How to enable DWG import in SketchUp 8 Free

As an architect living in Indonesia I (and many others) faced one same dreaded problem in my workflow: DWG dependency.
I've post list of applications that I use before, though I must share this info too (a bit too late actually).

So how to enable DWG Import in your Free SketchUp 8?

We all know Google stop supporting DWG Import feature starting from SketchUp 8 (free). The last one (7.1) have additional add-on http://dl.google.com/sketchup/gsu7/AllowDWGImportInSketchUp7.msi to enable it.

Then another way is: You can install SketchUp 8 Pro trial for 8 hours of usage if you want a temporary solution.

Or.. you can just stick with SketchUp 7.1 and ask your partners to downgrade save as sketchup 7 format for file exchange. Which is what I choose, after all there are not much important features in version 8.

Now.. do you know that actually there is no difference between both version?

2D CAD and Open Source, will it ever works?

ITC's intelliCAD or ODA's Teigha? They are open but to their alliance/members not to common public which left only OpenCASCADE. However OpenCASCADE is more suitable for 3D parametric modeling not general 2D drafting, in fact it looks like an attempt by "the big player" to promote their base foundation (against the mighty Autodesk of course). Why I said that? cause their development in recent version is really lacking of interest and motivation!

AutoCAD LT's clone invasion
To the blatant monopolistic attitude of Autodesk (almost as worst as old-day M$) competitors still not give up to give users "freeware" of 2D drafting package in a hope that they might ditch DWG or -more recently- AutoCAD LT. The release of DoubleCAD XT and DraftSight certainly an appealing offer to me who have separate 2D and 3D package for the workflow. DraftSight from Dassault Systemes, the less nagging (but has annoying yearly online activation) of the two is using QT as their GUI and both use ODA's Teigha for DWG compatibility. I see these kind of lure won't recede anytime soon even after Autodesk lawsuit to ODA in 2006 for DWG infringement. All I can say there is no real interest in open source community whatever the big player do.

QCad Community Edition Win32 Installer

In case you didn't informed, someone called ximuntxo at SF has build Windows binary QCad from source using QT 3.3 long time ago. And I have give it a try for a week, given that I'm an AutoCAD avid and QCad certainly not try to imitate AutoCAD whatsoever I'm quite happy. Its stable however it just don't fill my style (it doesn't have scripting support too), I really want an open source of AutoCAD clone. There are some clone... but all are neither stable or useful for real work. So if you persistent, try learn its workflow especially how each tool works cause indeed its quite capable cad software.

Today I'm visiting Ribbonsoft and it is such a shame that they still offer very outdated version 2.0.5 of Community Edition sources, while windows binary (commercial) is way up to 2.2.2. Since no new source offered I pack the binary bundled with library and docs into an installer. Also I have hardcoded the qcad.exe so it will called Assistant (Docs) correctly right from Help menu.

qcad_ce-2.0.5.0_win32_installer.exe

note:
- there is glitch in qcadrc between Library path and Pattern path, just set them through GUI instead.
- the uninstaller is full of redundant due to 4500 files of part library lol
- you need msvcr71.dll for documentation work properly