Need an affordable 3d cad software, like sketchup or fusion 360 :)

[YuconCarneleous]

Hello, let me say first that i love your software , i have bothe designer and photo for both my windows computer and ipad and love them both,. I would love, love , love if you guys could make some software that was like a cross between google sketchup and fusion 360, i use both of these but simply cannot afford the full version of each. So my main reason for going with you guys is your great software and affordability. I know there's thousands of hobbyist and woodworkers like myself that would benefit from such a program and would love to pay for the software and not  have to subscribe to these other companies that lean to big business backed resources to pay for their product.  So please, please give it some thought into the research down this line of software, again thanks for the hard work and wonderful line of products you have so far.

553463:185926

[Medical Officer Bones]

Have you considered FreeCAD?

Also, Blender is now shipping with precise CAD drawing tools (the PDT add-on). The developer behind this addon is an experienced and trained draughtsman as well as a highly qualified mechanical engineer. He and others have been using Blender for serious CAD work.

Their intention is to even include a 2d drawing module.

https://github.com/Clockmender/Precision-Drawing-Tools/wiki

https://clockmender.uk/blender/precision-drawing-tools/

[YuconCarneleous]

I’ve tried blender years ago but found it a little confusing to use and a little to much for what I was trying to accomplish. I just want a program that I can draw out small protect designs or furniture and be able to give them all dimensions that can be printed out and taken to the shop for building.  Sketch up is pretty good for this but dealing with more complex curves is a little frustrating and use of some of their other tools are only available in pro version. The thing that I like about fusion 360 is you can actually make joints where parts can move and you can see how they work..

To me Blender was made more for people that want to model figurines and such and not toward construction, the interface as a little to complex for me.

[pixelstuff]

On 3/21/2021 at 10:50 AM, YuconCarneleous said:

I’ve tried blender years ago but found it a little confusing to use and a little to much for what I was trying to accomplish. I just want a program that I can draw out small protect designs or furniture and be able to give them all dimensions that can be printed out and taken to the shop for building.  Sketch up is pretty good for this but dealing with more complex curves is a little frustrating and use of some of their other tools are only available in pro version. The thing that I like about fusion 360 is you can actually make joints where parts can move and you can see how they work..

To me Blender was made more for people that want to model figurines and such and not toward construction, the interface as a little to complex for me.

If it was more than a couple years ago you might give it another look since they revamped a lot of the interface back in 2018, I think it was.

And you are right that Blender is designed for modeling figurine, but a plugin to add precision drawing tools is obviously an attempt to fix that original design limitation. PDT tools are included with the current release, but they are disabled by default.

[skybound13]

What about formZ free?  I started looking for a new modeling application after SketchUp went to a subscription pricing model, I had seen some really cool models done in formZ (such as these by Jones, Partners:  Architecture - https://forums.formz.com/gallery/album/103-jones-partners-architecture/) so I thought I’d give formZ a try.  I downloaded formZ free then worked through the “30-minute Model” tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n0FGm3kw2I) and thought formZ was every bit as easy to use as SketchUp.  The guy doing the tutorial (Matthew Holewinski) does an especially good job in my opinion, he has other formZ video tutorials, too.

As for using Blender to model woodworking projects, maybe this video will be of interest:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW1QgAUayvY. Regarding the Blender interface seeming complex, just as with any new application the more time you spend using it the less complex it will seem.