Railworks America

PTC has a free parametric solid modeler:

http://www.ptc.com/products/creo-elements-direct/modeling-express/



It is a parametric modeler:



Changing the dimension in the box changes the model. The dimension can be changed later:



Creo exports a "vmrl" which will import into Blender and Crafter where it can be textured:





I use PTC's Pro-Engineer for modeling and after a few minutes Creo looks like it is really good for modeling.

Hope that helps someone
Harold

Hmm! Interesting. Have you tried getting it into RW?

RSPaul wrote:Hmm! Interesting. Have you tried getting it into RW?

If you can get it into Blender or Crafter it can be textured and put in RW.

This is a model I did in Pro-Engineer, Creo' s big brother, brought in as ".obj" and textured in Crafter:



The VRML exporter produces the same model with less polys. That is the model in the pictures imported into Creo as a "step" and exported to Blender/Crafter.

I found having done "parametric" modeling it is difficult to wrap my head around the vagueness of "artsy" modelers.

Harold

I still find myself building models in TSM then importing them into 3DCanvas for texturing.
I do want to try and learn Blender though.

Hawk wrote:I still find myself building models in TSM then importing them into 3DCanvas for texturing.
I do want to try and learn Blender though.

Try Creo, you will find parametric modeling is easy and more flexible than TSM. Yeah, I have tried them all Max, Blender, Crafter and even TSM. Could never get comfortable building models in them.

My "SimpleWagon" from Max:



Harold

Parametric modeling, huh? I had to look that one up but it does sound interesting. I might have to give it w whirl.
I always did hate to have to move faces/edges around after making a small change to some face.
Can you 'punch' holes in a model, say for an inset door or window?

I did a little more snooping around on the Creo web site. I never did find out how much the Pro version costs. That kind of turns me away a bit.

Then I found this in the version compare list.


Now why would the free version require an Internet connection, other than to download the program? Is this some of that cloud garbage that's all the rave these days? A definite turn off for me.

A little more snooping around and I found this:


I think I'll just stick with what I have. Heck, I haven't even installed Blender yet. Just thinking about it so far.

The Pro version runs about $5000.

There is a personal use version for $240.

http://store.ptc.com/store?Action=AddItemToRequisition&Locale=en_US&SiteID=ptc&productID=208425000

Sorry about the "live" internet connection thing I think the 72 hour re-registration is for off line use.

Creo appears to have replaced Pro-Engineer. I am really out of the loop.

Harold

No need to be sorry about anything. It sounded like a nifty program. I'm just not to crazy about the re-registering every 3 days for the free version and I can't afford either of the pay versions.