looking for a good 3d design software.

[kondocher]

New and eager into the 3D pritning world. Bought Da Vinci 1.0 pro 3 in 1 earlier in the week and I've been messing with it for a few days and I've finally discovered how to do ABS prints that stick,have no seperation, and are smooth for the most part. I have the XYZmaker software that came with the printer and i have a few hours on it but I cant seem to find how to make anything apart from basic shapes, numbers, letters, and modifying said shapes. I'd love to sit down and make my own design and I see a lot of inspiration on thingiverse. My question is what software is good for making completely original designs? What software are people using to make human like figures, animals, gun stocks, vases, etc? I may be missing something in XYZmaker but it doesn't seem possible in that software. The printer has a 3D scanner build in but it doesnt pick up anything that has details,pits,or holes... Thanks ahead of time, looking to learn

[awerby]

For organic kinds of models - figures, animals, etc. - there's nothing better than the Geomagic line of haptic-enabled sculpting tools: Sculpt, Freeform, and Freeform Modeling Plus. It's a hardware/software system that gives you touch feedback, so you can actually feel what you're doing, as you're doing it. There's really nothing else like it, and we sell it all at a substantial discount. Gun stocks and vases range between the organic and semi-organic; these tools will work for making this sort of thing, but other modeling software, like Rhino for example, may also perform well.

3D scanners are a good way to get existing physical objects into a virtual modeling environment, but all scanners, as you've learned, are not created equal. You'll still have to pay a considerable amount to get highly detailed and accurate scans.

Andrew Werby
computersculpture.com

[curious aardvark]

blender is a popular free one.
As is tinkercad.

I like openscad, but then I can't draw freehand :-)

[Roxy]

I agree on the OpenScad. I use that for almost everything. But when I have something super hard to do... Or something that needs to modify an existing .STL file.... I use Blender. Blender can do anything. But the learning curve is very steep and very long.

[fragar]

Fusion 360
Free for personal use and a lot of tutorials on Youtube

[Trakyan]

Solvespace (for gui based cad) or openscad (for script based cad). Both are free, open source and quite simple and straightforward (at least to me) with their interface and how they work. I personally use openscad for most of my modeling, unless it is something more 'artsy' and is easier to draw as a vector graphic than plot as a series of coordinates (a 'low poly' carabiner is as close to 'artsy' as i get). That and for testing constraints/linkages and double checking if i've implemented the constraints right in ope scad.

[juankroi]

I would give a try to freeCAD (open source parametric CAD)

[Wekster]

I would definitely suggest Fusion 360. As someone who is using 3dsmax and modo I would say that F360 was one of the best learning experiances ever. I've modeled my first NERF blaster prototype on the same day I've installed software and watched only one basic tutorial.

[kunykiller]

I work in a 3ds max! That's what I advise

[LynnScott]

I am also agree on the OpenScad