[tiafreeman]

Hello everyone.

I need a little ... okay maybe tons of help with this. I am in the process of upgrading my system from 10.1.6 to whatever but it depends on if a program exist to do what I need.

I want to present a mechanical engineer with an idea but I don't know what software to use. I have to consider that I may only use it to do two complete designs.

Is there a reasonable (if not shareware/freeware) that will do the following:

1. adjust according to units of measurements that I put in (i.e. thickness or length from one point to another on one object) (not just stretch alone)

2. apply surface

3. build objects that are not necessarily your regular geometrical figures

4. print/save frames in a format that others can access

5. animate ... this one would be a plus but not really necessary just would be nicer to show my elementary mechanics to him ...

I would really appreciate any input, help, suggestions ...

Thanks all,
Tia

[Synotic]

Originally posted by tiafreeman:
Hello everyone.

I need a little ... okay maybe tons of help with this. I am in the process of upgrading my system from 10.1.6 to whatever but it depends on if a program exist to do what I need.

I want to present a mechanical engineer with an idea but I don't know what software to use. I have to consider that I may only use it to do two complete designs.

Is there a reasonable (if not shareware/freeware) that will do the following:

1. adjust according to units of measurements that I put in (i.e. thickness or length from one point to another on one object) (not just stretch alone)

2. apply surface

3. build objects that are not necessarily your regular geometrical figures

4. print/save frames in a format that others can access

5. animate ... this one would be a plus but not really necessary just would be nicer to show my elementary mechanics to him ...

I would really appreciate any input, help, suggestions ...

Thanks all,
Tia

Well I used SketchUp a while ago and it had a very intuitive workflow if I recall and I think it could probably do what you want. The only thing thing is that it isn't really cheap at 500 bucks . Depending on how intensive these projects will be, SketchUp gives you 8 hours of accumulative full featured use, so you can split it up the time as you want.

Other than that you can look at OmniGraffle but I don't think it's as oriented towards what you're trying to do.