Just sharing some drawing experience… Autodesk 123D Design is excellent in some regards when designing for 3d printing, but I’ve found it quite frustrating to figure out how to modify finer detail later on a given object. I’ve taken to retaining design progressions within the one drawing, so I can quickly step back and re-design if required, once I’ve test printed. (when you save you loose “undo”)
Also, I’m finding it’s ability to cleanly subtract one solid from another very useful, as in my approach to drawing up a phone bumper in which I drew the phone and it’s buttons, extending buttons where I wanted them pushing through the bumper, then subtracting the modified phone object from a solid block to reveal a snugly fitting bumper. Adding bevels or rounded edges is a breeze.
I can recommend 123D Design as a tool to quickly draw even a moderately complex object for 3d printing.
Are many others using it for 3d print design? Would be interested in hearing how others find it.
for private use i think you should look at solidface 2015 about 430 USD on steam
Link to demo: http://store.steampowered.com/app/321020/
but if you are a company i would strongly reccomend solidworks or even better Siemens NX (my personal favorite)
I tend to save different numbers on the end of the filename each iteration. Works for me.
I tried lots of different programs and settled on 123D, its definitely the one I found easiest. I tend to use the project tool a lot when going back and modifying stuff.
Im a personal user of Rhino, but I teach 3dprinting classes to younger children using Ipads and 123D Design. When I find a student needs finer detail, I jump over to rhino. They seem to handle the complexity of rhino just fine so I certainly would suggest you give it a go… Also! There’s a free WIP version for Mac.
Have you tried Fusion 360?, also an Autodesk product, it has similar interface and keep versions of your designs so you can go back really esay
@Daniel_Bull Really liked the fan duct you drew in 123D. It forced me to look more closely at the software’s potential. I’ll take on board what you are saying about the “project tool” also. That might help my progress.
@Richard_Mitchell Separate files with revision numbers is good also.
@Adam_Mahardy I give Intro to 3D Printing sessions also locally and I typically show 123D Design and Sketchup. Lots of other packages get mentioned and discussed. Cost is often a significant factor in choosing software with beginners, as you might appreciate, with students watching for software that offers education pricing. Tks.
@Raul_Reynoso I’ve recently heard more talk about Fusion 360 and reviewing it a little it does look like a big-brother for 123D Design. Similar interface so knowledge transfer a bonus.
Tks.
@Ivor_O_Shea I’m sometimes amazed at how useful the delete button is as well when selecting a face in 123D, it does stuff you wouldn’t expect it to be able to do, including removing some fillets.
Tks @Daniel_Bull , I had been struggling with removing fillets. That’s a good tip. Will also watch out for what else the delete may do.
@Ivor_O_Shea The other way to do it is to project the fillets up onto the surface then extrude the projection down over the fillet with merge on so they are removed. Its kinda hard to explain on here:)
123D seems to lack decent tutorials from what I can tell. The one that got me into it was Ben Hecks but I never really found anything useful after that.
I use Sketchup and it works great for my needs
@Kristian_Myklebust I’ve followed the CAD field for many years (kind of a hobby of mine) and I had never heard of SolidFace until a couple of months ago, and they keep coming up in the odd place. On Steam, seriously? I find it bizarre to show up on a games platform. Seems it is based on Parasolid, which is one of the major CAD modeling kernels on the market (used by SolidWorks, Solid Edge, NX and TopSolid among others). It’s apparently very feature-complete, which also intrigues me: developing a full-fledged parametric CAD software is a huge undertaking, we’re talking years. How could it go for so cheap? Even Geomagic Design (former Alibre Design) costs way more than that.
The fact it has not received any news coverage that I know of is also puzzling.
@Rifle_Creek I used to use Sketchup, but I found once designs start to get complicated it has lots of bad mesh issues and you spend more time resolving those than designing.
I really like openscad. Making parameters for everything means I can churn out multiple test parts of the same object, and do very precise tiny alterations.
Of course it has its limitations, but together with a inkscape there are very few times I’ve had to resort to a different program.
@Peter_Hertel I do struggle with OpenScad but appreciate it’s power. Curious as to what you dip into Inkscape for? I’ve used it’s bitmap trace capability from time to time. That’s useful for “vectorising”.
@Ivor_O_Shea I’m guessing @Peter_Hertel is using Inkscape to create 2D profiles to extrude since OpenSCAD has no drawing capability.
@Ivor_O_Shea , @Normand_Chamberland is right. I mainly use inkscape for text as well as making vectors of bitmap silhouettes. Drawing not so much, but it happens. I try my best to keep my designs fully parameterized when I can.
One great feature of openscad is 2d dxf export which you can manipulate in inkscape before exporting back to openscad again.
Openscad does have issues with wonky stl export, especially if you are not careful with intersecting planes, but that are of little importance for those of us with a POV-Ray background. 
A quick trip through netfabb studio basic also works.
