Best 3D Design Program for 3D Printing

[Xavi009]

I have used 123D Design for like a couple of months and I have already grown out of it. I feel like it’s not the most desirable program for complex stuff, which is something I want to get involved in. My parents are offering to pay for a license of any software. I’m looking for something with a learning curve (not to big though), with a decent price (I don’t wanna waste like 500 bucks), and YouTube videos for tutorials. Oh and obviously it will be specifically for 3D printing. (I feel like I’m asking for a lot xD). Thanks in advance.

[karlzhao314]

It’s great that you’re progressing to more advanced software! Two options immediately come to mind.

OpenSCAD is an open-sourced “programming”-based CAD package. You type in code and generate geometries based on that code, similar to actually writing a program. I never really got into it because I’m not a programmer, but it seems a lot of RepRappers swear by it (in fact, if you go browse Thingiverse a bit, a disproportionate amount of models were made with OpenSCAD).

Me personally, I grew up on Autodesk products. Most of them are much more of graphical, WYSIWYG, parametric-type programs as opposed to something like OpenSCAD. Fusion 360 is an extraordinarily advanced cloud-based CAD program that integrates traditional parametric modeling, organic sculpting, and a renderer and a CAM processor into a single program. It’s not particularly hard to learn, and also happens to be completely free for non-commercial use. (!!!) If Fusion is a bit unorthodox for you, you can also get a free student license of Inventor, for mechanical/parametric parts, or 3DSMax/Maya for organic sculpting. A nice thing about Autodesk student licenses is that they don’t actually require a .edu email, so you’re eligible for them no matter what level of schooling you’re in.

The only downside to Autodesk products that I can think of is that if you do ever intend to use them for commercial purposes, their licenses are quite pricey. Inventor Professional 2016, for example, costs $385 per month. However, assuming you just want to work with it to learn and make a few personal models, a free student license is completely fine.

Unfortunately I can really only speak for these two, as I never really got into Blender or Solidworks (the other two big ones I can think of). I hope this helped at least a bit.

(I accidentally just wrote 284 words again. Whoops.)

-Karl Zhao

[Dom1nic]

Hi there!

@karlzhao314 gave you some great options already but there is so much more to choose from. I see that you familiarised yourself with 123D Design which is a great free entry-level tool. You can now take a look at more advanced 3D Modeling tools such as Rhino, Blender or 3Ds Max.

It will take you a bit more time to get familiar with these 3D Modeling tools, however there are lots of tutorials available on Youtube, depending on the tool you are gonna use.

If you got more questions, feel free to ask!

-Dominic

[DesignGuyJared]

I’ll give a thumbs up to Fusion 360, and I’ll also throw in that a commercial license is FREE for at least a year for startups and individuals making less than $100,000 per year. I’m on that license right now.

After Fusion 360, give an honest look at SketchUp 2016. I still haven’t sprung for the pro version, but I can do some crazy stuff with the free Make version. I’ve attached a picture of a fully functional 3D printed ant-weight battle bot that I designed and printed using only SketchUp Make.

If money wasn’t an object, I would certainly be working in Autodesk Inventor Pro. I still teach with Inventor, but I am careful not to make stuff that I make money on with an educational license.

[Jory]

I’m a bit spoiled by my work since I get to use SolidWorks, but a program that looks very similar in modeling capabilities is called DesignSpark Mechanical. I might try to load this program up once I get a new laptop.

http://www.rs-online.com/designspark/electronics/eng/knowledge-item/what-can-i-do-with-designspark-mechanical

[RCole]

I am a fan of Blender, but I’ve been using it for a few years now. I will say - it has a long and steep learning curve. It is not just for modelling and includes everything you need for animations and making games. If you skip those tutorials, the learning curve is much shallower. Skip the tutorials on materials and nodes and rendering and more than a few other things - stick to the tutorials on modelling and sculpting. It’s a very powerful program, but has more than you need for 3D modelling.

Make sure you choose a program that has all of the functions you want. Do a lot of research and stick to it. Start simple and work up.

I would also add Modo to the list of modelling programs.

[Xavi009]

So I have 2 questions

1) Whats “WYSIWYG, parametric-type”

2) And what’s “organic sculpting”

Btw thank you so much for your feedback. Really helpful

[DesignGuyJared]

What You See Is What You Get. Organic, meaning suitable for creating shapes found in nature, rather than very geometric and mechanical.

[Xavi009]

So I’ve taken a look at Maya and Inventor. I dont like the “organic” style of it and the fact that you can animate videos with it discourages me for some reason. Inventor seems more like something for a large scale product instead of mainly for 3D printing. I havent gone through a lot of tutorials for each so I may be uninformed about this but I would like to hear more feedback about this

[karlzhao314]

I’ve actually always disliked Maya, as well as 3DSMax and Blender for the same reasons you listed: they’re more for video and game production than for modeling and design. All the same, if you do want to do organic modeling, they’re some of the best programs.

Of course, you don’t, so that’s irrelevant.

Inventor is pretty heavily aimed more at industry than hobbyists and small-scale designers, but I’ve found that it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not good for the average user. It’s centered around assemblies, but it’s still extremely versatile with individual models and in general there isn’t much that you can’t do with Inventor that you could on another program (for geometric, mechanical parts at least).

Fusion is pretty similar but it seems slightly more geared towards individual users (after all, they released it for free for individuals and small businesses) while not sacrificing the industrial aspects of it. If you haven’t taken a look at Fusion, I’d highly recommend you do so.

As @DesignGuyJared mentioned, Sketchup is also a good option. I’ve never found it to be quite as flexible or versatile as Inventor or Fusion, but I’ve seem a lot of cool stuff come out of it and it certainly is a tad easier to use. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell it can’t do much in terms of assembling multiple pieces (though maybe that’s only because I never got deep enough into it).

The problem is there aren’t many “complex” 3D modeling programs that are aimed specifically at 3D printing in general. A lot of these programs were built through years of refinement by the company, such as Inventor which has been around since 1999, and through the earlier years they were built with the intent of using traditional manufacturing (CNC, injection molding, etc) to create prototypes. When more 3D printers started showing up, some of the programs started incorporating 3D-printing specific features (such as Inventor’s 3D Print studio), but since 3D printers honestly don’t need much on the part of the CAD program other than exporting to STL, there was really no reason to change too much in the programs. A lot of the best programs for designing 3D printed parts are the exact same ones you would have found a decade ago that industries used for CAM.

I wouldn’t get discouraged by a program aimed at industry or not incorporating enough 3D printing specific features. After all, some day in the future you might be able to apply your familiarity with them in something big

-Karl Zhao

[DesignGuyJared]

Can you explain what you mean by getting into “more complex” things? That may be able to narrow down some choices. For example, SketchUp was my go-to software for a long time. When I started wanting to create 3D prints with working threads, I moved to Fusion 360. Both are very suitable for 3D printing, but Fusion 360 has some extremely powerful tools that you will want to take advantage of if you get into assemblies and such. I am in the process of building an online course for some of this software and would love for you to check it out when I publish it in about a month. I’m still in the planning stage, and want to make sure I’m putting out good stuff.

[Xavi009]

An example of what I would love to design that is “more complex” (at least in my noobish opinion) is designing this LEGO sculpture into a smoother 3D model that I can print with working parts. I find it super fascinating and I want my program to be geared towards this kind of work.

Also, send me the link to your upcoming tutorials. I would love to know the ins-and-outs of the program

[karlzhao314]

It does seem like Fusion or Inventor would be your best bet for a model like this. It’s an assembly of a lot of individual parts, which Fusion and Inventor both work very well with.

The one thing I’m not as sure about is the belt. I haven’t been able to make a working, simulatable chain belt in Fusion yet, though that may just be because of my own incompetence.

@DesignGuyJared, any thoughts on the belt? I’d like to know myself if it’s possible.

[DesignGuyJared]

Wow! Yeah, that’s getting pretty complex. I haven’t modeled a chain in fusion either. Even if you could model it and simulate it, that would be an incredibly difficult part to get to print clean enough to be workable. Even the simplest LEGO bricks don’t print too well on most printers. Technic bricks do OK but are certainly nothing that you would get very much precision out of. I have some of that LEGO chain, and I wouldn’t waste time or filament on it. I would print the other parts and use LEGO chain. super awesome design though.

[3dprintingguy]

have you looked at onshape.com

[Xavi009]

I havent even heard of it xD. I would try it out, but I’m pretty satisfied with Fusion for now. I’ll take a look at it sometime in the future most likely. Is this one specifically for 3D printing or are there other things it can do? Is it parametric as well?

[karlzhao314]

It looks pretty similar to Fusion actually, with the same focus and features and goal. It’s just browser-based instead of running as a standalone app. Unfortunately that means you wouldn’t be able to work offline.

The reason I wouldn’t go with new software from a not-as-established company is that it’s more likely the software isn’t nearly as developed and may still have major issues or still be lacking important features, whereas with a program such as Inventor which has been around for 17 years, most of the issues have been ironed out after years of customer feedback. (Fusion actually had and, to a lesser extent, still has this problem because of how new it is.)

Also, both Autodesk’s and Solidworks’ file formats have been established as industry standards, and in general they work well with each other and most other programs. I have no idea what format Onshape likes, but from what I can tell it only imports other file formats so it could very well be that its native file format isn’t compatible with other programs at all. If that’s the case, if you use Onshape and decide to move onto another program someday, your models might not be able to come with you. (That’s just a guess, but it’s a pattern I’ve seen in smaller, more obscure CAD programs.)

Ultimately, though, it’s up to you. If you want to try something new, go right ahead, it could be that Onshape is the greatest CAD program in the world and we just don’t know yet.

[Xavi009]

What is the native file format for Fusion? I had trouble importing and editing .stl’s with it

[karlzhao314]

Fusion natively works with its own format called f3d, but it works extremely well with other Autodesk formats and in general you can export it directly into other Autodesk software and have it work perfectly. STL isn’t a format that’s meant to be edited. It’s a format that’s meant to be the final, processed mesh for 3d printing, and while I have seen a few programs that are able to edit it, I have yet to find one that can do so elegantly. In fact, to edit STL’s I usually just open them in 3DSMax to edit them as a full mesh.