Anyone here have experience with Spaceclaim? How does it compare to Solidworks, Inventor, etc. Positives? Negatives? Thanks for the help!
I had a colleague who used it and showed it to me. I’ve only ever used Solidworks and Inventor, and it’s quite different. We interfaced in order to clean up STL files, and it was quite amazing at doing that. As for creation of parts, it can do it I believe, but didn’t seem as easy as with SW or Inventor.
Any idea of costs for those programmes?
Since I’m from Canada, the following prices are Canadian. Solidworks starts at ~$4000 with a yearly maintenance of $1500 if you want service packs and updates. I was just told that Spaceclaim was about $3500 with $500 add ons for being able to open/save additional files like Solidworks. Not sure about pricing for Inventor.
That’s a bit too rich for my hobbyist needs… And so far I’ve found blender too focused on animation, sketch up lacks features in the free version and autodesk 123d is too simplistic… Oh well guess I need to keep looking
Unfortunately that is the cost for professional software. If you don’t use it to make money, there isn’t much incentive to use it due to the cost. Although there is an allure and power to create solid 3D models that are perfect for printing. They can create perfect STL’s that don’t need to be fixed, and don’t cause any problems when slicing. As I may have to give up my Solidworks licence at work, I’m not sure what can replace my needs. Sketchup was useless to me and there isn’t any sort of prosumer solid modelling software that I know of with the same power. The only limitation to Solidworks and Inventor software is imagination of what to make next. One major downside of Solidworks though is it is very limited to the size and complexity of STL files it can import, Spaceclaim doesn’t have this same limitation, but can’t model as easily.
I’m not saying it is in any way a replacement for solidworks, but FreeCAD is comparable with Sketchup, and is definitely easier to learn/use for people used to Solidworks workflow, as it is a parametric modeler.
Try DesignSpark Mechanical it’s driven by SpaceClaim backend. It’ll give you a good idea of the capabilities before spending the price.
Geomagic Design Elements (used to be Alibre Express) at $1000 without subscription is the best option I’m aware of. It will do just fine for design of mechanical things to print. It was significantly less expensive when it was Alibre. In fact, I got hold of a license during a free giveaway a few years ago.
I don’t know of anything between that and FreeCAD for either cost or capability.
@Dale_Dunn Bonsai3D is lower cost, baby to FormZ, from Autodysys - somewhat similar to Autodesk. Mac and PC versions.
@Rojer_Wisner , that looks pretty capable. Too bad it doesn’t appear to be parametric.
Sorry. Above my skill level. You may be right.
I can not imagine that anything could be better than SW.
@John_Bump FreeCAD is not comparable to Sketchup. It’s a solid parametric modeler like SW and Inventor. Accordingly its learning curve is steeper than Sketchup. Being a free and open source software developed by a handful of people in their spare time, it cannot do everything the big pro software do… yet. But it’s getting there. For personal use it can be quite useful.
For the love of all things big and small, don’t use SketchUp. It’s just horrible as a CAD tool (was never designed to be one). Look at FreeCAD or Rhino3d.
As mentioned above @FreeCAD is a fantastic tool for parametric modelling.
Take a look at Cubify Invent. It’s a rebadged version of Alibre Design basic level at a knock-down price, currently £32 in the UK. The main limitation is that it is for single part designs only; no assembly feature. That said, it’s still an extremely powerful tool for the price. I have been doing 3D design as a hobby for many years and have tried out most of the free programs. The two programs I have now settled on are Blender (for mesh editing and sculpting) and Cubify Invent (for CSG and rapid prototyping).
@Adam_Collins what features are you missing in the free version of Sketchup (vs Pro)? Most of the time it’s a matter of finding the right plugins. I mostly use OpenSCAD but when I quickly want to throw something together I like to use Free Sketchup Make.
If only I could figure out how this ##%"&! G+ search works so I can find my own comments. I’ve posted links to my favorite plugins earlier and I can’t find it now. Blaeh.
Anyway, Solid inspector, Smustard BoolTools (USD 10), CleanUp, RoundCorner adds good functionality to Sketchup. Doesn’t make it parametric, but still 
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=30504
http://www.smustard.com/script/BoolTools
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=22920
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=20485#p171721
I highly recommend Autodesk Fusion 360. It has all the features I need (and several I don’t). And it is free for personal or education use.