No matter which CAD systems you’re using, you should be able to create one or more of these formats.

Out of the box (so to speak), it can read a variety of faceted 3D formats, including STL, VRML, 3D Studio, AutoCAD 3D DXF, TrueSpace, and Wavefront (OBJ). It works with existing parts and assemblies, and lets you compose what are essentially digital mock-ups. It has all of the parts creation tools removed. IronCAD COMPOSE is essentially a CAD program for creating assemblies of assemblies. You can download it from IronCAD’s website, and you don’t need to pay anything. Or, if you prefer, you can save your compositions as animation files, rendered images, or 3D PDFs, and put them up on your website. And other people in your organization can use the IronCAD viewer to explore those compositions. You can lay out your office, or your assembly line, or most any other space you’d like, in full 3D. Your sales people can use it to create customer presentations of configure-to-order products. You can use it to create assembly instructions and animations for your factory. The important question is this: What can you use it for? That’s the simplistic explanation of how IronCAD COMPOSE works. These assemblies can be animated, rendered or exported to 3D PDF format. IronCAD COMPOSE lets you build up assemblies by dragging and dropping individual parts from catalog files. You then move those models and assemblies as you like, until you get an arrangement you like. Heres’s how it works: You open up a blank scene file in IronCAD COMPOSE, and then drag and drop models and assemblies from other CAD systems into that scene. IronCAD COMPOSE is one of those programs that takes too much work to describe. These vendors, of course, hope that you’ll love the software they’re giving away, and will buy their commercial software-but they’re not playing the “let’s give away useless software” game. They’re each from major software developers who sell commercial grade 3D MCAD software. Here are three free CAD software programs that offer something really special. But there are far fewer free programs in the CAD realm-if only because CAD software is incredibly difficult to create. There are thousands of kinds of free CAD software available. Free CAD software shouldn’t have to break the bank.

Freecad 2d cad software