3D cad software

[totts]

Hi all, as my cnc is nearing completion, im now gathering info for my software. I currently have solidworks student edition but that licence is nearly up and far to much to re lience.

Im planning on using vetric 3d for the cam side, and need a 3d program which can work with vetric, using .stl format i believe.

Anyone know of a good 3d software package, free or for poor people lol thanks, simon

[motoxy]

Try viacad 3d ver 8. Its £65+vat and I have found it to be well worth the money.
Export/imports dxf, stl and many others.

Bruce

[totts]

Will take a look, do you know if you can have a dwg file and place on a surface and create an engraving ?

[motoxy]

I think that is what the cam software is for. Viacad is for creating 2d and 3d drawings that you then export to your cam software set up the engraving design to transfer to the gcode.
It will import dwg files.
if you are doing complicated engraving designs you may want to sart in an art package like adobe illustrator and then transfer the .ai file to via cad to clean up and transfer to dxf or stl.

Bruce

[luke11cnc]

Bruce you are right and and vcarve pro 6 will do the rest for you even has a program for a v carve bit engraving tool path simple

James

[m.marino]

I use ViaCAD2D/3Dv8 also and there is a learning curve but not a really hard one to be honest and the forum gives a lot of good support for questions and learning. As far as CAM side of things I currently use CamBam and BobCAD v21 & v23. I am looking to upgrade to DeskProto for a couple of reasons. ViaCAD for the amount of money you spend is extremely hard to beat tools wise. There is a few free CAD programs out there (one from AutoCAD and a few others) most are usable but really don't offer the modeling ability that you get with ViaCAD or other software. I also strongly suggest against getting software that claims to be both CAD/CAM together as most of the ones I have used don't do hat it says on the tin. Just my two cents is all.

Michael

[totts]

Yeh ive downloaded a couple programs today and i thing my choice of cad/3d is going to be viacad. And my choice of cam software is going to be either mesh cam or veteic cut 3d, vetric 3d is very simple and easy, but i want the feature from mesh cam where i can use an image to create an .stl file.

Is there a standaload program anyone knows of which can convert an image to a 3d file,?

[totts]

Sorry for the typing errors..... Touch screens!