CAD Software, anything FREE available?

[ASKay]

Originally Posted by raine

i m using solidworks 2009 with sp3 i know its not free , but u have internet and for the people who won t spend 10000$ there are some funny sites.
as far as i know there are no good free cad softwares out there.
there is also a very good fluid simulation plugin for solidworks.

there is also a very very good free 3d scan programm.
http://www.david-laserscanner.com/

its so damn easy and we re using it for scaning small objects and parts @ home , after scanning u have to import it with solid et voilà u can du what u want with the 3d object.

Yep +1 comos is great for FEA and CFD

[almunro]

Originally Posted by eyeayen

I'd recommend Draft Sight too, it's completely free but only 2D though. CLICKY

DraftSight like Autocad does do 3D but its not a parametric modeller such as Solidworks, simply a drafting program.

SolidEdge is another parametric modeller very similar to Solidworks but a bit cheaper. When i was doing my Industrial Design degree we also used Rhino 3D which i loved, but once i got the hang of Solidworks I found it so much better and faster, even with surfacing (albeit not very complex surafacing i was doing). Also the fact its parametric and you can go back and change any dimension or association and have it update is very helpful.

I modelled my vintage Losi LXT truck for a project, so i'll try and find that and post some images.

Alex

[almunro]

oh forgot to mention FreeCAD which is available on PC, Mac and Linux and is a parametric modeller like solidworks. Havent spent a lot of time on it but it looks fine for doing stuff for a rc car etc.

There is also Open CASCADE which is for pc and has part analysis similar to COSMOS in Solidworks.

Alex

[Lee24h]

Solidworks can be free if you can get an educational version I have the educational version and despite not being able directly to make a dxf file you can make one from other free programs.

[colmo]

The key words to look for are Open Source.

This might get you started:

http://www.osalt.com/autocad

[almunro]

Originally Posted by colmo

The key words to look for are Open Source.

This might get you started:

http://www.osalt.com/autocad

here's a good list, scroll to the bottom of the page

http://www.jevontech.com/open-source-software.html