3D design programs ...mechanical design..inexpensive, useful? any info.

[exheres]

Looking to design a bike that has been in my head for about 6 months and am looking for a design program to use.

Acad 2004 is like $3500 and i'm not about to pay that. inventor is like $5000 and i'm not about to pay that either.

saw ac3d online. seemed resonable and useful.
checked on open fx. free but not much support.

any other ideas. and any good design books out there anyone can recommend
thanks.

 

[tommysmalls]

i thought only firms spent the big bucks on software...you can dload acad off of kazaa if you are so inclined

 

[TaCk OnE?]

you can download MAYA (the industry standard for 3d digital rendering) as a free download for personal learning.

Alias / Wavefront has been good about commiting to alow whomever is interested in their software use it for personal education.

I imagine the learning curve is somewhat difficult, but I'm not really sure as I've never seen the interface.

I am sure however that it's probably the best software you're going to get for cheap/free by a very large margin.


more info is probably still on their site http://www.aliaswavefront.com/ ... and if not google MAYA free download or something.



d.

 

[Trillian]

Originally posted by exheres
Looking to design a bike that has been in my head for about 6 months and am looking for a design program to use.

Acad 2004 is like $3500 and i'm not about to pay that. inventor is like $5000 and i'm not about to pay that either.

saw ac3d online. seemed resonable and useful.
checked on open fx. free but not much support.

any other ideas. and any good design books out there anyone can recommend
thanks.

imesh is a better shareware program, and I know you can download autocad off of it. However, it has a tendency of freezing older model computers...

 

[tommysmalls]

Originally posted by TaCk OnE?
you can download MAYA (the industry standard for 3d digital rendering) as a free download for personal learning.

i haven't used maya yet, but that's a great call!

i have used a similar program called rhinoceros, which is available here

 

[KiFe]

I believe BLENDER is still free aswell.

also, 3dstudio max AND softimageXSI, aswell as MAYA, all have downloadable demo versions of the their respective softwares.

 

[pr0nstar]

"YAR, EVERYTHING IS FREE!"

 

[defazman]

I used I-Deas 8 for a year, and man that fucking software was heavenly. I'd kill to have it for my job now, but I think it would cost around $40,000 to set up a workstation.