Between the Lines: The brand new Autodesk 123D Design is a 3D software package for everyone especially the Maker market or the young children and students interested in design and technology to those Makers and their parents and grandparents.
Did I mention this is FREE…
10 comments:
Wow! This looks great! It's awesome that it was designed to be so user friendly with kids in mind. Right now there isn't much CAD software that is user friendly and doesn't require some amount of specific skills. It's fantastic that kids will be able to use this to start to learn CAD as well as other skills that come along with it. This is free, too!! I'm so glad this will be so readily available. Autodesk is really good about making their software available - mostly to students, and I'm impressed that this is completely free. Free software is almost unheard of at this point, but it's nice to see Autodesk's commitment to education.
Well I'm not really sure how much this will teach, or really help an individual develop skills in digital design and art past 10-12 year old kids. This program appears to be incredibly simple, especially as it's free source...it's kind of like the Paint of the 3D design/rendering world.
(Gets on soapbox)
My good friend Luke Foco once said, "Yeah, but how cool would be to as an 8 year-old to say 'Hang on a minute, I gotta go print me another G.I. Joe...'" Which I agree with, but on other hand, what 8 year-old kid has the patience to sit and wait for his Makerbot printer to extrude his G.I. Joe, and furthermore....WHAT 8 YEAR_OLD KID HAS A MAKERBOT PRINTER! GO PLAY OUTSIDE!
(Gets off soapbox)
I for one am against this. I have spent a lot of money and time learning how to 3D Cad Draft. I also am teaching a few classes to the undergrads in this topic. If Autodesk makes this too user friendly, my skills will be devalued and my means to make a living will be in jeopardized. I would participate in a class action law suit, “The Working Draftsman vs. AutoCAD 123D”
I was never able to dive fully into 123d projects. Not yet at least. It wasn't until I started playing with Inventor, one of Autodesk's big hitters in 3d design and engineering, and the now under appreciated and overlooked Inventor Fushion that I realized that 123d used the same engine behind Inventor. 123d is like Invetor Ultra-Lite. Is it a great CAD program? Not really. Is it easier than Sketchup? Don't know never used it. But these new Autodesk apps, Catch, Make, and now Design are not designed to be CAD programs per se but rather quick and easy 3d modeling programs. Autodesk is marketing them to users with the intent of making or prototyping something. By designing these complimentary 123d programs that interface with cameras, 3d printers, the iPad, and most other Autodesk programs, Autodesk is putting pretty powerful and better, free, tools in people's hands. They allow just as much, if not more, prototyping outlets than Sketchup. Are these programs meant to teach digital design? I don't think so but can they aid in someone's ability to design? Absolutely. I used 123d Make to sketch a prototype for the Antigone rock. Even though we didn't have the resources to CNC or laser cut the blanks it was a fast and easy way to communicate the geometry I wanted to use on the project. I probably didn't need to 3d model it all, it was just quick and easy. That's what this will do. In a world where almost all design is generated with the help of software, it's nice to have a simple way in. It also doesn't hurt to have Autodesk, Instructables, and the Makerbot on your side either.
@Joseph Tolle
Not every 8 year has a 3d printer, ys.
How many 8 year-olds have Legos? How many 8 year-olds have computers? Doesn't it make sense to combine those two worlds? Children won't learn complicated structural or mechanical design from using toy building blocks just like they won't learn sophisticated 3d design skills from 123d Design. That doesn't mean we should not encourage digital creativity.
Okay, this is incredibly awesome. "No complex CAD skills required" is my favorite part. I love that this is now a thing, but it seems like they're just copying other free design software, such as Google's Sketchup, and other similar things. They need a market for their paid products, and a market for software is getting harder and harder to hold onto these days. That said, even if that is their motivation, this is cool, so I'll take it.
A closer look makes me think this isn't really useful for any professional purposes, but hey, if it helps kids learn and be interested in art and design, that's still great.
I feel like all these software companies are kind of nibbling around the edges of what will eventually be some really great, intuitive, yet precise, useful and inexpensive 3D modelling platform that you can run on your watch, easily interfaces with 3D printers and CNC devices via the very ether, and takes ideas directly out of your brain and atomically restructures discarded banana peels to produce them. But they'll still be wrong. Maybe then we will all finally realize it wasn't the computer or the software or the mill that has ever been the problem with the process, but the brain.
This software looks great not because it might become industry standard someday or become integral to designing Boeing planes, I’m sure it will never do either of those things, but because it provides an introduction to 3D modeling that is accessible to everyone. When I say everyone, I am referring to young children and broke college students alike. When I was in elementary school, I remember going to the computer lab every week to play with phonics and other basic creative software. If basic 3D modeling software had also been available to by ten-year-old self, I’m sure I would have been all over it. Something like this could spark a child’s interest in engineering, giving them a platform to explore their interests at a young age. I can see 123D being equally useful to students exploring 3D modeling. AutoCAD 3D is rather intimidating with its steep learning curve, but this program would provide students with an accessible door into the CAD world. It is likely that anyone interested would go on to explore more advanced CAD programs anyway, which is why I don’t feel that this software poses any real threat to professional draftsmen.
This seems like a fun program to play around with. 3D modeling is definitely becoming more prominent, but sometimes I question the functionality and need for 3D modeling. If you use all the capabilities it has to render, make sections, and what not then right on. I dont know many people with a 3D printer that would want a free software that is so simple, maybe thats me thinking if you got a printer do it right. It will be interesting to see if this takes off and if it actually will help individuals, and younger individuals, become better at 3D modeling. It might be a good starting program.
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