For what are used CAD?
I know it's 3D molding but, what after?
What can you do with that?
If you make like an 3x3x3 in CAD, can you play with it in the CAD?
And is it the CAD who molds the pieces in real life?

What is the utility?
Is there a good/free one?

Thanks in advance!

-Nikola


P.s.: Yeah I know I said 4 time CAD

CAD stands for Computer Aided Design. The CAD program cannot print the parts, you have to send the STL file to be printed.

Thats all I know really

Pretty much anything you see manufactured on a large scale has been designed in some sort of CAD package.
Also, CAD isn't like Blender or Maya or 3DSMax where you can easily interact with everything, everything is very precise. You lose some freedom, but you gain a great amount of control.


That depends. There's CAD which is just the design. Then there's CAD/CAM (computer aided machining) where you can make instructions that interact with a CNC (computer Numeric Controlled) milling machine. You can also output things to STL (Standard Tessellation Language) so that a rapid prototyper can recreate your design.
Just the design can get pretty complex, especially if you have something where you can design your intent into the model. For instance, if you have a 2x2 inch piece of plastic and you drill a hole into it 1 inch from all sides, where did you actually want it? Did you want it right in the middle? did you want it 1 inch from the left and top? the right and bottom?


A lot.


Yes and no. You can sort of interact with it, but you can't really play with it. It's easy to test the motion of a group of pieces, but with something like a rubik's cube where the relationship between the pieces are constantly changing you can't easily make it fully functional.


professorcube answered that


Not sure what you're asking


BRL-CAD is pretty good (thanks the.drizzle) and it's free, but it's got a really steep learning curve. You can't just sit down and guess at how to use it, you have to go through tutorials and read the manual. However, once that's done with, it's got a good set of functions that should let you do anything you need.

can someone make a youtube on it. I read all of the instructions and am completely confused????

While we're on the topic of CAD I was wondering if it is possible to 3D print parts with the autocad inventer student version. This is because when you put a part into an assembly file it says that a watermark will put on all printed or plotted material of this part.

I have Inventor Professional 2008. What you have to do to get a part into .stl format is go back into that certain part then resave it as an .stl file by going into the drop box below the file location box at the bottom of the save box and select STL. This is the file that you send to a 3D printer to have printed.

I keep geting "1: This instalation cannot be run by directly launching the MSI package. You must run setup.exe" What should I do.

PS: pembo/joey/others, please don't say run setup.exe because I don't know what that means.

in the folder, there is a file named setup, double click it

also, I've installed the current version twice and both times, when I run the program, command prompt opens up and tells me there is a database file missing and I may have installed it incorrectly

Run setup.exe

You attack me, I get sarcastic.

Are you serious?

Have I become a forum villain?

not with that name, you need an illiteration, like joey johnson or the raging rubiks (cuber)

as you can tell, i suck at illiterations

I think you suck at spelling more.

Wait, let me get this straight. The computer told you to run the setup, so you ask us what you sould do.

I can understand my name mention, I'm not afraid to say what I am thinking, but Joey is a little more reserved than me.

NO!!! I ran setup.exe, but it is still coming up with this. I ran all three of them!!! (The last one unistatled it)

Edit: setup has finished installing brl-cad!!! I reinstalled.

I am now having truble in the raytrace area. can anyone help me?

With BRL-cad, you first have to change your "shapes" into 'regions',
before they are drawn by a raytrace.

Just follow the tutorials (copy paste input lines if you get errors) and you should get a similar result as they do.

thankyou ryton, but my problem is in the framebuffering (or something like that). It tells me to underlay to see the framewires, but all of the options in the drop down list are always gray and inactive. The three it tells you to check, though, are checked, but it only shows the solid shape. I don't care about this if I can send a wireframe as an .stl to fdmonly.com and it come back as a solid. please help.