I am so sick of sketchuo right now it just doesnt do what I wanmt. I think google tried to make it to smart because it guesses how fast i want to zoom in then changes halfway through and I zoom thorugh the object. Anyway I'm looking for either a free/cheap or student edition of something like sketchup (no stupid licenses to use it for 2 years or anything) that has the support of renderers and computer components. I would like to transfer things from sketchup to. Any ideas? Thanks
I used to hate sketchup until i didn't stink at it You can purchase alibre, without any rendering for $100 or at least i picked up a set. i honestly like sketchup more, but i am not very good at the program. if you can afford to buy training (which i am going to go out on a limb and say you can't) then its not that useful. the software is usually $1000 Solidworks is the most used 3d cad software but be prepared to drop a couple grand. I do not have solidworks but really wish i did. Autocad is by far the best for 2d. its quite cumbersome in comparison to solidworks in 3d but for 2d drafting and annotation i absolutely love it. I am in a autocad class in my high school so i have a 1 year student version i got for free but you can't just email autodesk and ask for free software because your a student. you can get multi-thousand dollar software for a couple hundred bucks this way though. Otherwise your out of luck. get better at sketchup and appreciate how powerful the software is for how much it costs. best of luck
I have heard that the student edition of Solidworks is like $250. I use solidworks and if is lightyears beyond sketchup or anything else I have ever used.
Thanks. I've tried autocad and it was good but I would like 3d. I can use sketchup fine it's just not working properly sometimes and it's great for free but it's just not there yet. Is the student solidworks a licence for a certain amount of time or what?
With a valid student email address, you can get a free 13 month license to Autocad and Autodesk Inventor. Inventor has a bit of a learning curve to it, but is FAR BETTER than Sketchup. http://students.autodesk.com/ Really? Thought you were in college by now.
value for money and ease of use, sketchup can't be beat! Have dabbled in maya and 3dsmax but never got good enough :/
Autocad has more 3D functionality than sketchup has mate. It's not an easy program to learn but it is a lot better once you know what you're doing with it. I use SW, ACAD 2010 and occasionally PTC Pro Engineer. All carry functionality that SU will never have.
I hope you know that there isn't a large warehouse of models to pick from in programs like solidworks or inventor which make designing complete computers a pain. If you're going to buy a modeling programs I'd go for Solidworks, the controls feel much more natural and most come with a finite element analysis and a flow modeling feature that come in handy if you decide to design waterblocks....
As has been said solidworks is probably the best alternative although not cheap. I struggle loads when i first started using sketchup, i think its the way it works that i found difficult but once you get used to it and understand all the hotkeys, Get loads of plugins installed it becomes a very different program imo. My current favourite is the soap bubble skin plugin, it allows extremely organic models to be created, which are otherwise impossible with the standard toolset.
Sketchups not hard to use or anything its not that it jusrt keeps being weird and annoying. I try to zoom in on my model and im ages away and hen suddenly jump through the whole thing and have to look for it again. It keeps not responding randomely and then just starts again after a while which is really annoying and the other day I had to close it after doing a fair bit of work. I can do 2d autocad fine so 3d shouldnt be that much harder and I think dads work uses it so I can probably get it. Also I could import components from sketchup couldnt i?
sketchup zooms to where the cursor is iirc, are you sure not not just trying to zoom in general and its struggling to 'focus'. The only time mine hangs is if ive got lots of complex geometry, but ive got into the habit of having more than one instance of sketchup running. For my design comp entry ive had as many as 5 instances running. There are plugins for sketchup to solidworks, ive used a demo of one and its fine but they're an extra cost to consider.
Mine isnt really that complicated and it runs smoothly and then just decides to not respond. It zooms in slow and then just does a big jump through my whole model and then goes back to slow. Im done having a tanrum and now that im thinking I cant afford education editions but im gonna try autodesk because that free maybe in a few years ill get solidworks.
I use Cobalt by Ashar Vellum, a student license is about $200, and its a top piece of kit, but I'd strongly investigate Solidworks if I were you.
There is a library of computer parts for Inventor though it's not as comprehensive as the sketchup one, search here on Bit-Tech and you'll find it. Blender is a free alternative to 3DsMAX though it has a pretty steep learning curve but you'll find that with any powerful design program. I have used both Inventor and Solidworks, at the moment I prefer Inventor but that may be because I'm more used to it so I work quicker and don't run across things that behave differently to how I expect. Moriquendi
OMFG I HATE SKETCHUP!!! It's been frozen for like half an hour and I don't wanna redo the stuff. Anyone noticed that when you save lots nothing happens and when you don't you always lose it. Back to the point i am going to break something soon and I really hope google fixes this.
Solidwork user here for the last 4 years, since 2006 edition. 2010 is wonderful to use, but as mentioned its bloody expensive! alibre imo is just like solidworks, just a little rough around the edges if you are use to solidworks. I would seriously consider purchasing Alibre after uni, how ever its pointless for me to do so as the world of industry would push me into software which they own.
Google buying sketchup, is both the worst and best thing that happened to it and us. It's the best because it became so well known, and so easily and freely available. It's the worst because development has stagnated, what we now get are refinements and improvements not innovations, which sketchup is/was when it was first released (innovative that is). Motas, your periodic hangs may be because of auto-save, which can be turned off, or the timeing altered (I believe the default is 5m which can get a bit annoying) in - window - preferences - general. Also if saving is taking ages, you might want to try a purge, that can be found in - window - model info - statics. It just gets rid of any unnecessary materials/components/etc. The last licence of autocad I used was hmmm... 2006 I think, it's 3D suite was, quite frankly, a joke. I've heard that they've put a lot of effort into this area and that 2010 is much improved but haven't used it myself. My working order always used to be tarasofsky(SP?) paper, layer paper, autocad, layer paper, autocad - repeat as necessary - sketchup - photoshop. Had to produce 2D and 3D photo-montage of our buildings, and often photo-montage 1:5 details... Uni is crazy. Was crazy.
---Zoom freaks out: You are trying to get in too close. You can only zoom in so much until you punch through the material. -The best fix is to resize everything 10x bigger. When you have the scale tool activated, type in 10 and hit the enter key. To shrink it back down, type .10. ---Hangs periodically: That's the @$^%&#& autosave. It can be turned off. You also might have the same problem I had on one of my rigs. It and SU simply didn't get along. From what I've heard, the Solidworks student version times out after a year.
The resize tool... Select all/click the resize tool/Grab a corner and start pulling/while still holding down the mouse button, type in 10 and hit enter.
