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I don't use blender, so I'm not sure if it is highly specialized for a particular application. However, Autodesk Fusion 360 is a perfectly capable program as w

I don't use blender, so I'm not sure if it is highly specialized for a particular application. However, Autodesk Fusion 360 is a perfectly capable program as well, and has very favorable licensing if you are a hobbyist. They've done a really good job with first party tutorials, both in written copy, and videos. It seems to be one of the hottest tools in the 3D printing community right now, so the community is robust for support as well. Where it really shines though is that anything you can make happen in the GUI, you can also make happen in python. In fact, I believe it is possible to simply "trace" what you are doing in the GUI, and use that as a guide for how to do it in your own custom code. Thats the "Fusion" part of the name. You can do the actual modeling with code. You can also create more gui features. For instance, you can make a button on the toolbar that, once clicked, checks for user selected geometry. If any is found, do operation X upon that geometry. This pattern alone makes me think that Fusion 360 is an excellent tool to approach CAD from the perspective of a coder.

slezyr 8y ago
I shouldn't have said "3D modeling" there. I'm more interested in "3D art" than in CAD models. I've found some books about preparing models for 3D printing in Blender. Also it has quite big number learning materials about it. > This pattern alone makes me think that Fusion 360 is an excellent tool to approach CAD from the perspective of a coder. While many people hate blender's UI, I really liked it because it fells like writing text in Vim. At first it is hard to understand it, but then you learn hotkeys and you stop calling actions from toolbars/menus and simply input action using keyboard. As simple example: <TAB> (To switch to edit mode) e (To duplicate all selected points) g (To move selected points) x (along X axis) 2 (by 2 units) 5 keys and I've made duplicate of current object and moved it a little. Without touching mouse. I really like blender for all these hotkeys they make modeling much faster and easier.

slezyr 8y ago

I shouldn't have said "3D modeling" there. I'm more interested in "3D art" than in CAD models. I've found some books about preparing models for 3D printing in Blender. Also it has quite big number learning materials about it. > This pattern alone makes me think that Fusion 360 is an excellent tool to approach CAD from the perspective of a coder. While many people hate blender's UI, I really liked it because it fells like writing text in Vim. At first it is hard to understand it, but then you learn hotkeys and you stop calling actions from toolbars/menus and simply input action using keyboard. As simple example: <TAB> (To switch to edit mode) e (To duplicate all selected points) g (To move selected points) x (along X axis) 2 (by 2 units) 5 keys and I've made duplicate of current object and moved it a little. Without touching mouse. I really like blender for all these hotkeys they make modeling much faster and easier.