this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2025
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3DPrinting

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I visited a friend who is a professional medical engineer, and watched him work on a 3D design on some software paid for my the university they worked at. The options and features looked very practical!

Although I am not even close to working on so complicated projects, I did love the funtionalities. So now i have decided to put in the effort and learn a decent program, instead of using Tinkercad. I have been very happy with Tinkercad, but some things are only doable with workarounds or very creative methods.

The question is, what software should i start learning?

-FreeCAD
-Fusion 360
-AutoCAD
-Sketchup
-Blender
-LibreCAD
-Something else entirely?

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[–] gungho4bungholes@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago

Another option is Alibre. It's a one time purchase and fairly reasonably priced but windows only.

I purchased it about 18 months ago after getting tired of being frustrated by solid works makers hate for its customer.

The makers web ui is impossible to navigate, and Why do I have to log back in and decline cookies after every fucking 6gb solid works update?

With Alibre it never expires, I can use it commercially, and it has 99% of the functionality I need including sheet metal.