Which CAD software to choose for 3D modeling?

Question

3D

Good afternoon!
I want to master 3D modeling, the tasks are NOT artistic, but let's say, non-machine-building, i.e. designing parts, installations, some personal things (like a guitar body), then all this is supposed to be either cut on a CNC milling machine or printed on a 3D printer, or left as a beautiful picture (for an article, report, etc. ..)
I've poked around in Solidworks, SolidEdge, Fusion 360, FreeCAD, 3DS Max, TinkerCAD and even OpenSCAD.
I would say that TinkerCAD is most suitable for my tasks - everything is simple and can be done quickly, but it just has few features and does not develop. Monsters such as Solidworks, SolidEdge, Fusion - it seems ideologically go back to drawing board and drawing paper. Those. first, you need to think it over very well, because then it will be very difficult to correct something, but I want to come up with in the process of drawing. Now I'm fiddling with Fusion, I bought a book, I watch the lessons, but still there are a lot of non-obviousness that enrages. On the other hand, these are typical beginner problems. But let's say for vector, technical 2D there is a very good MS Visio program to which I switched from Corel Draw with great pleasure. Perhaps there is someone here who knows how to do everything and can compare.

Answer 1

it seems ideologically they go back to drawing board and drawing paper.

All these things have gone very far from drawing board and drawing paper

Now fiddling with Fusion, bought a book

Great. This is the most it for the do-it-yourselfer. Relatively free with a lot of features

Perhaps there is someone here who knows how to do everything and can compare.

I don't know how to do everything, but I can compare.
I started 20 years ago with AutoCAD (for some reason you didn’t mention it) and now I’m most comfortable in it, but problems with licensing, that you draw something there for the general public is not worth
knowing Solidworks seemed to me too cumbersome for a self-taught do-it-yourselfer it is not good (again license)
What kind of animal SolidEdge I do not know. 3DS Max is not CAD anymore. I did not understand TinkerCAD (probably stupid). FreeCAD seemed inconvenient to me, although it works the same way as Fusion 360, which, as I wrote, is relatively free and has no less features than AutoCAD, but it is much more convenient as a self-made CAM. I myself am now trying to learn Fusion 360, the same there are questions with which no one has helped me here.
OpenSCAD for creating simple models for 3D printing is it. It's a miracle when you change a couple of parameters and your model changes dramatically. True, there are problems. You can survive the lack of splines (a lot of design engineers have not even heard of them), but a slow render is something, for this reason nothing difficult can be done. Nevertheless, almost everything that I print came out of OpenSCAD.

Answer 2

Perhaps I will answer, although I do not quite specialize in the same topic. I worked more on furniture and homemade. There everything is from flat sheets and the task is only in the design of the simplest drawings and contours for 2.5D milling. And my choice is unequivocal - the simplest approach to solid modeling is with the simplest and cheapest CAD - AutoCAD, BricsCAD. I won’t write the reasons here - here is a detailed article (which Habr rejected :(). But this is for a furniture maker. For a guitar, I’m not sure anymore. But for casting and 3D printing, it’s definitely not optimal.
Judging by the fact that you dumped in a bunch of CAD, CAM and even 3DMax (which has nothing to do with engineering work) - you don't feel the difference between solid and polygonal models, so this article may come in handy.
Full list of my articles here
Good luck!

Answer 3

I read an article about AutoCAD - inspiringly written. But ... somehow I asked a friend of a teacher from the department of engineering graphics to show from which side to approach AutoCAD and realized that I still want parameterization.