Comment on 3D design software for 3d printing?
Snafucode@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I have to throw a vote in for Blender. It’s certainly not the best tool for precise CAD work, but for those who are already familiar with using Blender, you can create excellent models for 3D printing, even without plugins. I also love the fact that you can animate, shade, and render your models for presentations or documentation all in the same program. Yeah sure, some of the other programs have a similar capability when you install their add-ons and such, but Blender is free and doesn’t force you into any eco system. And seriously, it’s honestly crazy that Blender is free for how good it is.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 6 days ago
I already knew my way around blender before I got into 3D printing, so I used that ever since. It’s ok. It’s certainly no CAD tool. Parameterization would be great and if you use a fair bit of boolean modifiers without applying them (so you can edit parts later on) it does get laggy.
If you already know Blender it’s a decent choice to cut down on learning time, but if not I would not recommend it.
I used OpenSCAD quite a bit as well, which is the polar opposite of Blender. It’s perfect for parametrization and editing stuff later into the project is super easy, but the handling is really bad, even as a software developer.
The language has some evil quirks, like e.g. that the resolution of curved shapes isn’t a parameter of the function used to create the shape, but instead it uses a global variable. It clearly looks like a language designed by mathematicians.
jonfairbairn@hostux.social 5 days ago
@squaresinger @Snafucode In OpenSCAD you can pass the resolution variables as arguments to the function, so it’s not quite as bad as you are implying. See eg https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenSCAD_User_Manual/Primitive_Solids#sphere
Snafucode@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Yeah I mostly stuck with Blender because I didn’t want to tackle a whole new program at the time, and it has fit my needs pretty well since. But I do agree that you are better off with a real CAD program for most things, especially if you are starting from scratch. I haven’t used OpenSCAD much, but it will probably be one of my choices if I need to do more precise/portable work.