Mechanical 3D CAD Software galore!

As some of you I am a mechanical engineer in the aerospace industry. Over the years I have used several well known 3D CAD programs like Pro/ENGINEER, Solidworks, I-DEAS, and AutoCAD.  What do all these programs have in common? They are extremely EXPENSIVE! Our team can't afford to purchase any of these programs. Now most of these programs have "student" versions that are rather low cost. These are basically stripped-down versions of their commercial verisons which means that a significant amount of functionality has been stripped away. Plus many of them have licenses that expire after a year of two. That just won't do. So searched the Internet to see if there are any free 3D CAD software available in cyberspace. To my pleasant surprise there are quite a bit of free open source 3D CAD programs most of which I have never heard of. Some of the following that caught my eye and may have potential to be our design software include:

BRL-CAD

BRL-CAD is a powerful cross-platform Open Source combinatorial Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG) solid modeling system that includes interactive 3D solid geometry editing, high-performance ray-tracing support for rendering and geometric analysis, network-distributed framebuffer support, image and signal-processing tools, path-tracing and photon mapping support for realistic image synthesis, a system performance analysis benchmark suite, an embedded scripting interface, and libraries for robust high-performance geometric representation and analysis.

For more than 20 years, BRL-CAD has been the primary tri-service solid modeling CAD system used by the U.S. military to model weapons systems for vulnerability and lethality analyses. The solid modeling system is frequently used in a wide range of military, academic, and industrial applications including in the design and analysis of vehicles, mechanical parts, and architecture. The package has also been used in radiation dose planning, medical visualization, computer graphics education, CSG concepts and modeling education, and system performance benchmark testing among other purposes.

PowerSHAPE-e

A fully functional, 100% free, CAD solution. Featuring state-of-the-art surface creation and editing, PowerSHAPE-e allows you total design freedom, giving you the tools you need to create exciting 3D forms effortlessly. Achieve the perfect balance between form and function using PowerSHAPE-e’s unique blend of surface, solid and triangle modelling.

Autodesk123D

123D is a free solid modeling software program based on the same Autodesk technology used by millions of designers and engineers worldwide. Not an engineer? No problem, with Autodesk 123D you can design precise and makeable objects using smart tools that let you start with simple shapes and then edit and then tweak them into more complex shapes.

Blender

Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License.

---------------------------------------------

These are just some of the 3D CAD software that I came across. I'm sure there are many more. I look forward to researching many other CAD programs.