Ask HN: What CAD program is worth learning, if any? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What CAD program is worth learning, if any?

#11

Post by brudgers » Wed, Jan 12, 2011, 4:24 AM UTC

>"Would that be a useful endeavor for a biz-guy?"

No. Learning CAD would be a highly inefficient way to improve your communication of ideas due to the steep learning curve associated with professional level products.

Playing around with Sketchup might have some benefit, so long as one recognizes that Sketchup models typically have substantial limitations as technical documents.

Re: Ask HN: What CAD program is worth learning, if any?

#12

Post by retroafroman » Wed, Jan 12, 2011, 5:04 AM UTC

I've learned and used many of the major players and some minor ones in the CAD market: AutoCAD (currently using at job), ProE, NX, Catia, SolidWorks (school), Alibre (internship), Sketchup, OpenSCAD (personal). Once you've picked up the ideas, it's mostly just learning the interface and use of a program. They all will do extrusion, you'll just have to learn the command for each one. I would say spend a good bit of time with 2-3 different programs. This will give you flexibility, just like knowing more than one programming languages is useful for programmers.

Re: Ask HN: What CAD program is worth learning, if any?

#13

Post by sharman » Thu, Jan 13, 2011, 1:33 AM UTC

Google SketchUp is the awesomest for initial stage prototyping! And if you know how to use a keyboard and mouse, it won't take more than a couple minutes before you create your first model! Goodluck.

Also the 3D warehouse on it is awesome, for pre-loading community developed models into your own.