Best Fit - 3D Modeling Software

[geddski]

While waiting for my M2 to arrive I'm trying to decide which 3D modeling software to invest my time/money in. Hoping you all can help me make a great choice. More info:

- I'm brand new to 3D printing & modeling.
- I use OSX
- Background in graphic design and programming.
- I prefer lightweight, simple, powerful tools over complex monolithic beasts (e.g. Sketch > Illustrator).
- But I also want to be able to create intricate & highly accurate designs that print well on the M2 (slicing with Simplify 3d)
- My first main project is to create ocarina (musical clay flute) molds
- I am unbelievably excited to join this awesome community

A few solutions that have caught my eye so far are Moment of Inspiration, Tinkercad.com (though it might be too limited?), and 123D Design. Thanks for any suggestions! I really appreciate it.

-geddski

[jimc]

i found tinkercad and 123d to be very difficult because its so limited that you either cant do what you want or you need some type of work around to do it. moi is created i believe from an original designer of rhino. its not widely used like rhino is and since then rhino has just become so much more powerful. if i was you i would look into it. they have an osx version out that you can download for free while its still in beta. it is getting close to being done and i have never found any real bugs with it. once its finished you'll have to buy it. its not too expensive if you can get it under an education lic. about $150. if you go on infiniteskills.com they have videos to teach you from the beginning right up to advanced stuff. i watched the beginner series and rolled right into using it without issues. they have a great forum as well with paid people from the company who monitor it and will answer any questions if you get stuck with something. since i started using it i have turned maybe 1/2 doz people on this forum onto it and so far havent had anyone not really like it. it is a very accurate piece of software so its good for making precision and machine parts (not assemblies) but its also a little artsy so its good for crazy surfaces and shapes as well. its not good for very organic stuff like sculpting or video game characters etc. its industrial design so basic consumer type products, toys, etc.

[sshwarts]

I'm an avid user of Moment Of Inspiration (moi3d). It's actually been a released Mac product for sometime now and in fact he released a new version lately. It's also script able with JavaScript and there's many useful addons.

I agree with jimc, I just found that tinkercad and 123d just did not click for me.

Scott

[jsc]

All modeling programs are what I'd consider to be monolithic beasts.

I would say MoI has a smaller user base (although that may not matter), tinkercad is limited, and 123D Design has a lot of buzz, but may not be for you.

Based on your background and needs, I would check out Rhino (no personal experience, just based on jimc's recommendation), and AutoDesk Fusion 360. F360 has a bit of a learning curve, but has some very powerful tools. Especially T-Splines, which are deformable surface meshes like NURBS, which give you the same kind of industrial design sculpting as Rhino. Also it runs on OS X and is free for non-commercial use (commercial use requires a subscription).

You can also check out OpenSCAD, which offers a functional programming language for generating models. However, getting beyond simple geometric objects takes a good deal of ingenuity and programming talent. Take it as a challenge.

123D Design does not have T-Splines or the history based modeling of Fusion 360. More importantly for me, it doesn't work with my Space Mouse, so it was a non-starter. It does seem to be designed to be easier to pick up, though, and through the judicious use of Blend, you can get some very nice swoopy curves out of it.

[glx51mm]

I am using VIACAD. Comes at a good price and has lots of nice features. However, documentation is minimal, has quite a few bugs and support I didn't even bother to use as it did not seem much right to me. Community is rather small also. It is a good choice if you are willing to find your way around by yourself and you can mentally afford some crashes from time to time. If you are not willing to get the very latest version then I think you can get it for half price on marketplaces such as amazon or ebay.

[dklassen]

After trying many, I settled on VIACAD Pro for the Mac. No crashes, no issues so far.

[Dale Reed]

If you can deal with textual input (as you say you are a programmer, I would assume so), you might try OpenSCAD. It's based on typing in primitives ( cube(), cylinder(), etc. ) and operations ( rotate(), translate(), union(), difference(), minkowski(), etc.). You'll deal with it fine if you're used to counting parentheses, brackets and braces (Oh, my!). I like it for parts to fit because I can specify exact dimensions in the parameters of the ops. Again, it's text input, not mouse draggy stuff, so it's not likely for you if you want to do free-form artsy stuff. Works for what I do, though. I'm an old Visio 1.1 user, and the whole union, fragment, etc. stuff works for me.

HTH,
Dale

[Mount PrintMore]

I highly recommend what used to be Alibre Design, now GeoMagic Design. It is a fully parametric solid modelling program with fully associative 2D drafting. I've been using it since version 6 (perhaps 10 years now). It has gotten quite good. I don't know what the current pricing is, but they were doing a "home/hobby" license that was relatively inexpensive. Their website just says to call for pricing information:

http://www.alibre.com/

Good luck!

[pyronaught]

Rhino also has a free parametric design add-on called Grasshopper, which lets you script models too. There's a visual design interface as well as just straight up coding in common languages such as VB or C#. I haven't tried it, but it can be useful if you want to have a model that can be scaled to any size where certain aspects of the model do not scale. For example, if you had a pipe fitting that needed to be printed in many different sizes, you might want to keep wall thickness the same regardless of the model size, while diameter, length and other aspects are scaled based on a single input such as pipe size.

[jimc]

grasshopper looks cool but i never really got into yet. i would like to give it a shot. not sure what i would use it for though. very algorithmic but i like how it works with boxes that have functions then you plug them all together with hoses or wires like a big network. its a very unique way to do things.