I want to model my home in 3D, with measurements. What's a good free alternative to autocad for that?
Sketchup [0] has a free version for personal use
Computer Modeling Should Become a Popular Hobby
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Re: Computer Modeling Should Become a Popular Hobby
#32Recommend adding (1996) to title. That doesn't take away from it, it just shows how prescient the thought was.
Yes. It goes further back than that. That's what Alan Kay thought Smalltalk should be for. Read "Personal Dynamic Media". Going forward, there are the persistent shared modifiable virtual worlds, from There to Second Life to SineSpace and beyond. There are many good 3D CAD systems now, and the pro ones have some simulation capability. There's Minecraft and its imitators. We have the capability, and sizable numbers of…
Alan Kay (and others) developed a 3D collaborative world in Smalltalk called Croquet [1]. Definitely one of the most interesting virtual worlds I've come across.
Re: Computer Modeling Should Become a Popular Hobby
#33I want to model my home in 3D, with measurements. What's a good free alternative to autocad for that?
Doesn't have all the functionality that AutoCAD does, and there are some usability issues if you're really comfortable in AutoCAD already, but I imagine FreeCAD [0] would work well for your use case.
Re: Computer Modeling Should Become a Popular Hobby
#34I want to model my home in 3D, with measurements. What's a good free alternative to autocad for that?
Doesn't have all the functionality that AutoCAD does, and there are some usability issues if you're really comfortable in AutoCAD already, but I imagine FreeCAD [0] would work well for your use case. [0]: https://www.freecadweb.org/
I'm particular the BIM workbench is looking pretty slick these days [1]
Re: Computer Modeling Should Become a Popular Hobby
#35It is a shame that the field is pretty undeveloped still after 20 years. Only recently there have been popping up few consumer CADs (fusion360/onshape), but those are still quite limited and of course do not satisfy free software user like me. Setting up decent physical simulations seems yet another whole endeavor even if you got your model done. There are few physics engines available, but using them seems to requir…
>>(fusion360/onshape), but those are still quite limited and of course do not satisfy free software user like me.
Fusion360 is free (1). I used it for a while; though I didn't get into all of the features so I didn't really explore the physical simulation capabilities in depth, but I know it's supported to a degree (2). I'd imagine the FEA engine isn't as rigorous as paid software like say, Autodesk Inventor or Solidworks.
As someone who does a fair amount of 3D modeling, I've always thought sketchup was on the right track. It's also available in a free version of course, and the 3D warehouse has a ton of pre-made models in it that I use all the time.
From my experience, I would say the community-built sketchup plug-ins available are decent, but definitely hit-or-miss. I've never found a good (i.e. non-buggy and well-supported) 'physical simulation' plug-in for sketchup, but I haven't checked the plugin store in a while. That, and some plugins require sketchup pro, which isn't free. In the free software domain, I'd say basic Sketchup is good for quick mock-ups, whereas Fusion 360 can be used for higher precision modeling.
1. https://www.autodesk.com/campaigns/fusion-360-for-hobbyists
2. https://www.udemy.com/fea-simulations-with-fusion-360-static...
Re: Computer Modeling Should Become a Popular Hobby
#36For those that are developers/programmers, you might like OpenSCAD where models are generated from code. I prefer it over knowing where/when to use menu items. As a bonus, the exports work with 3D printers. Source: Printed parts of a hand as a hobby.
I absolutely love the idea of OpenSCAD, but it's speed is extremely painful, even for things that are geometric. As soon as you start trying to make something more organic it crawls.
Re: Computer Modeling Should Become a Popular Hobby
#37Seems like the author was right; I'd look to Minecraft as the analogue for model trains.
Re: Computer Modeling Should Become a Popular Hobby
#38Many games have a modding community. A lot of these mods are usually suprisingly detailed model packs.
Re: Computer Modeling Should Become a Popular Hobby
#39Recommend adding (1996) to title. That doesn't take away from it, it just shows how prescient the thought was.
Around 1996 was the hayday of Artificial Life and Complex Adaptive Systems research and (agent-based) computer simulation of living systems, including ecological, social and economical, was a very common topic in popular science publications.
Re: Computer Modeling Should Become a Popular Hobby
#40I've had a lot of fun with agent-based and discrete event simulations. Hook it up to a visual and it's basically a game. Writing a basic simulation engine is also a lot of fun. Simulation is also the only application where I've felt comfortable with classical object-oriented modeling. I always find that object oriented programming forces me to deal with a lot of emergent complexity, but when you're doing simulation modeling, emergent complexity is the whole point.