Open Source CAD: Another perspective 3D CAD Tips says: August 2, 2012 at 6:02 pm by Evan Yares on Thursday, August 2, 2012 Leave a Comment A few days ago, I opined that 'If you're looking for a really great open source CAD program, you're going to be. BRL-CAD is an open source modeling system and cross-platform CAD software. It has ray-tracing for rendering and geometric analysis, interactive geometry editor, analysis benchmark suite, image & signal processing tools, libraries for robust geometric representation, network distributed framebuffer support and more. Our N1 Free CAD Books RecommendationFree CATIA Books: Solidworks Books: Autocad Books: https://bit.ly/2. AutoCAD Release 12 in 1992 was the first version of the software to support the Windows platform - in that case Windows 3.1.After Release 14 in 1997, support for MS-DOS, Unix and Macintosh were dropped, and AutoCAD was exclusively Windows supported.In general any new AutoCAD version supports the current Windows version and some older ones. AutoCAD 2016 to 2020 support Windows 7 up to. LibreCAD is a free open source CAD software for Windows. It is a simple 2D CAD software through which you can manually create simple 2D shapes and structures. All the essential 2D designing tools such as Line, Circle, Curve, Ellipse, Polyline, etc. Are present in the Tools menu of this software. You can easily select one tool at a time and start making shapes and designs.
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Posted By Lucie Gaget on Mar 21, 2018 |
3D modeling software are useful for many different applications and could be a great asset for your business. It is a real advantage to develop your project, and it can be used for architectural projects, in the medical field or even in the fashion sector. Everything is possible. In this blog post we are going to see how a 3D modeling program could help you in your daily work and what an open-source software exactly is. Then, we will see what are the best available open-source CAD software in 2020 in order to help you find the right CAD tool for your company.
Open Source Cad Softwares
Why should you use CAD software?
3D modeling software could be useful for your company for diverse applications. It can be used by engineers or designers, and even by amateurs. It is becoming a convenient and essential tool to work on designs, prototypes, or to produce 3D printed parts. You can use it to 3D model your parts in order to 3D print them, or just for the visualization of your projects.
Do you need to improve your design process or want to elaborate industrial designs?
These kinds of programs are particularly convenient if you are looking for a new prototyping process. Indeed, prototyping is becoming quite simple while using 3D modeling software and additive manufacturing. You can do many iterations at a lower cost, and you just have to modify your CAD model if you need to change something.
3D modeling software could also be a good solution to get a better visualization of your project or to improve your product design. From technical drawings to advanced 3D models for mechanical engineering, everything is possible if you choose the right CAD tool. We know that there is necessarily a software on the market that will fit your needs, and it may be an open-source software!
What is an open-source CAD software?
Open-Source software has a free public code that can be downloaded and modified by developers. It can be great if you want to add features to specific software in order to improve it, and adapt it to the use of your business. All the community can participate in the software development, anyone can write an extension to make the software better. It clearly has a collaborative aspect.
There are various open source CAD software programs available, that you can download for free. You can use them to create and modify your 3D models and develop your professional projects. Are you interested in starting 3D modeling with an open-source CAD software? Let's see what the best programs are for your business.
The best open-source CAD programs
Here is a selection of the best open-source 3D CAD software for 3D applications. You will mainly find software for advanced users, as these programs are addressed to professionals or programmers.
General open-source software
FreeCAD
FreeCAD is a parametric 3D modeling software. You don't need previous experience with 3D modeling to use it, but you can totally achieve complex models with it, for engineering or architecture projects. Indeed, it has professional features adapted to work for mechanical engineering. It can be used by anybody: home-users, designers, programmers and even educators.
If you need to 3D print your part, check our tutorial to learn how to prepare your 3D model to 3D printing using FreeCAD.
Blender
Blender is a widely used open-source software. It is useful to create various 3D designs, from electronic projects to digital art. It can create impressive models, using polygonal modeling techniques. You can use Blender to create simulations and animations.
You need to be experienced with 3D modeling, but if you need a little help, Blender has a really large community, offering a lot of tutorials.
If you are planning to 3D print your model, check out our tutorial to prepare your design for 3D printing using Blender.
OpenSCAD
OpenSCAD is an open-source parametric software, that can be used to create 2D designs, and 3D models. It is a great tool to make 3D objects designed for additive manufacturing. While using OpenSCAD, you can't modify directly with your mouse the CAD model that is in the viewer. This software uses its own language.
OpenSCAD is perfect if you need to create accurate models, but you have to keep in mind that it is really programmer oriented.
Wings 3D
Wings 3D is a free open-source software. It offers a great variety of modeling tools, that could help you with all of your projects. It is a good software to create your CAD models and work on texture and materials. However, it is not the perfect tool if you need a CAD program for animation and rendering.
We have a tutorial that could help you to create your 3D model with Wings 3D.
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OpenCascade Technology
OpenCascade Technology is a complete 3D modeling tool: from modeling to visualization, everything is possible. The geometric, topological and visualization algorithms of this program will allow you to create 3D models for any type of sectors, just for visualization, or for manufacturing processes. Safari infected with adware.
SolveSpace
SolveSpace is a parametric 2D/3D modeling software. It is a good tool if you need an open-source CAD software to export your 3D files for 3D printing. It has all the basic features of a 3D software, and it is possible to make complex designs. You can work on the design of an object or process mechanical simulations with this program.
Art of illusion
Art of illusion is an animation oriented software. It is an open-source program, allowing to work on 3D modeling, texturing and material, but also able to make some rendering. Art of illusion is a high end animation program, powerful enough to be used professionally.
OpenJSCAD
OpenJSCAD is an open-source CAD program. It is quite similar to OpenSCAD, that we discussed previously in this blogpost, but the difference is that OpenJSCAD is a browser-based program. It is easier to use. Indeed, it is a good solution as you don't need to install any software to create the 3D model that you want to 3D print.
Moreover, all the features are well explained on the website, you just have to follow the indications to create your own 3D designs.
JS Sketcher
JS Sketcher is a CAD program that you can access with your browser. This open-source parametric modeling software is written in javascript. For the moment, there are not too many features, so it is a simple software to use if you are just beginning with open-source programs, but you will still need a little bit of training at the beginning. This is a really promising software.
QCAD
QCAD is a free computer-aided design software. It is hosted on GitHub and is open to any contributions. This 2D CAD software offers a wide range of CAD tools. This CAD program can be extended through its complete ECMAScript (JavaScript) interface.
BRL CAD
This CAD tool software has been developed by Mike Muuss at the Army Research Laboratory and used by US military. They used it for academic, industrial or even health applications. This solid modeling system has been around since 1984, it simply became an open-source project in 2004.
It is now possible to use this program for engineering or graphic applications.
LibreCAD
LibreCAD is a free open-source CAD with a large community of users, contributors and developers. This 2D CAD software is really complete and useful for laser cutting projects, for example. The source code can be downloaded directly from GitHub
Open-source CAD software for specific applications
Makehuman
If you are looking for an open-source software for chara-design: you have to try Makehuman! It has an intuitive interface, and perfect software tools for beginners. It is allowing you to use parametric modeling to create your characters, and to work on body proportion, faces, eyes, etc. This software offers a lot of possibilities, but you will not be able to create realistic 3D models with this CAD program
OpenFX
OpenFX is a 3D modeling software, it has a powerful feature set. This open source software is majoritarly used for chara-design. OpenFX is a flexible program, offering you a lot of possibilities in terms of chara-design. For example, you can make good skeleton structures and skinning with this 3D software. You can even simulate actions with the character that you've created, to see how your design reacts.
MolView
MolView is a molecular modeling software. It is a free web-application, with a steep learning curve, so it is possible to use it even if you have no previous CAD experience. This open-source program allows to create various projects such as structural formulas, simulation of proteins, etc.
You can watch the video below to get more information about this software: Pokemon home impossible trades.
OpenVSP
Open VSP (Vehicle Space Pad) is an open-source software for aircraft. It has been developed by NASA. This is a serious and intuitive tool that will allow you to create CAD models easily and create accurate designs and mechanical overview for all your aircraft projects.
If you are just getting started, here is a tutorial for you to discover the basic CAD software options of OpenVSP:
We hope that this top will help you to find the perfect open-source CAD software for your project. If you already have a 3D model, and want to try additive manufacturing, you can upload your 3D model right now on our online 3D printing service. You will access our 3D printers, allowing you to create amazing 3D printing projects.
If you want to read more about 3D modeling software and 3D printing, don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter.
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DWG is a native AutoCAD file format but it can be opened with other software's and online tools as well. When you don't have access to AutoCAD software and you really need to view the files you can use any of the four methods mentioned in this article to get the work done.
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The easiest and most recommended method is using Autodesk Trueview, a free DWG viewer from Autodesk.
Autodesk Trueview
Autodesk Trueview is a free software which can be used to open DWG files and it can also perform some basic measurement task on the drawing. However, you can't modify your drawing in any way using Trueview.
True view also allows you to convert the version of AutoCAD files to any previous release. This is especially helpful when you are using an old version of AutoCAD and you received drawings in new DWG formats.
You can use Trueview to batch convert multiple drawing file versions and then open those drawings in your AutoCAD software.
To open the drawing simply download the DWG Trueview from here and install it, then open files in it.
Once your files are open you will see a tab similar to the one shown in the image above. You can clearly see that it has Measure panel with common measurement tools and some other tools like visual styles and object snap.
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To change the version of DWG files click on DWG Convert icon of Files panel and add files to the files tree as shown in the image below then select the version in which you want to convert it and click on convert button.
By default, the original drawing(s) is overridden by the converted drawing but you can place the converted drawings in a new folder or zip file.
To change drawing conversion settings click on conversion setups button on DWG convert window and select Modify from conversion setups window. From Modify Conversion setup window change the conversion package type to folder or zip and click on OK to close and exit the open windows.
Autodesk 360
You can also view drawings without installing any software right from your browser using Autodesk 360 viewer. Go to A360 site here and create your free account, then click on upload your design icon and select the drawing from local/network drive or cloud accounts like Dropbox, Google drive or Box.
You can also upload a complete folder containing multiple drawing files. Once you upload the files the viewer will take some time to prepare the upload and an email will be sent to you once the files are prepared for viewing.
You can use A360 to view 2D as well as 3D drawings and it can also be used to measure different geometrical features of the drawing. You can also generate a link for users who don't have A360 account and share the drawing with them and they can also view it in the browser directly.
You can also view the AutoCAD files on a mobile device using A360 mobile app for Android, IOS and windows devices.
Open source CAD applications:
There are also plenty of low cost and lightweight alternatives to AutoCAD that can be used to view the drawing by installing their trial version. The best among these is a free and open source software called LibreCAD.
The software is very small and it installs in a few minutes. You can simply open the DWG files in this software and also make minor drawing modifications in it. The LibreCAD recognizes layers and blocks of the DWG files too. However, I will not recommend using LibreCAD for drawing modification tasks as it crashes a lot and it is also not able to properly handle large file size.
GrabCAD online viewer
This is similar to A360 viewer but with limited features and control over your drawing file. To use the online viewer of GrabCAD you need to register on the website. Once you have your account created you can upload as many drawings as you want and view the drawing in its 3D viewer.
How do you prefer to access DWG files when you don't have access to AutoCAD? Let us know in the comments below.
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