This app supports: Windows, macOS and Linux. Its 2D CAD platform is powerful but yet easy to use even for a beginner who has little to no experience in CAD applications. Since it is open source, QCAD’s focus is more towards modularity, extensibility and portability. QCAD is the application you should use if you’re looking to create technical drawings be it for buildings, mechanical parts or even schematics and diagrams. This app supports: Windows, macOS, Linux, and Ubuntu. There are also additional software tools, a 3D viewer to render your PCB in 3D and 2 library component editors to allow you to create or modify schematic and footprint components. KiCAD is a free and open source PCB design tool that includes a project manager and 4 main software such as schematic editor, printed circuit board editor, GERBER file viewer and footprint selector for component association. Want to design your next Printed Circuit Board (PCB) and don’t know where to start? Check out KiCAD. If you’re looking to build a machine parts instead of designing your next game character, OpenSCAD is the best fit that purpose. It does not have interactive modeling for you to design your model, but instead relies more on what you defined in the parameters through the script files. OpenSCADįor those who want to work on the specifics, especially engineers, OpenSCAD is your ideal 3D modeling platform. This app supports: Windows, macOS, Ubuntu and Fedora. The program itself is extremely modular, where you can opt for very advanced extension and customization. This project is 100% open source and is aimed directly for mechanical engineering and product design uses, but also can be used for architecture or other engineering industry that relies a lot on parametric 3D modeler.Īlthough it is open source and free, FreeCAD is on par with other popular CAD programs due to its capability in creating real 3D solids, support for meshes, 2D drafting, right hand coordinate system plus many more features. The interface is relatively dull, but this may appeal to those who prefer a minimalist and simple CAD software.

It comes with a nice set of features that allows you to generate professional-looking plans using lines, polylines, dimensions, text and others. DraftSightĭraftSight is a free 2D CAD editor that is good for professional CAD users, students and educator, especially if you need to create, edit and view your project in the native DWG file format. If you’re looking for a complete 3D modeling software for your professional career with all the tools included, minus the price tag, then SketchUp is for you. One of the most popular 3D modeling software, SketchUp Make, is used mostly for architectural purposes and sometimes for other niches in the 3D design market. If you’re bad at playing around the geometry and polygons to create your own surface, worry not, because Sculptris surface contains countless of triangles that are automatically built into your 3D model surface. You can use it to easily design your own version of a troll, dragon, or even Godzilla itself through their rich sculpting toolset. Sculptris is a professional yet free 3D modeling program that is made by one industry 3D expert, Pixologic. This app supports: Windows, macOS, and iPad ZBrushcore If you’re looking for a 21st-century CAD application then look no further. This allows you to create accurate models with ease, and significantly speed up your process flow.Īlongside this, they are available across a range of platforms with designs synced in the cloud so you can always pick up where you left off. They have an intuitive UI that makes it easy to design new parts and always have your favorite features at your fingertips. They have a completely free version, but we’d recommend checking out its premium version (14-day free trial). If you’ve ever felt limited by existing CAD tools, then it’s definitely one to try. Section A-A Now complete the Learning Task Self-Test.Shapr3D is a CAD software like no other.Orthographic views of the object in Figure 2.Drawing with the glass box flattened out.Box opened to produce orthographic views.Even though the poles get smaller in their actual measurement, we recognize them as being the same size but more distant. For example, in Figure 1, we see a road and line of telephone poles. A perspective view has a vanishing point that is, lines that move away from you come together in the distance. There are three types of pictorial views:Ī perspective view presents a building or an object just as it would look to you. Pictorial views show a 3-D view of how something should look when completed.

The two main types of views (or “projections”) used in drawings are:

Cad technical drawing