Does anyone know what the industry standard CAD programs are these days? I have an interest in getting some training.

What industry? It's different for mining, construction, electronics, mechanical, etc. etc.

AutoCAD is the 'standard' standard, but I haven't used it for over a decade. I use CAD programs specific to my industry.

Need to know what type of area you want to train in but even AutoCAD is now dividing into different systems like Revit, which is now very common for Architecture, structural and mechanical.
After 20 years on AutoCAD I will be moving over to Revit because its so used in the construction industry, not because its better but because unskilled people can now create rubbish drawings that look good.

But if you know AutoCAD in its basic form you have a good base for most design jobs.

Thanks for the info so far.

To be more specific, what programs are best for supporting 3D printing, CNC cutting and routing of sheet materials, and CNC machining generally.

Here's a bit more info that might give you some ideas, have a look at some youtube vids of the packages mentioned.

If you're working in 3D, you can work with solids or surfaces. Think a cricket ball vs a balloon and the difference when you cut them in half.

Autocad can do both sufficiently but is not great at either.

Rhino is a powerful 3D cad package that's about 1/10th the price, but only works with surfaces. This is both good and bad depending on usage. For example when you cut things you need to fill the holes, unlike with a solid where it's all filled all the time. There are many good free and paid plugins, like for jewellery production, boat hulls, propeller design, etc..

Most commercial fabricators who make a lot of small parts that join into assemblies use solids editing programs.

The best solid editing programs are called 'parametric' because they work with parameters that you can change at any time, and those changes will flow forward through the drawing. They also have ways to assemble various small parts into assemblies, which you can make move, so you can model a machine where gears turn, parts move, etc.This is a better system but it takes some getting used to the thinking involved.

Solidworks is the big name in this field with a price tag to match.

A cheap and reasonably powerful package is autodesk's Fusion 360. Last I looked you could fudge a licence for about $50 a year by jumping thru some very simple hoops (tick a few boxes). Autocad's basically subsidising this package as they develop it to try to use their squillions of dollars buy into another market.
I made some very impressive shiny lamp renders doing the tutorial. The materials handling is great.

But then I found it lacked very grunty tools to do stuff I could do in Rhino easily, like sweeping a loft along 2 rails.

The package that I'm most excited about currently is Onshape. It works fully in your browser and is totally free till you try to mate 50 parts into an assembly or something along those lines. No saving as it's browser based. Runs on anything, tablet, phone, etc. Share drawings

PS if you want a simple package with amazing library of stuff you can drop into your drawings then to for Sketchup. Knowing CAD I find it a bit clunky to use but often I'll export models from their warehouse and drop them into other packages. And if I knew nothing it'd be very simple & logical.

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Shifu said...
Thanks for the info so far.

To be more specific, what programs are best for supporting 3D printing, CNC cutting and routing of sheet materials, and CNC machining generally.

That's CAM.

KD has covered it but I will add AutoCAD Inventor into the high end priced packages. I use Inventor for all my 3D modelling and printing mainly because I can design in AutoCAD and move profiles into Inventor. Inventor and Solid works are similar in what the do but have different followers like Ford and Holden. If this is for home use then I would go Sketchup first and see if it does what you want, but if for work then look at Solid Works or Inventor.

If you want something that's cheap (ie, free), stay away from sketchup and try Autodesk's 123D Design. I've been using it for a year to model parts for 3D printing, it is fantastic. It uses solid modelling, not meshes.

Sketchup is a broken toy in comparison.

If you want something with more grunt, and more able to do proper industry stuff, Fusion 360 is really good (as someone mentioned above). It does collaboration as well, so multiple people on a team can update various parts of a model and everyone then sees the updates.

Just as an aside, there's a new app by AutoDesk called "123D Catch", which allows you to take lots of pictures of an object, and it stitches them together into a 3D model. It's mind blowing, and gives a nicely detailed model.

Thanks for all this info everyone. Cheers!

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Shifu said..
Thanks for the info so far.

To be more specific, what programs are best for supporting 3D printing, CNC cutting and routing of sheet materials, and CNC machining generally.

MasterCam and VirtualGibbs are amonst the most widely used CNC programming softwares. They are not cheap though.

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nebbian said..

Just as an aside, there's a new app by AutoDesk called "123D Catch", which allows you to take lots of pictures of an object, and it stitches them together into a 3D model. It's mind blowing, and gives a nicely detailed model.

I tried to use this for someone who wanted a 3D model of sunnies to copy the fit of an existing pair.

I tried 5 pics. I tried 500 pics. I tried lots of variation, zooms, backgrounds, settings. I got no useable result from any of it.

I can only guess it's improved.

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kiteboy dave said..

nebbian said..

Just as an aside, there's a new app by AutoDesk called "123D Catch", which allows you to take lots of pictures of an object, and it stitches them together into a 3D model. It's mind blowing, and gives a nicely detailed model.

I tried to use this for someone who wanted a 3D model of sunnies to copy the fit of an existing pair.

I tried 5 pics. I tried 500 pics. I tried lots of variation, zooms, backgrounds, settings. I got no useable result from any of it.

I can only guess it's improved.

I tried it on a fist sized bust that was modelled by a workmate. I followed the little icons that asked me to take the pictures from various angles, and the result was spot on. Printed the model and the workmate was blown away by the detail. I think it does depend on having a good variation in colour on the model. Perhaps sunnies aren't the best subject matter.

Don't use CAD for designing boards, it's no good apparently

Mastercam, gibbs, or add on modules for Catia do that. They are very very expensive not for hobbist/student user.
I suggest enrolling machinist/fab designer classes to have a chance to get exposure to any package they might demonstrate.
You can learn the programming language basics also and run milling, lathes, die sink edm writing the code in notepad and transfering to a cnc machine wo any special software tough. Just depends on exactly what you want to do.