3D design software

After you get tired of downloading “things” from “Thingiverse” or when you find that noone has just the right 3D model for what you need, you will need to consider getting some 3D software to do your own modeling.  This however can be a tricky task, and I highly recommend you do a little thinking about what you will want to make with your software.  The task of deciding what you want to design will probably be 90% of your task prior to purchasing 3D software.  Once you know what you want to design, it’s much easier to decide what software to buy.  Only 10% of your time should be spent bothering about prices, options, etc. because those will be much simpler decisions after the first 90% of your time is spent thinking through the kinds of things you want to make.

So let’s say that now you’ve taken that 90% and want to look at software.  Here are some options what we’ve investigated that are free or cheap along with a few options that are much more expensive.  First we need to understand the types of modeling software available, so here’s a short list of categories:

• Solid modeling software (Cubify Invent™, ViaCAD™ 2D/3D, Alibre, SolidWorks, AutoCAD®, etc.)
• Mesh modeling software (Google SketchUp™, Blender, Rhinoceros®, GeoMagic FreeForm®, etc.)

A solid modeling software uses primitive shapes and lines to build up 3D models using extrusion, rotation, lofting, etc.  Solid modeling by definition only yields solid models (more about that in a minute).  Mesh modeling software uses many of the same methods to create models, but mesh models are fundamentally hollow.  This isn’t a big deal for rendering because the outside surface is the most important feature for rendering in most cases, but for 3D printing, a hollow object can’t be printed.  It isn’t that the object will print poorly.  It won’t print AT ALL!  The reason is that in 3D printing the outside wall of the object must have at least a little thickness or it stands a good chance of being ignored or printed incorrectly.  The solution to this problem is to make “water tight” models.  That means that the mesh model doesn’t have any holes from the inside of the mesh to the outside–not even one!  This allows the software to pretend that the mesh model is actually solid and will treat everything inside accordingly.

With those distinctions, how do you choose between solid modeling and mesh modeling?  There are no hard and fast rules on this, but a good rule of thumb is that if you are making organic sorts of models (people, animals, creatures, plants, art, etc.) you should use mesh modeling.  On the flip side, if you are wanting to make engineering designs such as planes, boats, cars, gears, and other techno gizmos you will probably want to use a solid modeling program.  Unfortunately, here is where things get a little weird.  If you want to make things that look organic on the outside but are gizmos and mechanical engineering wonders on the inside, you may need both a solid modeling and a mesh modeling software.

What about learning curves?  Well, bad news first:  some of these programs have very steep learning curves.  Now the good news:  most of them also have very good support communities online for newbies trying to learn the ropes.  As an example, Blender can easily someone a week or two just to be able to start modeling simple things like a snowman.  SketchUp™ on the other hand only takes the average 10 year old a few minutes to start making simple things like houses–the snowman may take up to an hour or two but can be learned quickly.  The learning curves of the other programs fall somewhere along this spectrum, and most of them take between a couple of months to a couple of years to achieve real proficiency.

What about price?  I knew you would ask that eventually.  Here is where some careful consideration will be needed from that remaining 10% of the time you will need to take in choosing a 3D modeling platform.  The reason is that while some of these programs can be had for free, they may have limited feature sets or precipitous learning curves.  For instance, SketchUp™ has a free version that is quite good for architectural drawings requiring mostly straight edges but has significant limitations with respect to organic and mechanical engineering type shapes.  Blender on the other hand is amazing for organic shapes but can be positively nightmarish to learn (although to be fair, those who use it typically come to absolutely love it).  On the other end of the spectrum, programs like SolidWorks, AutoCAD, and GeoMagic FreeForm® can be thousands of dollars.

So how should you choose?  If you are just beginning to use 3D software, I recommend that everyone download and try Google SketchUp™.  It’s free and easy, so you won’t lose much time or money to give it a try.  Once you have some time in on SketchUp™, you’ll be better able to know what type of program you need first, and you may even want to spend time using it during that 90% when you are trying to decide what kinds of things you’ll want to make.  If you decide that you want to do mesh modeling after you experience SktechUp™, I suggest you try Blender because it’s free.  I know that it has a steep learning curve, but there lots of good tutorials (maybe I’ll write one here on our site as well).  The price of learning Blender is mostly in the time spent.  If after you use SktechUp™ you decide you need a solid modeler, I suggest you continue to use SketchUp™ for a little while to discover the features that you would most like to have in a solid modeling program.  That knowledge will be invaluable in your choice of a solid modeling program to buy, but for most people, the Cubify Invent® or the ViaCAD™ 2D/3D software which both sell for less than $100 will be good for most mechanical engineering designs.

In any case, I think that you will absolutely have a blast designing things in 3D.  In fact, I should warn you that it can be absolutely addictive to certain individuals–like me for instance!

Gabe is designing an axel mount in Google Sketch-up.