Hilt Designing: Free Easy to use 3D program

[TheDisturbance]

It's free and easy to use. I think you have to purchase it to be able to export the 3d files for machining, but I'm not sure. It looks pretty sweet to use. They have a ton of video tutorials.

http://www.sketchup.com/?sid=368

Mark Cheng

 

[Docking Bay 93]

Yeah, it won't do higher-res exports, or DXF and whatnot, unless you buy it. I'm watching the video now.
Okay, looks like the free version won't do what we probably need it to. It won't export anything except stills.

To get the full version, it's a mere $500. That's quite a price jump, if you ask me.

-E

 

[Gytheran]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TheDisturbance @ Apr 29 2006, 11:45 AM) [snapback]1235511[/snapback]</div>

It's free and easy to use. I think you have to purchase it to be able to export the 3d files for machining, but I'm not sure. It looks pretty sweet to use. They have a ton of video tutorials.

http://www.sketchup.com/?sid=368

Mark Cheng
[/b]

Thanks for sharing. This looks like a very useful tool.

 

[CaptCBoard]

Sketchup is very easy to use, but it is not the kind of program you would use for CAD. Basically, its good for doing architectural walkthroughs, but is not capable of doing anything photo-realistic. Also, there is no lighting function, so you're just stuck with the sun. A lot of people in the film industry are now using this as a pre-visualization tool.

When I first came across it, it was free to use for the first 8 hours, then you had to buy it or say goodbye to anything you'd created. It will export and import DXF files, so its possible to use this as a low-end modeler and then export to something more sophisticated.

Scott