Tuning in somewhat late… the only 3-d modeling program that I know that is ‘absolutely free’, and has reasonable power for animations as well as static scene generation… ok probably some non-freeness somewhere… but definitely no charge for the ‘full’ package as in cash money ‘now’… is Blender found here. http://www.blender.org/
I don’t know what the specific needs for a more ‘engineering’ CAD program may be, but it seems using Blender, with some add on, would be ‘cheaper’ for someone to work than trying to squeeze blood out of a corporate turnip.
I happened to check back on ‘Sketchup’ due to a reference elsewhere, and now find that there are limits on the ‘free’ version… and of course it seems that the suits have gotten a hold of the product…
Like most things with the ‘visual arts’, and especially for the Mac, unless one pays, there’s not much for the user who wants capability, but doesn’t have a reasonably justification of the cost, even at $500 or so that ‘Sketch Up Pro’ is. Heck, I tended to buy Adobe Photoshop ever 2-3 major revisions at similar prices rather than buy every time they bumped the version.
And now at about $600, or so, a year subscription, which I pay, for all the Adobe Cloud set… one program for $500 is too much.
I would not have seen this thread without the spam post - already reported and hidden - and which you might not see after the moderators decide to delete it. But I’m glad I’ve now read the thread. So I count it as the barest bit of “silver lining” that was caused by a spam post!
The reason I’m glad to see this thread is that Autodesk now has Fusion360 - a cloud integrated, full fledged Modeling/CAD/CAM solution. Ultimately, it isn’t free, but initially it is free. They have:
- Genuinely free licenses for students - good for 3 years and renewable
- Genuinely free licences for hobbyists and small businesses - renewable (I think yearly) for free if you certify that (for businesses) are “making” less than $100K/year (not sure if they mean gross sales, or net profit).
This above image is from this page on how to “activate” a license after the completely free, no strings attached 30 day trial.
This looks like it might be nearly perfect for people needing professional modeling/cad/cam tools in countries with low value economies - they will likely be able to earn a decent living in their economy without breaking the $100K limit.
I’m currently using Fusion360 as a student (welding and cabinetry classes at a local community college) to design a piece of furniture, which I’ll build during summer session using the colleges CAM tools.
won’t run without access to the internet… which is not appreciated by every commercial user.
Which is why I used the word might and nearly in my penultimate paragraph.
While I haven’t had a reason to test how reliant it is on web access, I’m under the impression that the core functions are done locally. There is even an option for local rendering (allbeit at lower quality than is available through their cloud servers).
I’m guessing that the heaviest web usage is during file open and save operations, downloading the results of high quality, server based rendering, and downloading structural analysis reports - which have high resolution graphics.