Yet Another "What Software To Use?" Thread.

[futurejames 0]

My wife has started to do some 3d design. She's been working with Google Sketchup (or Trimble Sketchup or whatever it is called now). However I have had some problems turning Sketchup stuff into STL -- tried various STL plug-ins but they don't always work; tried to use meshlab to convert some and it just crashes half the time.

I don't have much experience beyond Sketchup and OpenSCAD. I'm looking for some recommendations to try, based on the following criteria:

- Works on Windows or Linux.

- Works well with a Wacom tablet.

- Preferably something open source, but we're not shy about buying software either.

- If its not free, it should have a trial period so we can test before buying.

Any suggestions?

[ian 32]

solidworks !

for accuracy for printing, probably one of the best !

plus you can really test the mechanical works of your prototypes before you print.

Ian

[fluxline 0]

I wold like to use solidworks myself, but for a single license price of US 4000 I have to look elsewhere. I've not really found what I like yet either, openscad for now I guess.

[codemaven 0]

Try Bricscad (

http://www.bricsys.com

).

I've used the trial for 2d cad for lasercutting and found that it worked great. I have not tried the 3d capabilities yet, but it looks promising... My 30 day trial is almost up though.

It's not exactly cheap, but it's much cheaper than SolidWorks...

Cheers,

Troy.

[Daid 306]

I've been doing some tests with FreeCAD:

http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/free-cad/index.php?title=Main_Page

It's free, it's open source, and it's pretty feature rich. It doesn't do as much as solidworks or autocad I guess. Don't get thrown off by the 0.12 version number, that's just OpenSource being OpenSource.

For free form modeling, Sculptris seems really nice as a free option:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sculptris

I haven't really made anything with it yet, but it felt really natural to use. (Not sure about the export options!)

[ian 32]

also a big one and free.. blender for 3d modelling !

[fluxline 0]

I gave Sculptris a try, exporting as obj, importing in meshlab as obj, export as stl and then popped it into Cura. Worked, slicing took a while. But Daid is right, the UI looks good just have to see if I need anything that uses it's capabilities.

[alaris2 1]

I've been exploring this same thread myself.

freecad will be awesome in about 10 years time. but it's far from useful right now. lots of 'todo' and 'experimental don't use this yet' bits included. it does appear to identify and possibly correct damaged stl files (like netfabb) which might make it a suitable replacement for that at least.

sculptris is good for organics probably, but can you easily make something like a box your projector might sit in? ie. a square with circles cut out of it etc. at precise locations? booleans usually fail in modelling packages and this has been the biggest limitation so far.

hexagon (daz) is quite good, but booleans have issues. it is free tho.

sketchup does the 'projector box' example quite well, but fails when it comes to curves and other non-box shapes, also a bit iffy on booleans and stl export.

solidworks would be great. except it's too expensive to even consider.

[ian 32]

we have to find a few guys in collage some where to get us some student licenses for solidworks ?

[owen 19]

My wife has started to do some 3d design. She's been working with Google Sketchup (or Trimble Sketchup or whatever it is called now). However I have had some problems turning Sketchup stuff into STL -- tried various STL plug-ins but they don't always work; tried to use meshlab to convert some and it just crashes half the time.

I don't have much experience beyond Sketchup and OpenSCAD. I'm looking for some recommendations to try, based on the following criteria:

- Works on Windows or Linux.

- Works well with a Wacom tablet.

- Preferably something open source, but we're not shy about buying software either.

- If its not free, it should have a trial period so we can test before buying.

Any suggestions?

Alibre seems very powerful for the price and they have a trial period

[alaris2 1]

they were offering solidworks free to US students (which is no good since I'm not one) but that offer has now finished.

not heard of alibre, it does look good however so i'll trial it. thanks Owen.

[Daid 306]

There is also Autodesk 123D, which is a sort of mix between professional AutoCAD and google sketchup. It's free.

I tried to use it once for a design, but when I was almost finished, it crashed on me. And it doesn't make autosaves.

[futurejames 0]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm going to load them up on her laptop and see what she likes.

She'll be doing lots of jewellery design, if you have anything to recommend for that specifically I'm all ears too.

[alaris2 1]

i tried 123d - it takes about 5 weeks to load and 5 minutes to crash.

looks good until you try to use it in anger and find it does everything in a very 'autodesk' way. great if you're used to using those apps and have that mindset but not at all intuitive for real people to use :(

alibre looked really good when i tried it this morning, but fails at one of the first hurdles - I can't load .stl, .obj. 3ds, in fact any of the files that I have. so i have to design everything from scratch again..

[xiaoshizi 0]

PTC (Cocreate) You can even make assembly's up to 60 elements.

You can save in stl and dxf so also usable for lasercutting @ a Fablab;-)

Enjoy.

Xiao Shi Zi.

[msurunner 2]

 

http://students.autodesk.com/?nd=download_center

If you can fall into their student parameters you should be able to download anything Autodesk creates, including AutoCAD and Inventor which have STL export capabilities.

[minordemon 0]

Creo Elements/Direct Modeling Express!! (Formerly PTC Cocreate like mentioned above).

This one is free, but requires an internet connection every 72 hours. It saves in pk2 fileformat which doesn't transfer to the professional version. I do not know why you would need to upgrade to the professional version. Assemblies of over 60 parts are quite rare, and I think I read somewhere you can work with subassemblies if you need to.

It is quite feature rich and has a reasonably high learning curve, but it is not very limiting.

The name is hopeless, also because there are several similarily named ones in the Creo range.

[gareth 0]

"Blender" is good start and the inbuilt 3D print (do i have possible errors) parser works a treat.

Latest versions of blender are pretty bombproof and stable.

Export to STL is inbuilt...works well .

 

[valcrow 145]

I use 3DS max. Surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet. Primarily because that's what I'm comfortable with and use it for work. I guess it's kinda pricey and not so cad friendly.

 

[LePaul 330]

Just wanted to share...if you are a military veteran (USA), you can purchase the academic version of Solidworkds for $20!

http://store.solidworks.com/veteran/default.php

The SolidWorks Student Edition includes:

SolidWorks 2013-2014

 

• SolidWorks® Premium software
  
• eDrawings®
  
• SolidWorks Sustainability
  
• SolidWorks® Simulation Premium
  
• 12 month term-of-use license
  

Note:

 

• We will only be selling SolidWorks 2013-2014
  
• The SolidWorks Student Edition cost to qualified US Military Veterans is $20. A copy of your DD214 form is required.
  

System Requirements: Please read the system requirements before purchasing. SolidWorks 2013-2014 does not run on Windows XP.

 

[nick-foley 5]

I believe Rhino is the standard for the jewelry design industry, as well as many other industries.

I use it a lot for architecture and product design. With Grasshopper and other plugins, it is an extremely powerful parametric modeler. Not as useful as Solidworks for purely engineering related projects, but far more powerful when it comes to organic shapes and "digital" design.

 

[nathan 0]

Dear Group,

I would like to recommend to you a new site I am working on, Leopoly.com where you can CREATE 3D CHARACTERS for free. My aim is to establish an online, 3D sculpting app for easy 3D printing and for fun. The site allows users to co-create each others designs. You can even paint objects online, which is also a worlds first... I would be more than happy if you would visit the site and give feedback about it. www.leopoly.com

I've just created this alien in 1 hour. You can also further shape or paint it if you feel like. Just click on the picture at: http://leopoly.com/view/?id=5888&object=grey-1'>http://leopoly.com/view/?id=5888&object=grey-1'>http://leopoly.com/view/?id=5888&object=grey-1'>http://leopoly.com/view/?id=5888&object=grey-1

http://leopoly.com/view/?id=5888&object=grey-1