Talk about CAD! What tools do you use? What are you creating with those tools? Are you making them for 3D prints or machining? Try to convince me that your favorite program is irrefutably the best one and why all the others are trash. Just talk about anything related to CAD!

>>1011213 (OP)
Sell me the idea of doing cad, then I'll go get the student version of AutoCAD

>>1011217
it makes designing mechanical things very easy

For professional work, AutoCad and SolidWorks are the go to

Has anyone tried any of the programmatic ones? I'm wondering if it would be easier for me to learn considering my programming background.

>>1011213 (OP)
Used Solidworks for 26 years. I can now do just about anything I need - curvy consumer products, machinery, furniture with a bit of effort and planning. Large assemblies are a pain as are complex multisheet drawings. Sadly DS are twats so we don't know where they're going with development.
Anything really sculptural requires me to rent Fusion for a bit. Doing that now and I had forgotten some of its irritations.
Site drawings need AutoCAD or similar. I have used NX for a bit and would happily use that if someone else paid for it. Solid Edge is OK but only ever played with community edition.
Rented Shapr3D for a month, didn't enjoy that. Plasticity is interesting but can't be bothered since I have Solidworks. Onshape is alright but don't want everything in the cloud.

Rhino... every designer and engineer should have a copy of Rhino kicking around.

Also there's already a CAD thread
>>993073

>>1011217
Do you want to 3d print your stuff or use it in a video game? Everything CAD oriented is meant for 3dprinting, it's the best software you can use to make something printable.

Despite being a near expert in Blender, my skills feel ultimately useless as there is little to no 3D work out there, especially for an area as remote as mine. However I have seen a ton of CAD related jobs around, I tried to do some freelance engineering stuff with Blender but it is nearly useless as an engineering tool.

With that being said, has anyone tried transitioning from 3D to CAD? Is it a huge learning curve? Is it worth taking the time to learn it?

Alternatively has anyone managed to do real engineering or manufacturing work in Blender?

>>1011213 (OP)
Okay anon, you got me listening and I've just pirated SolidWorks. How the fuck do I get pro with it, any guides or channels like those shilled around for Blender?

>>1012632
>>1012632
Blender isn't really an engineering tool. I have used it and seen it used for visualisation work (renderings) mostly for furniture and interiors. I encounter this sort of thing from Maya/Max/C4d but a lot of this work seems to be moving to UE5/Twinmotion (others may see things differently).

FreeCAD is often suggested as a great tool to learn. I have yet to encounter anyone using it professionally,though it has its uses. It's improving but not there yet.

If you want to learn CAD you probably want to think about what sort. If you are interested in buildings / civil then AutoCAD & Rhino might be a place to start, packages like Revit might need a bit more experience but I don't know much about it. I find Rhino easier to use than AutoCAD and it has some cool stuff like Grasshopper and is good at surfacing if you are sufficiently patient. It also has its take on subd which you shoukd get to grips with quickly.
If you are more interested in product or machinery then its the default Solidworks/Fusion/Inventor etc. Some of these have personal/hobbyist editions. Solid Edge has a free version which is worth trying out for learning the basics (very capable software).

Do you have a tech background / experience?

>>1012740
>>1012740
Pick something simple up, look at it, model it. Then do something else etc. As a general rule prismatic is easier than organic. Pretty much what I have done for the last 25+ years.
Solidworks does phone home to grass up users of cracked copies, just a heads up.