Free/inexpensive CAD programs

[Tsully]

I have used Fusion for a lot of personal projects. I just can't get past the fact that they keep making the free version more and more crippled. I just don't know if at some future date they will just decide to kill the free version, and I lose access to tons of my work

If you save your work as an .stl you should be able to use it with any program from what I’ve read and understood

 

[MadScientistMat]

If you save your work as an .stl you should be able to use it with any program from what I’ve read and understood

For certain values of use it. Imported STL files generally can't be edited easily.

 

[TurboGLH]

If you save your work as an .stl you should be able to use it with any program from what I’ve read and understood

You can print an stl, but editing a mesh is a pain at best. (.stl files are saved as a mesh, which represents shapes by thousands of triangles)

If you're looking to export a file that can be printed without converting (at least the slicers most people will use) and can also be easily edited by any CAD package, export as a STEP file. They can have either a .stp extension, or .STEP (which breaks from the standard 8.3 file name structure, but isn't really an issue these days)

Mesh Example and a comparison of the same shape as a mesh vs a solid body.

 

[Tsully]

You can print an stl, but editing a mesh is a pain at best. (.stl files are saved as a mesh, which represents shapes by thousands of triangles)

If you're looking to export a file that can be printed without converting (at least the slicers most people will use) and can also be easily edited by any CAD package, export as a STEP file. They can have either a .stp extension, or .STEP (which breaks from the standard 8.3 file name structure, but isn't really an issue these days)

Mesh Example and a comparison of the same shape as a mesh vs a solid body.

View attachment 1716491735
View attachment 1716491736

You can print an stl, but editing a mesh is a pain at best. (.stl files are saved as a mesh, which represents shapes by thousands of triangles)

If you're looking to export a file that can be printed without converting (at least the slicers most people will use) and can also be easily edited by any CAD package, export as a STEP file. They can have either a .stp extension, or .STEP (which breaks from the standard 8.3 file name structure, but isn't really an issue these days)

Mesh Example and a comparison of the same shape as a mesh vs a solid body.

View attachment 1716491735
View attachment 1716491736

Apologies to as I forgot that… as I have tried to edit other people’s mesh files before and you’re right… it’s like a kick in the privates!!!

I don’t mess with others stuff enough to remember that… as I usually just create all my stuff from scratch!!