Old photos/drawings of India

A lot of inspiring imagery as old photos of India is now accessible online. Due to copyright expiry, making available the archives and also due to online sale of old photos, a lot can be found online. Ofcourse these will not replace a photo print, which will be much more detailed. None the less, the sizes now available to see online is good enough.

I share a list of resources that I have found useful. If you know of more, please do share in the comments.

Temples and Archaeological sites

British library | Archaeological survey of India (pre-independence) survey photos from reports and many other photos. Sometimes you will have to try different spellings or larger regional name to be able to locate a photo of a place you are interested in. This link is an example of Eklingji old photo.

American Institute of Indian Studies | Encyclopedia of Indian Temple Architecture, photos and drawings
A pretty exhaustive archive of digitized slides/photos published in the Encyclopedia of Indian Temple Architecture Volumes (and also the ones not published I think). This was the enormous work done by M. A. Dhaky and his team surveying and documenting temples across north and south India.

General country and people scenes including architecture

These blogs regularly scoop out and share photos available anywhere in the internet, including ebay (!), online museums and the British library.

Blog1: Old Photos sourced from ebay, British library, online museums etc
TIP Explore this blog by the list of categories (it's a long list)

Blog2: Indian Art sourced from ebay, British library, online museums etc
TIP Again, as above, explore this blog by the list of categories (it's a real long list)

Maps of India | Best resources

There was a time when I used to visit the first floor office of the Survey of India office, just behind Janpath - the colorful shopping street near Cannaught place, New Delhi. Today, I don't need to go there anymore...

The maps, so called US military maps, are based on British survey maps. these maps contain villages, hamlets, little lakes or water bodies and other geographical elements. Today much near the human habitations has changed, but the maps still hold value by giving contours and accurate geographical features. All of these are now accessible online!

I share that important resource links and other related Map links for India

India and Pakistan Toporaphical maps 1:250,000, Series U502, U.S. Army Map Service, 1955-

go to the source of above and click on the grid to open regional map in detail as below

A detail from map, showing details like settlements and waterbodies

A list of Topographical, thematic and historical maps of India 

Some items in this list lead to more list of maps! Explore...

Detailed HIMALAYA maps including small villges and contours 

Contours and Villages

This list is ofcourse not exhaustive - if you know more resources, please share them in comments.
I have not included MapsOfIndia-dot-com since I find them having very superficial maps, which may suffice businesses or corporate PPTs, not the detail oriented designers. The above sources of maps provide maps with "character".

Watercolors | Milind Mulick

water color by Milind Mulick

I have always liked (to see and enjoy) watercolor. But trying it myself, I was terrible - it just did not come to me. I am beginning to attempt it again now! My first attempt after viewing several watercolors, reading the tutorial book by Milind Mulick, watching his demo videos (from youtube and that came with his book), blog... began me to imagine the scenes I wanted to draw as paintings before I drew them. I began to imagine in watercolor for some days. Then when I first drew (after days of just imagining) some bit of success came about.

I share here the inspirational water colors of Milind Mulick who I first discovered on Flipkart, then his facebook albums and also his blog.

Have a look, get inspired, enjoy...

- Watercolors of Milind Mulick image search on Google
- His Facebook albums
- His blog

Ok, now this is really nice, not watercolor but mixed-media; so I include it anyway:

Explore the work and books of Milind Mulick!

AutoCAD alternatives | clones!

Often architects so used to AutoCAD, wonder and ask if there would be cheaper yet fully functional alternative - they are asking actually how they can start to get rid of the pirated version most people have learned to use!

There was a time I wanted to develop a cheap AutoCAD of my own, but then Nitin Raje (our CAD teacher at CEPT, remember) told me to focus on being a powerful user than develop the SW! That changed my course and I learnt each new thing each new year versions offered... till about 2010 when I thought it was enough - AutoCad had matured enough!! After all how much can you do more in AutoCAD. We, afterall, use it mainly (only?) for drafting, don't we! Well, some of us may be doing more - like power 3D users, or even managing large work with X-refs (I will post separately for these for those of  you who have not tasted these as yet).

Jumping straight to the topic, there are 2 main alternatives that I have experimented (tried) a bit and found pretty good. I list my findings below.

What I mean by alternative/clone, is not any CAD software with AutoCAD functionality, rather something that looks, feels, works like AutoCAD i.e. it opens/saves AutoCAD files by default, uses a command line interface with the (almost) full command set as AutoCAD, icons that looks like AutoCAD! Compared to AutoCAD lite, these versions are fully functional 3D versions. There are other opensource CAD programs, but being dependent on AutoCAD, I would choose and recommend a paid legal clone from below - It is about being used to AutoCAD not about using any CAD application. See this blog to compare AutoCAD layout to that of ProgeCAD.

How can anyone legally clone AutoCAD?
If that is what you are wondering, which is what surprised me first time I learnt about it, you must read about IntelliCAD on wikipedia and this blog. For comparison of several CAD apps refer this wikipedia entry.
The IntelliCAD page will help understand how these companies are making products based on IntelliCAD.

Is there not a free version?

Well, there is! Only for personal and private use only. They call it donation-ware, though it is not mandatory to make a donation. ProgeCAD Smart version with support till acad2009 dwg format, can be asked for, from this link.

UPDATE 02Oct2013: 
Well I just discovered there is a real free CAD version, like Autocad (clone). It requires a download and activation. It is but only 2D, though it has a 3dview option to see drawings skewed (why will one need that? I leave that to your imagination). It comes from the makers of Catia and Solidworks - Dassault Systèmes.  It is called DraftSight.

Draft Sight

I tried it and was happy with ti. It has the same toolbars and command line interface, one can edit properties from the familiar properties window, change dim style, layers and even see all my paper space tabs intact!
Do note what the site says: "DraftSight lets professional CAD users, students and educators create, edit and view DWG files. DraftSight runs on Windows®, Mac® and Linux." It means you can confidently legally use the software. (Is this not the reason you came to this post?0

I recommend this for anyone who works with 2D Autocad drawings. I call them Autocad, as most of us do continue to use DWG format drawings! Download it from this original link.

-- end of update 02 Oct 2013 --

progeCAD

Pros
- cheapest in the category - around 6K INR for single license - 6000 rupees only!
- supports the latest to the oldest AutoCAD formats
- comes with a easy categorised drop down of thousands of blocks
- supports PDF>DXF and Raster>Vector (now how many times you needed that?)
- has a version that allows to install on several machines in LAN and use only the number of licenses paid for simultaneously (now this can be really useful to small offices) including a way to "take away" a license if you plug out the laptop for site!
Cons
- the trim command behaves very oddly for polylines! It is a known bug and expected to be fixed in 2012 version expected few months away (as told by their office on phone)
- the print module had some issues, it seemed to not follow the paper space layouts as seen! So if you have previous layouts created elsewhere, you must use "Extents" option in the Print dialogue to ensure the layout is almost as before. Else using "window" option will work, but then in page layout why would you want to use that option!

Detailed feature list here, do glance through them to convince yourself

BricsCAD

Pros
- Much cheaper to AutoCAD - around 25K INR for single license
- has a Linux version for those who use linux
Cons
- I am yet to install and run a review...

Final take
Given the price and compatibility with AutoCAD I would opt for progeCAD! Best way for anyone is to try these alternates with your own files for a month and see if you face any issues.

Note: I am not connected with any of the above companies or their products, nor do I gain anything from by expressing positive opinions. I have expressed information as known to me; my opinions based on studying the Specs and trying some of the features.