Hello 3d printing community! I’m a complete newb and I am planning on doing a lot of 3d printing in the coming months.
I wanted to get into 3d printing with the intention of designing a lot of models and printing them for use around the house. So, I wanted to ask what people typically use for designing their own models to print?
Ideally the software would support both Windows and Mac as that’s what I typically use these days. Let me know, thanks!
Update
First of all, thank you everyone for weighing in here!
Set aside some time last night and played with both Fusion 360 and FreeCAD since those two software kept popping up in the answers. My initial impressions of Fusion 360 was not great. I’m not sure if it’s just the Mac version but the software was a bit laggy and at the end of my session it froze. Otherwise it worked fine and I was able to make a prototype with it and I would have finished it if the program didn’t freeze.
Next I tried FreeCAD. I think the UX is definitely worse than Fusion 360, however I will say it was fast and I did not notice any lag. I admit that my initial impression of it was not good. The second I opened a fresh install of FreeCAD it was already erroring. I watched some tutorials. It definitely suffered from the issue some issues pointed out in the comments where the program has a ton of tutorials but none are really for the latest version so you kind of have to figure out the “modern way” to achieve what the tutorial is telling you to do. It also seems to have some weird bugs. I ran into one where sometimes I had to repeat an action for it to work. No idea why. Otherwise I was able to design a decently complicated prototype in it. I could see myself using it long term for sure.
I saw some programs mentioned where you would basically create models by writing code. If I have time, I will try some of those next. I’m not that into programming though /s.
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Doesn’t seem popular here, but I like TinkerCAD quite a bit. It’s really intuitive if you are good with shapes and you can make detailed and fairly precise models with it without much issue. I’ve made around 20 models in it at this point, some of which I’ve made public. If you want to just learn one program that will carry you into the deep end, I’d probably point you to freeCAD just because autodesk can be dickheads and aren’t above pulling the rug out from under you.
I’m going to toss out Microsoft 3D builder, strictly to dip your toe in the water. It’s bare bones and basically MS Paint but when I was getting started I used it for very simple stuff. I still use it if I’m making dead simple modifications/combinations of existing .STL files.
Microsoft actually had some cool ideas in the early/mid 2010s. Still had all the proprietary bullshit but there was at least nifty stuff going on.
Didn’t Microsoft drop 3D Builder? I’ve been running Kinonite or some Fedora spin for several years now.
Maybe? It was/is on an old win10 I keep around (and came with it).
There’s a million better options, but I was glad it was there. Good way to get some kid fooling around early the way paint did. You used to be able to scan things with your surface and import them into builder (this was a good while back).
I personally use FreeCad it works most of the time but can be a real pain, even with proper parametric cad experience. Still it is the only real open-source parametric solid modeler. All the common ones have been mentioned but for a very small basic modeler I’d like to add https://solvespace.com/
Plasticity, advertised as CAD for artists and made by a single dev. It isn’t free, but you own the copy you buy forever and get a year of updates after you buy the copy.
I ended up on this piece of software because it has really beautiful design and runs well on Linux without any compatibility layers. There’s a 30 day free trial if you want to check it out
I watched a tutorial video and it does look very cool! I can also see just how fast you can work in Plasticity if you get good at it. I’ll have this in the backlog. If I end up doing a lot of modelling I might give it a try.
Not to be a stereotypically insufferable Stallman style neckbeard about it, but the only two objectively correct answers to this question are FreeCAD for mechanical parametric things, and Blender for organic shapes or decorative models. (You can also bully Blender into doing parametric CAD work with plugins. And I guess OpenSCAD also counts, if you would rather program your models rather than model your models.)
All of the other available commercial options are some combination of:
- Proprietary vendor lock-in bullshit
- Subscription model “software as a service” perpetual money sinks
- Always online cloud services that either steal your models/make them available to anyone/probably also report you to the Feds
- Loaded with quasi-legal licensing restrictions that prevent you from distributing or selling your own creations made with it
Or for extra bonus points, all of the above!
FreeCAD isn’t exactly slick and it has a rather precipitous learning curve, but it’s also basically the only viable truly free option that won’t spy on you, steal your stuff, or turn you upside down and shake you for money on a monthly basis.
I agree with everything except relegating Blender to organics and decorative designs. Blender is absolutely viable for hard surface /mechanical modeling. Even without the parametric addons. The Boolean modifiers are much more reliable than they used to be and all the tools for manipulating objects makes the whole design process very fast. Everything I make these days is almost entirely non-destructive, which means edits are painless as well.
There are of course limitations such as compound fillets being very difficult to execute cleanly if not downright imposible in some cases.
Have you tried the parametric addons? I can’t imagine they work all that well but I haven’t looked into them in the past 5 or so years.
Hey, OpenSCAD is the best! Also Shapelab seems like it might be interesting (sculpt in VR), though I haven’t yet tried it.
Wings3d is worth a look at as a modeller as well. I really liked that. Not as colossal as blender. Nice, focused features.
If you’re on Windows Fusion360 is what I’ve used for years and it’s been good. There’s plenty of tutorials on YouTube for learning how to do things. I’m trying to learn FreeCad so I can get off windows and not be subject to the inevitable enshittification of Fusion360 but it has been rough going and I haven’t gotten far with it. I’m having to look up things that just worked in Fusion even though the interface appears to be similar. If you’re just starting out you may not have those issues but as it stands, if I needed to make something immediately I’d go with Fusion360.
Was in your boat some time ago, only now do I feel lile I can truly recommend FreeCAD, and given how slowly more restricted fusion has become.
If you aren’t already, the dev branch has sketch projection just like fusion now, complete gamechanger.
Fusion360
Or freecad if you want FOSS
Another consideration… If you are a programmer type then OpenSCAD is a language-based program. I’ve been using it heavily for the past week designing a dual-filament extruder for my Ender 3, and last year I designed and built a utility trailer. As with anything it has its quirks, but I’m much more comfortable writing code and I always found the other GUI-oriented programs to be unintuitive.
Also Build123d, which does BREP instead of only meshes. https://build123d.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html
Aww man, I knew it was only a matter of time before someone was going to “force” me to learn python. Thanks for the link, I’ll take a look at this after dinner.
I’m never escaping programming am I? :D
Nope, programming is like a black hole – once you’ve entered the event horizon it’s too late and you’ll never escape.
build123d is vastly superior code-cad imo. Faster, more expressive, more aligned with how traditional cad designers work
What do you mean by “traditional cad designers” and why is that important? I’m not really sure why that is something that should matter to me?
FreeCAD aside, if you want to go somewhat commercial there is “Moment Of Invention”. I tried the free 90 trial and it was really powerfull and somewhat simpler than FreeCAD.
Additionally, no subscription, no cloud, just the software.
Did you mean “Moment of Inspiration”? I was unable to find “Moment Of Invention”.
Yes, I was thinking of it but wrote down wrong.
FreeCAD
Looks like there is a consensus with FreeCAD so I will give that a try later today. Thank you!
FreeCAD is a great program for people who know cad. But it’s an awful place to start learning. I know first hand because that is what I tried to do too.
FreeCAD has 2 major issues.
The first is stability. As long as you do stuff the “right way”, it’s pretty stable, but FreeCAD is really powerful and has at least 5 different ways you can do anything, and as a beginner you will constantly find yourself going down rabbit holes that only lead to doom.
The second big issue is documentation. It suffers from both too much documentation and not enough at the same time. The program has seen a massive amount of development over the last several years. When you search for how to do something you will often find a dozen instructions and videos on how to do something, but they will all be for older versions of the program. However, due to the fast pace of developments and improvements to the program there will be nothing about how to do something in the program as a current stands and it will be just different enough that the old instructions don’t work anymore. I do strongly recommend that you download and install FreeCAD. There will definitely end up being things that you will want to try that can only be done in FreeCAD, but you really don’t want to start learning the basics there.The other thing to know is that designing an object is only your first step. You then have to slice it and print it. Unfortunately, there is a fair amount to learn there too. Wall thickness, nozzle sizes, support structure, material strengths, ect. are going to require some learning of their own, so throwing FreeCAD on top of that is just cruel.
I strongly recommend starting with something insanely basic like tinkercad. It will limit what you can create to a certain extent, but you will be able to quickly produce some models that are not complete garbage, that won’t cause the slicer to commit seppuku, and that might actually print without causing your printer to shit itself, and have some success with right away.
Once you hit the limits of tinkercad you can then begin trying out the different CAD programs to see what makes the most sense to you. OnShape was the next step for me, but you should really just give them all a try to see what works for you.
Also, as a beginner, the online nature of many programs is actually a big advantage. Being able to switch from my work computer to my home computer instantly has been really nice. I even use the OnShape app on my phone occasionally. You’re not going to be doing any kind of complex development on the app, but it’s cool to be able to pull it up and do some basic stuff while you are stuck in a doctor’s office or at your in-laws for the holidays.
Plus, your initial designs are going to be hot garbage anyways, so it’s not like you have to worry about somebody stealing your ideas just because the free version makes your projects public.When I got my first 3D printer I had tons of ideas that I wanted to turn into 3D prints. But it took me months to even get to the point where I could print out things of my own design that weren’t garbage.
I have experience with SketchUp which I’d imagine is like TinkerCAD. It was very simple and I was able to learn it very quickly. I think it should be enough to give me a good sense of how tools like these work.
While going through tutorials I definitely found that issue you were talking about where a lot of things are either renamed, moved or absent and I had to go puzzle out the “new way” to do the thing in the tutorial.
SketchUp and 3D printing do not mix well for some reason. TinkerCAD would be a far better choice to dip your toes in designing items for 3D printing.
solid edge has a free community edition. completly offline.
Start with tinkercad. Upgrade to fusion 360. For sculpting , blender.
To use blender you need a high end PC. Like a gaming PC.
Fusion and blender are both incredibly complex softwares that do a lot of things and take a lot of invested time to learn but there are tons of tutorial videos and online communities for both.
For a step between Tinkercad and Fusion 360, you can check out MatterControl.
It is like Tinkercad but way more options and runs locally. Works great for more artistic shapes that are hard in CAD software.
Hadn’t heard of this. I’ll check it out. Fusion has been a bit intimidating. Ive made a few things in it but found it confusing and but intuitive like tinkercad.
I think Ive spent all my energy on learning Blender and not much left to dedicate to a better CAD program.
You don’t need a powerful computer for blender unless you’re doing rendering or sculping or working with really high poly models. Especially when compared to proper CAD packages. I do a lot of design work in blender and my computer is so unstressed by it I can hear the CPU chirping when I rotate the viewport.
It’s worth learning the basics of a parametric CAD but blender will do virtually everything faster and give you greater freedom and control over the exact geometry it outputs.
Sculpting. Yeah that requires a high end PC.
I have a 12g GPU. 64gb ram. Ddr5. Ryzen 7 CPU.
And it still struggles some times, mostly when using the bolean modifer (the one that combines parts or makes cutouts). Which is something you will use a lot for 3d printing model design.
If you aren’t sculpting, but just cad stuff. You should use a different program.
Blender can do some of that but why not use a software designed for cad. ?
Blender isn’t a cad program.
Also I posted a recent 3d project a month ago. (My lastest post). Most of the was made in blender.
I ended up with 3 blender files. 7gb each. For various parts.
Because of the complexity of the model and making it fit mechanical parts there was multiple versions of each part.
All high resolution.
I had to keep making new files cause after the files get around 8gb , then everything is a slog to do in the software. So I had a head file. A body file. And a inside parts file.
No one could make that cat clock on a PC with out high specs. Impossible.
@idunnololz Freecad forever imho but take a look to onshape(.com) powerful webapp.
That depends entirely on what you want to print/design.
If it’s organic forms (Think characters, decorative objects, etc) then something like Blender would suit your need.
if you want to go more technical (machines, precision parts) then you’d use one of the various CAD tools, e.g. FreeCAD, TinkerCad or Fusion360
You’ll want to double check me but I think Fusion360 still has a free version buried somewhere on their site. I know last time I opened mine it was working but I thought I’d read something about it going away.
I will mostly be printing functional parts. Eg. mounts, furniture accessories etc.
I mostly use Blender. Sometimes I use FreeCAD instead.
