Recommend a decent low cost or free tool for solid modelling?

scottr99

Hi all, very nice to be here. I just signed up and purchased Mecway for non-commercial use, so just getting started (though I'm not new to FEA) .

I'm curious to know what you all are using for your solid modelling. I know FreeCad is available but I was wondering if there's anything else that I'm missing out on, for use on Windows 7 64-bit.

Thank you and I look forward to future discussions with you all.

Best regards,
Scott

[Deleted User]

I've been using Rhino. It's pretty good, but hard to get operations to complete a lot of times. It doesn't do filleting good at all. So I wouldn't call it a solid modeller. It's really a nurbs surface modeller. Keyshot is looking very interesting as both a surface and solid modeller. They are making their own kernal now and will soon have an update using that kernal. They partnered with AMPS for an interesting FEA application. However, it's not cheap.

Sergio

Hi, I came from automotive industrie were we use tools like NX or Catia. For working as freelancear I hace choosed Onshape that is online CAD modeling very well suited fof FEA model preparation and keep the same layout than traditional packages. Is free for small bussines.

Some of the things that you can do are:
Model simplification
De featuring
Face and body splitting
Boolean operations on solids

avico

You can test Salome

http://www.salome-platform.org/downloads/current-version

scottr99

Hi, thank you for the responses. I took your advice Sergio and opened an account with Onshape! It seems very capable, thanks very much for this!

Sergio

I was able to model real parts on Onshape without need to read tutorials or help, something that I cannot said of Freecad. The way of work is very like professional tools like Solidworks or Solidedge.

scottr99

Hi Sergio, I agree about FreeCad! I also have experience with NX and Catia. I'm very surprised how Onshape, existing in a cloud, can be so powerful! Great recommendation!

[Deleted User]

The people that started solidworks started onshape, after they sold solidworks to dassault. I am not into online software though, so never tried it. There is an fea add-on called simsolid for onshape that is pretty interesting though. It works with step files too without the need for onshape. But it's features are limited since it is a new program.

tcarson

I am a big fan of Fusion 360. It is free for anyone making under $100,000. in addition to being good CAD the CAM capabilities are great. It is web based which I was not a big fan of but is ok. you can work offline but I usually don't

Main Features
CAD
Sculpt
FEA(limited)
Rendering
CAM