TechLab Resources
General Guides & Troubleshooting
What is 3D Printing? The definitive guide to additive manufacturing - https://www.hubs.com/guides/3d-printing/ - In this guide you’ll find everything you need to know about 3D printing, starting with the very basics to post-processing techniques.
Ultimaker 3D Prints Troubleshooting Guide - https://ultimaker.com/en/resources/tips-tricks/3d-prints - This guide shows all kinds of ugly prints and explains what may have caused them, which can either be hardware, software or material related.
3D Modeling/CAD Software
Computer programs used for developing a mathematical representation of any three-dimensional surface of objects.
Online/Cloud-Based
Onshape - http://www.onshape.com - Onshape is a professional 3D CAD system – Parts, Assemblies, Drawings – with version control and collaboration built in. All of Onshape’s CAD and data management functionality is included in each subscription (Free, Professional, and Enterprise) with no expiration date.
Vectary - http://www.vectary.com - VECTARY is a new free online 3D modeling tool with which you can create, share and customize 3D designs. VECTARY is a combination of standard mesh modeling, subdivision modeling and parametric plugins. It was built from scratch to make 3D modeling easy-to-use for beginners, and is also useful to pros.
Free/Open Source
OpenSCAD - https://openscad.org/ - "The Programmers Solid 3D CAD Modeller" - OpenSCAD is a free software application for creating solid 3D CAD (computer-aided design) objects. It is a script-only based modeller that uses its own description language; parts can be previewed but cannot be interactively selected or modified by mouse in the 3D view.
Blender - http://www.blender.org - Blender is a professional free and open-source 3D computer graphics software product used for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D printed models, interactive 3D applications and video games. Blender's features include 3D modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, raster graphics editing, rigging and skinning, fluid and smoke simulation, particle simulation, soft body simulation, sculpting, animating, match moving, camera tracking, rendering, video editing and compositing. It further features an integrated game engine.
Professional/Education-Licensed
Autodesk Inventor - http://www.autodesk.com/inventor - 3D CAD software is used for product design, rendering, and simulation. It uses ShapeManager, their proprietary geometric modeling kernel. Autodesk Inventor competes directly with SolidWorks. Autodesk Education Master Suite downloads and licenses are available to Caltech students and educators on http://software.caltech.edu.
Mesh Manipulation/STL Repair
Tools with different functions for manipulating, analyzing and repairing 3D meshes
Meshmixer - http://www.meshmixer.com | Documentation - http://www.mmmanual.com - Meshmixer is a fully fledged free modeling solution that is also capable of hollowing, scaling and mesh simplification. This is a robust tool that offers much by way of mesh manipulation. Highly recommended.
MeshLab - http://www.meshlab.net/ - MeshLab is an open source system for processing and editing 3D triangular meshes. It provides a set of tools for editing, cleaning, healing, inspecting, rendering, texturing and converting meshes. It offers features for processing raw data produced by 3D digitization tools/devices and for preparing models for 3D printing. Highly recommended.