CAD Update For You Opponeers

"Kailand09" (kailand09) 11/04/2014 at 21:06 • Filed to: None

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So as you know, I was on the search for a reasonably priced CAD product to use for my projects and possibly flow into some freelance. I've found two great such tools that I like so far.

So my choice for now has been Autodesk Fusion 360. As an enthusiast, student, or even start-up, you can get a 1 year subscription for free! If, on the other hand, you are profiting from use of 360, you can pay a subscription that is $300 a year. They are releasing a new version soon that also includes FEA called ultimate, but buying before Dec. 6 will yield a grandfathered account that received ultimate for the price of the regular. Good deal, I'd say.

Speaking of FEA, I have done a bit of testing with an affordable software called Mecway.

Mecway costs $100 as a regular user, and $350 for a commercial license. It doesn't have the greatest graphics, but it seems to work well. The trial version limits you to 1000 nodes (not much at all), so I took a 1"x 1" L-shaped .25" thick piece of steel in solidworks, saved as a STP, and ran it in the full solidworks simulation software to a pretty accurate degree.

Taking the same model and parameters, I imported the STP part into Mecway to see how it compares. With massive elements for the mesh, the displacement was calculated out to less than a 1% difference compared to Solidworks Simulation. Von Mises stress was a bit off, but not so bad. Especially given the element sizes were absolutely huge to fit the trial limits.

Either way, given reviews and my own tests, I'm pretty sure you can grab satisfactory results through Mecway with a limited budget.

Great tools, great prices. Let me know if you have any questions ya'll.

Iheartmy365kHonda - Car enthusiasts do like FWD > Kailand09 11/04/2014 at 21:15

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I've been wanting to get into making 3D artwork. I use Blender very rarely and the lighting in Blender is awful! What about Autodesk? Better than Blender? Easy to use? Lighting and texture issues?

Kailand09 > Iheartmy365kHonda - Car enthusiasts do like FWD 11/04/2014 at 21:21

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I'm not sure as I have not used blender. Since I will be using it more for engineering part design than rendering, I'm not sure my eye really will help you.

I will say, however, that they have really really nice free-form tools to form complex and fluid shapes. I'd recommend at least giving the trial a download and seeing what you think. It's cool stuff for the price.

Other than expensive alternatives, I'd say Fusion 360 is your best option, possibly mixed with use of Blender.

Milky > Kailand09 11/04/2014 at 21:29

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This is where I'd like to say something positive about Alias, but ….

Holy damn, why so 'spensive?!

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > Milky 11/04/2014 at 21:33

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Free Student Licence for 3 years...

Milky > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 11/04/2014 at 21:45

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… what do you think I'm using?

Just saying, if you wanted to use it legitimately, that would be expensive.

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > Milky 11/04/2014 at 21:50

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Kailand09 > Milky 11/04/2014 at 21:51

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Now you see my issue finding decent CAD for a reasonable price. I'm not technically use it as a student, but a hobbyist and will hopefully find some freelance work eventually when I will need to legitimately purchase.

Alibre is a great value right now even at $1k, but before I throw some freelance under my belt I can't justify it.

FreeCAD is supposed to be pretty legit too nowadays, though it didn't have some features I need.

TheOnelectronic > Iheartmy365kHonda - Car enthusiasts do like FWD 11/04/2014 at 21:56

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The lighting in Blender works just fine. The trick is to use the Cycles engine instead of the default, and to mess with the materials and shaders.

Or just use any of the 3rd-party raytracers. I managed this with a very low-poly model and HDR rendering, and I'm shit at it.

In my experience, Blender is way easier to use than 3DS. Max's interface has sort of been added one menu at a time since 1990.

Iheartmy365kHonda - Car enthusiasts do like FWD > TheOnelectronic 11/04/2014 at 22:11

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I was told to use Indigo and had all sorts of problems! Dang, I need to get my skills polished up and figure out Blender all over again! Well, thanks for the tip!

Kailand09 > Iheartmy365kHonda - Car enthusiasts do like FWD 11/04/2014 at 22:16

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OK as a complete artistic idiot who knows nothing about lighting and such, here is a render I threw down in no time:

Also please note: this does take some ballsy CPU power. I'm running an Intel i5 4670K and it was using 100% CPU while rendering.

tromoly > Kailand09 11/04/2014 at 22:19

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Solidworks is my personal favorite. Followed by PTC Creo. I don't care for Autodesk Inventor at all.

Milky > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 11/04/2014 at 22:22

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Hey I'm working tonight too! Don't know why I'm excited about saying that …..

Anyways, I don't even know what "I pro" is. I'm gonna guess autodesk inventor??? I can't show what I'm working on but here is a bullshit screen shot that hopefully you can't read too much from.

EDIT: Lol, it says "student version" right at the top so you know I'm not bullshitting about that.

Milky > Kailand09 11/04/2014 at 22:23

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IMO if you have a .edu email just jack that shit. They'll never know.

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > Milky 11/04/2014 at 22:30

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Yes, Inventor.

Kailand09 > tromoly 11/04/2014 at 22:31

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I do prefer SW as well having tried quite a few. Autodesk stuff isn't my favorite, but the tools are still extremely powerful. Given the price (free / $300/yr), I can't much pass it up. The only other tools I'd even think of are Alibre, but that starts at $1000 for their OK package, and $2000 for their upper packages. At that point I'd rather continue using a lesser tool until I saved up for a decent SW license.

Kailand09 > Milky 11/04/2014 at 22:46

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I refuse to go about licensing illegally. Sure, I could grab it with my leftover .edu, but it expressly states against non-student use.

This is how things get exploited and then everybody can't have nice things for free.

Milky > Kailand09 11/04/2014 at 22:47

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…. Now I feel like a terrible person.

Actually I blame the start-up I work for. No Ragrats.

Kailand09 > Milky 11/04/2014 at 23:01

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I mean I am not judging. But Fusion 360 is a wonderful tool for someone like me. Honestly, it would be perfectly useable for a start-up as well. It takes some getting used to but definitely does what you need it to and more.

Also, judging by your project, your job works on similar things to my second job.

TheNeonDriver - Now with More BMW! > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 11/04/2014 at 23:03

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Why Inventor? Also... WTF?

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > TheNeonDriver - Now with More BMW! 11/04/2014 at 23:03

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Inventor is free

TheNeonDriver - Now with More BMW! > tromoly 11/04/2014 at 23:06

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I have used Solidworks, Unigraphics, Catia, Solidedge, Inventor, Rhino, Sketup, and 3D max. Solidworks all the way for engineering/process assembly, and then rhino/3D max for surfaces. I used Solidworks professionally for about 3 years, and I have the most experience with it.

I am now in the consulting world, working in Reivt (Autodesk product), which feels like a shitty Inventor when building components, but like Lego when putting systems together.

TheNeonDriver - Now with More BMW! > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 11/04/2014 at 23:10

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INVENTOR IS FREE!!! I am trying to get back into doing 3D design... for.. reasons which should be clear to this site in about 6 months if everything goes well...

Milky > Kailand09 11/04/2014 at 23:13

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Lol, just judging by your little description in the post you have WAAAYYY more engineering prowess than I do. I'm just there to make things look pretty.

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > TheNeonDriver - Now with More BMW! 11/04/2014 at 23:14

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Free for 3 years if you're a student

tromoly > TheNeonDriver - Now with More BMW! 11/04/2014 at 23:15

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How is Catia compared to SolidWorks? Since they're both Dassault products, I've always wondered what's really different between them aside from UI and whatnot.

Kailand09 > Milky 11/04/2014 at 23:19

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Haha yeah, as you have WAY better abilities at making things look pretty. I have no freaking clue how to do that.

That's why I've been so reserved and selective in what CAD suite I'm choosing. Fusion 360 is still a bit too render/design focused instead of engineering focused. But it still does both tasks very well, so I'm cool with it.

That and I'm using FEA and such to validate before any physical prototypes, so there's a lot more than just the model.

jonww74 > Kailand09 11/05/2014 at 06:40

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As I understand it Fusion 360 is free for hobbyists/students (etc) continually, with you only needing to confirm that you are still eligible for this status each year. If you subscribed at the basic rate before _Nov_8th_ then you can get the Ultimate package instead, which you can keep using at that rate as long as you continue your subscription. I haven't heard about the Dec 6th cutoff, is that a recent announcement?

Kailand09 > jonww74 11/05/2014 at 16:58

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Dec. 6th is as a paying customer you get ultimate for the price of basic, and I just contacted them that the cutoff is dec. 6th.

Also, you're saying as a hobbyist ultimate is included??

TheNeonDriver - Now with More BMW! > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 11/06/2014 at 11:50

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Not a student. "Professional" now.... I miss my free Solidworks

TheNeonDriver - Now with More BMW! > tromoly 11/06/2014 at 12:27

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In my experience, they aren't that different for the things I did. The large difference, and why I used Catia, is you get a huge amount of other things with it, it's not just for designing parts, like Solidworks. In Catia, you design the entire factory around the car or plane your building in Catia. In Solidworks, you design the furnace for that factory. We had it for converting a regular car into a electric vehicle. So we built all the composite and steel parts in it, as well as pulled in a soildworks model of the base car, which was the basis for the Catia "environment" which we built around it. It was totally overkill though for what we were doing.