![]() Tinkercad is an absolutely amazing 3D design application. I have decided to coin the phrases ‘linear frustration’ and ‘Nonlinear frustration’ to describe the differences between 123d Design and Tinkercad. MeshMixer is such a different program than either 123d Design or Tinkercad that I don’t plan to discuss it in this post – maybe later. ![]() Unfortunately, it can also be very frustrating to discover that after many hours trying to incorporate some specific feature into your 3D design, ‘you can’t get there from here’ and you are left high and dry with nowhere to go. These are all free applications that purport to make it easy and intuitive to create 3D designs for 3D printing, and all three offer some amazing capabilities and features for free apps. In the process I have learned a LOT about AutoDesk’s Tinkercad, 123d Design, and MeshMixer applications. Since then I have spent countless hours with the printer and several different 3D CAD applications to design and instantiate various 3D designs. Lack of smooth lines and buggy extensions.I started into the 3D Printing world just a few months ago with a PrintrBot Metal 3D printer, a strong commitment to learn, and and very little else. $10/month for commercial.Ĭan only set exact measurements when placing objects.įree for non-commercial. Conversion is difficultįree to start, not sure if they have paid option.įree for non-commercial. Maybe after mastered, but not without training. Lots of icons, but not intuitive like 123D Design Lots of good features, but without loft it’s a no go. Units are in mm, but I can’t make fine adjustments, especially to circlesĬlose, but I found the lack of loft frustrating. Lack of features and finicky UX left me frustrated and wanting more.īetter, but I wasn’t able to figure out how to do some basic operations on my own. I couldn’t figure out a way to make fine adjustments to edges. The beautiful interface, graphics, workflow make it a great playground for ideas. ![]() Feel free to comment and let me know if you have other favorites that I should look into.Įverything is laid out well, discoverable and customizable. I hope this series helps you narrow down your options. There’s so much goodness coming out of Autodesk and Fusion 360 that I feel like it is the right choice. For now, I’m going to go deep with Fusion and see how far I can take it. I’m still open to other options and will have a look if you make a suggestion. It’s not perfect, but it is the first one that I felt like I should focus on and go deep. Here’s the sketch:Īnd here are a couple of variations of the render:Īs you can see Fusion 360 is a big step up in quality and experience from all the other options I’ve looked at. I then took a stab at the Lego Chi piece. Granted I keep learning as I go through each software option, so at this stage I know more than I did when I was using the other options….but the Fusion 360 experience was amazingĪnd here’s the rendered version: Wow! Beautiful! I then tried to create a funnel design that I have been having such a hard time creating with the other options. This only took a few minutes with Fusion 360.Īnd here’s it awesomely rendered by their renderer. I also need to be able to go back to the ring and change the dimensions. It should be as simple as drawing a cylinder, cutting a hole in the middle and round the corners. With each of the options I looked at I started with a simple ring design. Is a little sluggish on my machine, but that might be because I’m running a pre-release version of Windows 10 Internet connection is required to create a new project. They will let you use it until you make a profit. Yes, you will eventually have to pay, but given my hands-on experience with it, I think it is worth it. That is an amazing gesture – a perfect scenario for the maker in my opinion. ![]() As soon as you are profitable they want you to buy a subscription. You can use the product if you aren’t making money. Their licensing policy is pretty flexible and I think it’s fair. Fusion 360, by far, meets all of those needs. When I started this exercise I wanted to find something inexpensive, precise, intuitive and inspiring. I really liked the UX of 123D Design and Tinkercad, which are also from Autodesk, so Fusion 360 just felt right and natural to me. Here’s what we have looked at so far:Īs of yesterday I finally think I found that best of all worlds with Autodesk Fusion 360. At that point I decided to go deep into some popular and free options to see what else is out there and hopefully provide a good recommendation for makers. I started 3D printing back in November of last year and started with SketchUp which doesn’t do rounded corners well, then 123D Design which doesn’t allow you precisely adjust sketches after they are drawn. This will likely be my last post in this series on 3D modeling software.
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