Opinions on software, please...

[Mac The Knife]

Win 8 sucked. especially on a netbook, with no touch screen, just a touchpad. When youwanted to close a program, instead of being able to click on a button, they wanted you to swipe down from the top of the screen, to the bottom of the screen. Not smoothest operation. Win 8.1 returned the button.

[Renha]

Win 8 sucked. especially on a netbook, with no touch screen, just a touchpad. When youwanted to close a program, instead of being able to click on a button, they wanted you to swipe down from the top of the screen, to the bottom of the screen. Not smoothest operation. Win 8.1 returned the button.

Alt+F4?

[Renha]

Windows 8's worst thing was to try to push the tablet interface on to desktop users. Nobody in their right mind is going to spend all day reaching out and touching their display. It's just nuts from an ergonomic standpoint. Win8 is pretty usable from a phablet perspective, but that monstrosity has no business anywhere near a desktop.

Can you imagine the horrorshow Win 8 would make of this:
[img]http://www.geneb.org/images/big-desktop.jpg[/img]

I'd lose my mind.

g.

You just need a couple of hotkeys to rule that amount of screens without mouse at all. On tablets you usually don't have a keyboard, so you need a specific tablet interface. On desktop, you have a keyboard, so you don't need specific desktop interface

[Mac The Knife]

Win 8 sucked. especially on a netbook, with no touch screen, just a touchpad. When youwanted to close a program, instead of being able to click on a button, they wanted you to swipe down from the top of the screen, to the bottom of the screen. Not smoothest operation. Win 8.1 returned the button.

Alt+F4?

Sure, if you know the shortcuts, but if you don't know, you start reciting a few "power" words.

[Renha]

Win 8 sucked. especially on a netbook, with no touch screen, just a touchpad. When youwanted to close a program, instead of being able to click on a button, they wanted you to swipe down from the top of the screen, to the bottom of the screen. Not smoothest operation. Win 8.1 returned the button.

Alt+F4?

Sure, if you know the shortcuts, but if you don't know, you start reciting a few "power" words.

Shortcuts are necessary if you work with PC a lot, they are saving much time, even if there are all needed buttons on interface

[artexmg]

The problem is that you're required to write a program in order to create a part. That's NOT how design is done.

OpenSCAD is a means to an end, but probably the worst means I've seen. Others swear by it, people like me that do a lot of CAD work swear AT it. I suspect there may be situations where OpenSCAD is the right tool for the job. I seriously doubt I will ever find myself in that situation for as long as I live.

If you're really into OpenSCAD, don't let my hating on it stop you from using it. If that's your thing and you get the results you want out of it, run with it!

I would suggest that you check out both FreeCAD and DesignSpark Mechanical. (DSM is essentially the full commercial version of SpaceClaim, but has been restricted to only exporting STL files.)

Cubify Design is a good, low cost choice from what I've been told. If memory serves, it was originally Alibre, then became GeoMagic and is now Cubify Design.

If you're using a Mac...I got nothing for you, sorry. (FreeCAD might work...)

g.

If you are using a Mac, you can go with Moments Of Inspirations (MoI) ... I am surprise that this little gem has not the attention it has to have. Of course, it could be because the $299 price tag , but it is comparable to the price to Cubify, but can use other formats than STL and works in Mac and Win.

[theverant]

I realize I'm a little late to the party in this thread, but I just wanted to pipe in my $0.05 (we don't have pennies in Canada):

I started with sketchup. Was great to dive in to 3D design with nobody but Google to teach me. Quickly found limitations, but for simple objects it does work great and intuitively (for CAD neophytes - CAD pros will find it frustrating, no doubt).

I wanted to love FreeCAD, I really did. I love the ethos of open source and I want to see it succeed. I found it too buggy to use and couldn't figure out *how* to use it. The docs were poorly written (for my understanding) and there was very little in the way of YouTube tutorials (in contrast to Sketchup with has a bazillion about every possible aspect of it).

OpenSCAD. Lawl.

Autodesk software - my new infatuation. Great for someone starting out - start with 123D Design for simple construction, Meshmixer to play and remix existing models, or Fusion 360 for the real stuff. 360 is still beta as far as I'm concerned, but it is extremely powerful - you can design in 2D parametrically, has a history which you can rearrange or edit non linearly. It has an organic sculpting tool with you can use side by side with the parametric stuff. Best of all Fusion 360 Ultimate is FREE for "education community and startups." http://fusion360.autodesk.com/pricing If you are designing for personal use, you count as a start up. Only established commerical customers have to actually pay for it. Who knows how long that will last? It is cloud software, so the interface does change with updates, which can be frustrating. If an when they yank the rug out from under the maker community, you can still access your 360 account and download your models in standard formats.

Anyone else using 360? Thoughts? How bad do you hate it, Gene?

[bot]

I've heard a lot about it, but just now watched a video about it. It looks awesome, but I'm already learning Solidworks so I don't want to switch. Solidworks has the advantage of being basically industry-standard and so getting employment from these skills is not out of the question.

[Captain Starfish]

I used to hate Inventor and my first go with FreeCAD was a disaster. It was AutoCAD all the way.

Then, at a new job, the guy on the desk next to me (their modeller) was running Creo, nee Pro-E or Pro Engineer from PTC. At $7000 a seat and Windows only, there was no way. But he was the Parametric evangelist and I listened, before giving FreeCAD and Inventor Fusion (old copy on my Mac from when it was free) a go.

Still hate Inventor, but I get FreeCAD. FreeCAD would be a heck of a lot nicer if it had decent docs, if it had the ability to map parameters out of sketches into part parameters, and if it had a decent -or any- assembly support for multiple parts. These things are, apparently, coming. I'll stick with it for as long as I can.

Funnily enough, after a few months with FreeCAD I had a kitchen to draw up and the whole lack-of-assembly thing was going to make it too hard so I went back to AutoCAD. And yuck, what a mongrel of a thing it is to work with now. Especially if you have to change anything.

[theverant]

I used to hate Inventor and my first go with FreeCAD was a disaster. It was AutoCAD all the way.

Then, at a new job, the guy on the desk next to me (their modeller) was running Creo, nee Pro-E or Pro Engineer from PTC. At $7000 a seat and Windows only, there was no way. But he was the Parametric evangelist and I listened, before giving FreeCAD and Inventor Fusion (old copy on my Mac from when it was free) a go.

Still hate Inventor, but I get FreeCAD. FreeCAD would be a heck of a lot nicer if it had decent docs, if it had the ability to map parameters out of sketches into part parameters, and if it had a decent -or any- assembly support for multiple parts. These things are, apparently, coming. I'll stick with it for as long as I can.

Funnily enough, after a few months with FreeCAD I had a kitchen to draw up and the whole lack-of-assembly thing was going to make it too hard so I went back to AutoCAD. And yuck, what a mongrel of a thing it is to work with now. Especially if you have to change anything.

Sounds like you should take another look at Fusion 360 - the sketch interface is great - making changes to the sketch will ripple through and update all changes that came after the point you made that sketch (all bodies which were extruded from the sketch anyway). Other sketches can be linked to an early sketch as well, so simple things like moving something can ripple through other sketches that were hanging off the original positioning. The addition of the organic modelling tool is what makes Fusion so interesting for me - more so than the original (and probably more powerful) Inventor.

You can also make assemblies and do CAM with 360, if you want to do more than just export an STL. They have also just added a drawings export function which I have not explored - you can toss views off your model into a technical drawing export.

One interesting function of 360 I haven't used is the social aspect - Autodesk has set it up so groups working on projects can share and update designs as a group. Sort of a fusion of GIT and Thingiverse, with access controls.

Cheers,
Nathan

[Captain Starfish]

Yeah, I would hope that Fusion's come a long way in the three or so years since I installed it.

I got excited a while ago about the new release and went to download it. What, you want me to create an account? Grrr, but ok. Wait, now what, I have to save to your cloud thing? No. Get stuffed.

After seeing firsthand how cloud based apps can go wrong in terms of availability, security and privacy I now tend to avoid them where possible.

And I'll struggle along with FreeCAD before I start saving documents to some random cloud server.

<adjusts tinfoil hat>

[theverant]

I'd agree with you if somehow they would block your ability to access the designs, but if you have a commercial account and cancel it, your account is still active - nothing is stopping you from downloading them in any format 360 can export in. You just can't use it to model things. Just like nothing is stopping you from doing local archives of your projects while you are working on them.

I agree with you about the cloud for personal information - pictures of my kids, etc. But a couple clips I just designed and a rework of some printrbot upgrades? It's not exactly what I would call private - in fact just the opposite, I'm more than happy to share any of my designs with anyone silly enough to think they are worthwhile.

The cloud thing (much to my surprise) works perfectly for me for this application - my designs are all ready and available, whether at my main desktop workstation, using my laptop on the couch watching Netflix, or *ahem* during my "coffee break" at work. Versioning is a non issue, and no other sync software need be invoked. Except for some niggly bugs they are still working out I'd say for my application 360 is fast becoming a perfect tool. I don't mean to sound like a sales person, but I would like to see the community making full use of the tools available - and having the most design power at our fingertips. If we can use this super powerful tool for free, we can lament that it isn't open source (I do! I wish it was!), but in the end fulfilling my creativity is the ultimate end game, not armchair politics.

But HEY: WHATEVER FLOATS YOUR BOAT.

[Captain Starfish]

I know I'm probably being unreasonable.

I know I'm probably cutting my nose off to spite my face, turfing the baby with the bathwater, etc.

And I do see the advantages.

But I'm just going to be an obstinate jerk anyway, and stick with FreeCAD for the time being

[Eaglezsoar]

I know I'm probably being unreasonable.

I know I'm probably cutting my nose off to spite my face, turfing the baby with the bathwater, etc.

And I do see the advantages.

But I'm just going to be an obstinate jerk anyway, and stick with FreeCAD for the time being

I have tried most of the Cad packages out there and there is one thing in common, I suck at using all of them!

[Captain Starfish]

I was talking with our Creo king at work today, he was telling me about a guy that used to work for him who was a brilliant designer and conceptual artist who worked with pen and paper. Getting him into the world of 3D modelling seemed a logical step (because it's what they did with his drawings anyway). Apparently he completely, utterly sucked at it.

I sympathise. Just a guess from how I feel about them, but the CAD packages generally throw a lot of brakes on the creative process. They tend to force you into detail straight away, rather than an iterative process of refinement. They are a necessary evil but they do tend to suck the joy out of making something, I find. Different processes for different brains and some people really struggle with modelling. Personally? I can't sketch to save myself but I will still leap for pen and paper instead of a mouse if I just want to get ideas straight in my head. The CAD step comes afterwards, when I already have a pretty good idea of what I want.

[Eaglezsoar]

I was talking with our Creo king at work today, he was telling me about a guy that used to work for him who was a brilliant designer and conceptual artist who worked with pen and paper. Getting him into the world of 3D modelling seemed a logical step (because it's what they did with his drawings anyway). Apparently he completely, utterly sucked at it.

I sympathise. Just a guess from how I feel about them, but the CAD packages generally throw a lot of brakes on the creative process. They tend to force you into detail straight away, rather than an iterative process of refinement. They are a necessary evil but they do tend to suck the joy out of making something, I find. Different processes for different brains and some people really struggle with modelling. Personally? I can't sketch to save myself but I will still leap for pen and paper instead of a mouse if I just want to get ideas straight in my head. The CAD step comes afterwards, when I already have a pretty good idea of what I want.

I agree 100%

[GPriv]

Hi, all. I'm the guy who opened this post... been away for quite some time (personal/family stuff).

Back--and need to get going here with this 3D stuff. I have a couple projects that I NEED to get out of my head!

So, I have Windows 7 Home Premium.

I cannot spring for SolidWorks, (and I'm not a student in the accepted definition of the word).

I have access to MasterCam...which has been available to me thru a friend, but he's a machinist and I thought MasterCam was a machining program. Seems it can be used for 3D modeling... anyone?
I can spring for Cubify design-- and would rather pay for something if it's "better" than the free programs. Honestly, I don't know my *ss from my elbow with WHAT is a decent program and what is not. Here's what I wish to design--to be more specific:

A bicycle frame--and variations of such, from three-wheelers for my disabled friends, to push scooters for my friends' kids. I love welding and I want to start doing things with more meaning and usefulness.
Also, with my 3D printer (SeeMeCNC Max v2) I want to print out some ABS parts to affix to the bike frames (lots of ancillary things to design and print for storage, mirrors, lights, etc).

Thanx again.

[artexmg]

Hi, all. I'm the guy who opened this post... been away for quite some time (personal/family stuff).

Back--and need to get going here with this 3D stuff. I have a couple projects that I NEED to get out of my head!

So, I have Windows 7 Home Premium.

I cannot spring for SolidWorks, (and I'm not a student in the accepted definition of the word).

I have access to MasterCam...which has been available to me thru a friend, but he's a machinist and I thought MasterCam was a machining program. Seems it can be used for 3D modeling... anyone?
I can spring for Cubify design-- and would rather pay for something if it's "better" than the free programs. Honestly, I don't know my *ss from my elbow with WHAT is a decent program and what is not. Here's what I wish to design--to be more specific:

A bicycle frame--and variations of such, from three-wheelers for my disabled friends, to push scooters for my friends' kids. I love welding and I want to start doing things with more meaning and usefulness.
Also, with my 3D printer (SeeMeCNC Max v2) I want to print out some ABS parts to affix to the bike frames (lots of ancillary things to design and print for storage, mirrors, lights, etc).

Thanx again.

Hi there. I really recommend you to try MOI http://moi3d.com/

It is from the guy who developed Rhino. I have been using it for 2 years now, and happy. It is not that expensive ($295 2 pcs/macs), and you can have it for a trial period.

[geneb]

If you're using Windows, go give DesignSpark Mechanical a shot. It's free to use and is pretty well regarded.

It's essentially SpaceClaim tweaked to only spit out STL files.

g.

[GPriv]

Thanx for the info.
I have a few to check out... how does one decide???
Again, I have only "looked" at the interface of a couple programs, and it was enough to have me turn off the 'puter and get a bowl of ice cream.

[Captain Starfish]

Lol - totally understand that feeling.

I'm going through exactly the same process at the moment with CAM software on a milling machine. Which one (and this time it's worse coz none of the freebies do what I need them to do) of all of them?

Here's my approach:

Go through your likely scenarios and the kinds of things you want to make. Yours is a good place because it sounds like you already have a pretty reasonable idea of what you want to make.

Pick the most complex, hairy and horrible piece you want to produce.

For each candidate software package that's in your price range, hardware requirements, etc, etc:
- Install the app;
- Download and work through the basic tutorials, they should all have videos available from the interwebs, to get your head around the operation;
- Model your part, making some note of how easy or awkward it was to do;
- Export an STL (just to be sure you can);
- Now go back and change some things. In particular, open up any holes by 3% but do a few other dimension changes. Because you'll need to in practice, to fine tune the dimensional distortion caused by the printing process. Rate this exercise's difficulty;
- Note any cool features or bugbears;
- Note how good the online community, training videos, guides and FAQ support available are for the package.

Once you've done it for every app you want to review, compare your notes versus the price tags and pick your CAD package accordingly.

Yes, it's a time consuming process. But it's the only way you'll know which environment is going to work best for you.

[GPriv]

Thanx for the post. Sounds like great advice. I'll try a couple programs... then decide.

[GPriv]

I've been playing with Fusion 360. I like it. I have nothing to compare it with--except maybe MasterCam (which seems to be more of a machinist's tool) but I'll stick with it to do what was suggested: play, design, print, then make changes on the design.

[Sonrisa3D]

A list of Design programs to check out:
http://www.matterhackers.com/articles/f ... re-for-you

[GPriv]

good info. Thx!