Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Best 3-D Design Software?
An anonymous reader writes "I'm just getting into playing around with various maker-related tools, and I've run into a bit of a roadblock. I have access to a 3-D printer, a CNC mill, and a bunch of other fun tools, but I'm not able to make my own designs to use on them. I'd like to learn some 3-D design, but there are a ton of different software options, and I'm not sure which is the best. I've been hesitant to jump right into one, because I don't know how well it'll suit my needs compared to the others, and many of the options have a pretty steep price tag. I also don't want to spend a bunch of time learning one only to find out it's not very good for actually making things. I've played around briefly with Solidworks, Alibre, and AutoCAD, and also some free options like Blender and Sketchup. But these are complicated piece of software, and knowing nothing, it's hard for me to evaluate the differences. Makers of Slashdot, what do you recommend? Also, if you know of good online resources for learning 3-D design in general, or on any of this software in particular, I'd love to see it."
ALL 3D design software is designed with the idea of having users pulling out one's hair and banging one's head against the wall. I think the software companies in this industry get together in some basement conference room (probably on the Oracle campus) and share tips.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
We all start out designing nice tools for 3D modelling, with sane interfaces, and straight forward paradigms. After a while, we realise that all 3D surfaces need to be manipulated in 4 spatial dimensions (5 if you include time), before being projected back through 3D, and then once more into 2D. A while later, we also find out that you need 720 degrees to do a full rotation, and that 360 degrees is merely a reflection through the imaginary plane. A while later still, we all meet up in a basement in Siggraph to see how every else did it, and realise that everyone else has simply given up trying to do anything better. After all of that, we normally decide that the best thing to do is to provide the users with an experience not unlike regedit, before we all sod off down the pub.