Best CAD Program for Case Design

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Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 5, 2003
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I have decided to take it upon myself and fabricate my own (unconventional) case from scratch this summer, but I am a newb when it comes to CAD related programs. All my designs thus far have been on paper. I would hopefully like to find out what is A) The best program for CAD B)Easiest program for CAD and C) Best mix of both. I thank everyone in advance.
 
Beeing new to CAD, I'd suggest a very simple program like SketchUp. I think you can still download a demo of the program for free -and, if you do chose to pay for it, it is only a couple hundread instead of a couple thousand like AutoCAD platforms are (which I use). SketchUp is intended mainly for Architecture but you should find it's ease of use pretty useful for other designs as well. They also have tons of video tutorials on their website you can download for free.

http://www.sketchup.com/
 
Awesome, thanks. You say AutoCAD is the best? Price really isn't a factor in my decision, so maybe I should check that out as well? Or too complicated?
 
Where can I find info on that? I googled it, but it only brought up tutorials for it.
 
Also, I was wondering if there was perhaps a CAD program more suited for object creation than architectural(sp?)?
 
Well I personally like using AutoCAD but I've been driving that software platform for around 8 years now. I'm told that AutoCAD can be pretty complicated to learn. It doesn't seem complicated to me but I have to qualify that with my experience. If I were to design PC chassis on the computer (and have in the past) I would use Autodesk Inventor for the task these days. It is a fully 3D parametric solid modeling platform that is best suited for mechanical and sheet metal design. Autodesk Mechanical Desktop would be my second choice but now that I've started using Inventor I never want to go back to Mechanical Desktop. I believe a license of Inventor is around $4K these days but I'm not normally the one purchasing the software we use.

ProEngineer (or ProE) is another platform similar to Inventor. It is manufactured by PTC. SolidWorks would be another suggestion. Just understand that these are all fairly complicated 3D parametric solid modeling platforms and they require what I think is a decent foundation of understanding to know what that means and how it can be used. I don't know of a "3D solids" modeler that is a simple platform to grasp. There are plenty of simple (and even free) 3D modeling platforms that only work with surfaces. GMax would be one that comes to mind but SketchUp is also just a surface modeler.

When designing mechanical objects, working with solids is considered a better choice. Hope this helps...
 
Wonderful, thank you very much. I shall look into all of these.
 
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