nberrington Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 Greetings all Is there a particular program you would recommend that would cover most bases? Perhaps something capable of designing buildings and baseboards for the laser cutter, drawings for etches and 3 D printing. I've looked at QCAD, but have been recommended Inkscape. Thoughts? Neil Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
billbedford Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 QCAD and Inkscape are both 2D only. I use ViaCad and for $100 it's probably as good as it gets for the price. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marbelup Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 Neil You might want to consider Rhino 3D. It is not free but, sometimes, you get what you pay for. There is a free trial for up to 90 days and the educational version is around $200 if you or a family member qualifies for that. It doesn't have the limitations of some of the free packages (e.g. it draws circles and cylinders which are round rather than as a series of flat sections). The working precision is 0.001 mm which means it is practical to work in the model scale rather than drawing at a larger scale and scaling down afterwards. I used to use Autosketch for 2D CAD including artwork for etching. Now that I have got used to Rhino, if I need to edit any old projects I import them into Rhino rather than having to swap between the two user interfaces, as I find Rhino very easy to use. I nearly finished the etch artwork for a sheep wagon in AutoSketch about 10 years ago, and was able to import it into Rhino and literally fold up the etched sides and extrude them to form the basis of a 3D model of which about 25 have now been made.. (See http://marbelupmodels.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/cxb-4-wheel-sheep-wagon.html). I designed the track plan and baseboards for my model railway in the late 1990's using AutoSketch, and I have now imported that into Rhino and am in the process of doing the woodwork for a small extension which has been designed in 3D on top of the original 2D plan. When I first started in 3D just over 2 years ago, I struggled trying to use 123D for a week or so, then a friend suggested Rhino. I was able to recreate what I had done in 123D in a couple of hours in Rhino and continued on to produce a complete 3D-printed diesel loco. I found Rhino to have a very logical and precise user interface and most of the drawing techniques were similar to what I was used to in AutoSketch with the third dimension added. I have since completed over a dozen detailed 3D railway models in a 2 year period. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
thegavs Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 have used freecad and inkscape to produce files for laser cutting. A bit of a steep learning curve but works for me. Freecad has an architecture module, not used it but might be of some use. http://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/index.php?title=Arch_tutorial Still under development but free . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
backofanenvelope Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 You can find a list of free and payware at the top of the group in a sticky thread Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrislee Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 HAs anybody used CAD for 3D printing to make one-off paneled carriage and van sides and ends? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
billbedford Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 Lots of people Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluemattersoda Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 I agree with Marbleup. Having used Rhino3D for both architecture and model trains, I have to say Rhino is the most versatile. I've done a model of the quite subtle curves and folds of the SNCF TGV Duplex locomotive, which I doubt could be easily done in Sketchup which is quite popular. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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