This is a copy of a post I made on the PP3DP forum 3 weeks ago:
I've been using Alibre 2012 PE for well over a year now. However I recently took a look at SpaceClaim in its stripware version (DesignSpark). I only spent an afternoon with it but I have to say I completely missed the point. The videos's of push/pull modeling look fantastic, but when I tried to produce a simple engineering part with it I struggled badly. Getting the rough shape is very easy but tying it down with dimensions was impossible. Sure you can set dimensions ok but with out constraints its all lost the moment a wall is pushed. I guess I am imposing my parametric constraint driven methods onto a program that doesn't have them. I just don't see the equivalent in DesignSpark though. I can see that layers go some way towards this but within a layer nothing holds any relationship.
So does anyone used SpaceClaim for engineering parts, because I've definitely missed the point?
For me, I need the feature tree/history style used by Alibre/Cubify.
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I just installed and did a few quick tests on the DesignSpark software (which is re-branded spaceclaim with a few options cut out).
Missing options are:
* Ability to add text (which is a bit of a shame)
* Sheet-metal tools (which is no problem for 3D printing, as you do not need them)
* Ability to convert meshes to solid (important, I'll explain a bit later)
* Ability to make documentation. Not that important for 3D printing, but important if you are using SpaceClaim professionally. So I fully understand they kept this out.
* Repair tools (mostly useful to fix up STL files with holes before editing)
Other then that, it's pretty complete for what you would need.
Now, there is 1 final issue. And that's import/exporting. DesignSpark can:
* Open STL files, but not edit them, because they are loaded as meshes instead of solids
* It does NOT Open SpaceClaim files (I guess intentionally)
* STEP files can be opened, but only in read-only mode. No edits.
* But, SKP files from Sketchup can be opened, and edited!
So, the way to get your model into DesignSpark seems to be by loading it into sketchup first, saving them, and then loading them into DesignSpark. But of a long way around, but I think it's worth it, as the editing tools are quite awesome.
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