doing a second cut, then I need two drawings. If there are more sides and more cuts, then I need more drawings.

I'd really like to have a way to simply take contours from 3D models and send them to Cut2D or to Mach3. Then, if I need to make changes to one view, I don't need to make changes to the all the other views to make them match.

Does anyone know of a way to do this with ViaCAD?