[bloodwolf]

well first, im in a club were we participate in an ROV competition. ROV is a remotely operated vehicle. like under water robots, we control from the surface. some examples:
http://www.freewebs....ov/pictures.htm(our actual ROV last year)
http://www.sub-find..../pantherROV.jpg
http://www.uncw.edu/.../ROVinwater.jpg

anyway last year we had someone who used auto CAD autodesk to draw the design for it. he has now left, but we can get the program from the school. im probably the most capable person to do it this year, but i would prefer to use a free program like blender. but im not sure if its too complicated. is mostly making cylinders, squares, and other shapes of specific sizes.

if some one can guide me to a good tutorial, that will get me started.

thank you

[XyllyX]

Blender could do what you want, but only to a point. If you are looking for something engineering oriented, I think you will find Blender to be too awkward to use. You can precisely position design elements in Blender, but it is something of a hassle.

Think of it like this, Blender comes at 3D modelling from an artistic viewpoint, and that is it's target usergroup.

A program like ProE or AutoCad is aimed at engineers who need to make precise drawings and objects easily and rapidly. Blender isn't really aimed at this. It can import .dxf files, but it has no export capability for any engineering formats. Getting any hardcopy blueprints out of it would be something of a task at best.

Blender is like sculpting something out of clay.

CAD is machining it precisely out of a block of steel.

There aren't really any good freeware or open source cad programs out there, at least for 3D. There is Qcad, which is a 2D application.

You might also perhaps look into Sketchup, but I suspect you would run into the same problems there as with Blender.

You might also look at Wings3D, which is strictly a modeller, however, again, getting some kind of blueprint output from it would be a problem.

Both Blender and Wings, as well as probably Sketchup (I've never used it, so don't know anything about it, except Google makes it, and there is a free version) might help with visualizing things and perhaps making animations (Blender only) of a model, but for actually designing something... I think they would be poor choices.

[bloodwolf]

yeah thats what i thought, thank you.

i will still try out blender, never hurts to gain some skills, and keep searching for auto CAD-like program that doesnt cost $4000

[XyllyX]

There are a couple of free trial versions out there, varicad for instance. I seem to remember another one as well, I think it was a german site (but has an english version of the page), and it is open source.

There is also BRL CAD, but it is kinda specialized and the user interface leaves a great deal to be desired, but it is free.

[ideaman]

Hi,

Rhino3d will do the trick. The academic price is quite cheap and you have commercial license for it.

You can try the 25-save trial version. Download is at http://www.rhino3d.com.

regards

[DeafCyclist]

(Sorry if this thread is a bit old for most of you, I just wanted to help out in this thread. What the normal age of an old thread to be left alone? Just curious so I won't do too much thread necromancy :?: )

Seeing this thread, I've remembered of a tutorials that would be exactly what you need. it is called "Precision Modeling - An Engineers Guide"
Check this thread out for site address and short explanation of the tutorials. http://blenderartist...ead.php?t=96553

The Site address for the tutorial is http://www.rab3d.com..._modelling.html
Keep in mind that this tutorial is a downloadable PDF file of 151 Pages, 613 Images, and 4.7 MB.
Hopes this can help you and anybody else interested in using Blender3D for some heavily Technical Modeling.

P.S. I'm just a newbie with both Blender3D and GIMP so I can't really offers advices by myself lol. Good thing I remembered that tutorials for you. :mrgreen: 1st post on gimptalk :mrgreen:

[Griatch]

@DeafCyclist

A one year thread is probably too old to revive, but since you added useful information to it, I think it's ok. :) Welcome to GIMPtalk too!
.
Griatch

[DeafCyclist]

Griatch said:

@DeafCyclist

A one year thread is probably too old to revive, but since you added useful information to it, I think it's ok. :) Welcome to GIMPtalk too!
.
Griatch

Thanks :) though the thread is actually more like 6-7 month old which was on the border of what I would accept as an old enough thread to be resurrected so that why I had to try and see if the forum had any different opinions so I could modify my posting habit here.

Hopefully I'll enjoy the GimpTalk and actually learn how to use Gimp once I'm done with my Blender3D Guide Book. (I'm currently working through one of the older Blender3D Guides to learn the basic of the program and intend to use Gimp as a supplemental image editors for it.

[ccbarr]

DeafCyclist,

I am very glad that you chose to respond to an old thread with such useful and valuable information. The link that you provided that I am also going to post here:

http://www.rab3d.com..._modelling.html

That precision modeling guide is an excellent source of information for someone like myself who has been using Blender for quite some time. I tend to consider measurements and the related methods very helpful in the things that I do with Blender and also Gimp.

Additionally, I personally don't think any thread is too old to revive or respond to. Maybe someone just wants to comment on something very old that they found interesting, or as you did here, you added some helpful information to that thread. All are welcome in my mind.

Thank you for being willing to revive that old link and thanks for such a helpful post.

:)

[guppyman]

You will need an engineering CAD software.