depends a lot on what kind of design you want to do. Google has a free version of sketchup that is pretty versital if tou want to try something out without spending money. ZBRUSH by pixologic has a 30 day trial on their 3D which is a more intutive type sculpture program with a cost of around $600 dollars. there are quite a few others that can get pretty pricey but do a good job for engineering type design.

Hey Richard Karl is right Sketchup is great especially if its your first time looking to create in 3D.
I just started using it and wow I am loving it. :)

I have found turbocad is very good. I found a deluxe version online for much less than the companies prices, think I paid around 60 dollars for a slightly older version. sketchup is also good but I dont like it personally. I liked the turbocad deluxe so well I bought the pro version for aboout 150 dollars online and it didnt work with vista so i called the company that makes the software and they actually gave me an upgrade to a newer version (about a 1200 dollar value) free. I use this for my design business and love it (It has some quirks but I have gotten used to working with it). Alibre design also has a free version takes a little to get used to but is pretty good.

Hi Richard,

Sounds like some good advice here. I’ll add my two cents on top to confuse you a little more. I’m a graphic designer and have a lot of mechanical know how but am in no way an engineer. I work in Adobe Illustrator to do flat mechanical drawings which I then use parts from to 3D model in a modeling program called Carrara.

That works great for me. Carrara is not a CAD program, it’s designed for animation and for realistic renders. I’m trying to show what my idea could look like not exactly how it would work so between the two programs I can do the job.

I debated long and hard about buying CAD software and in the end after talking to a lot of people, engineers included I decided to continue as I have been doing. The reason is because even if I did start using CAD no one could ever use my CAD models to actually make the product because I’m not an engineer. I could build it in the software but it probably wouldn’t work in the real world because I do not have engineer training.

My suggestion is try some 3D software demos, find one you are comfortable using and don’t worry if it’s CAD or not as long as you can make good looking models.

I mostly use CorelDraw and some low cost photo editing software. Like Phil, I’m more interested in how the product looks than all of mechanical intricacies under the hood. The mechanics need to be doable and cost effective, but not my main focus.