Re:Woodworking for Engineers
by northwest65 on Wednesday June 10, 2020 @11:21PM
(#23484911)
Are you me? They really shit the bed with the way they've steered the product. When I think about Sketchup these days, it's more, "What shall I learn next to replace it?". Man it has served me well, it's a real shame. I'm thinking Blender. It's considerably more complicated, but the things you can do with it are considerably more expansive.
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Fusion 360 is a good option. CAD and CAM in one package. It is more complex than SketchUp but still accessible to someone that is not a drafter.
Fusion / Solidworks always feels so clumsy to me when trying to design a woodworking project like a table or something. It works, but it somehow feels like the wrong tool for the job.
Maybe it’s better for more complex woodworking projects that aren’t just composed of simple rectangles. It’s certainly great for mechanical design and other use cases with smaller, more complicated geometry.
As someone who has made a couple woodworking designs in sketchup, but knows nothing more, I'm curious as to what the more expansive things you can do in Blender are. I fully believe sketchup has some limitations, but I haven't hit them yet in my basic designs.
Care to elaborate?
Re:Woodworking for Engineers
by KineticLensman on Thursday June 11, 2020 @07:50AM
(#23487813)
Not the parent, but if Sketchup is like a simple hand saw, Blender is a massive workshop filled with a whole array of advanced power tools [0]. For example you could go from a blank screen to creating, rigging and texturing a 3D character to a photo-realistic movie featuring the character, targeted at different display devices.