Sketchup, Fusion and Other Design Software

Maker Talk
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Curious to have others weigh in on best path for me to go down…

I can handle basic 2d modeling in Vcarve, Carbide Create, Lightburn and Inkscape. I’m looking to get into more 3D modeling for a few different upcoming projects (building a hall tree, a custom master closet, parametric wall art, an enclosure for my small home CNC, etc).

I never learned sketchup but I know others swear by it. Was just poking around online and watching some training videos on it. It seems like many of the useful extensions I would use (slicer, solid tools, etc) would require the installed pro version ($300 a year) vs the cheaper web only versions. Besides some questionable older installed versions, what are people doing now that it has moved to a subscription based model?

Separately, I’ve played around in the past with Fusion 360 since I can run it on my mac and have drawn and outputted some basic designs to the Shaper Origin. I never got too far on it because the learning curve is a beast. I’m already enrolled in the CNC/F360 class next week.

Is it worth learning Sketchup and paying the associated subscription cost or should I just learn Fusion instead? For those who model furniture pieces and then use to make cut plans, what is your preferred software/process?

Thanks in advance for your insights.

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As someone who learned sketchup first and is transitioning to fusion, just go fusion. It’s more powerful and feature rich giving you a lot more headroom for growth down the line.

The key difference with fusion is parametric design, so you can build an object and change essentially an excel formula to adjust the entire model based on a single measurement.

If you have any plans on using a cnc or 3d modeling it’s the way to go without question, in my opinion. The entire workflow happens in one software vs exporting and importing and adjusting. It’s made for CAM

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