Although it cannot create games or edit videos, Fusion 360 is one of the leading programs for 3D printing and is very popular among hobby designers.Īutodesk announced that Fusion 360 will be made available free of charge to hobbyists or start-ups that generate less than $100,000 per year in total revenue (this option will be available after the trial period ends). Fusion 360 is a design, editing and engineering platform. Autodesk developed the software in 2012 and released it for public release in 2013. The people behind Blender have built your network far and wide, including 3D modeling capabilities, STL export, animation, image and video editing, physics simulation and game development.įusion 360, on the other hand, is a much younger, much more specific software. It is designed to create 3D art, visual effects, animations, video games, and 3D printed models.Īll in all, if you want to do 3D work on your computer, Blender has what you need. Open source status means that the source code is freely distributed and open for customization, which has led to a wide acceptance of this software in the hobby community. We will make decisions between Blender and Fusion 360 based on several criteria, including:īlender (available since 1998), is an open source 3D computer graphics suite. In this article we take a look at two very popular CAD programs: Blender and Fusion 360.Įach CAD software has its own strengths and weaknesses. Simply put, CAD (Computer Aided Design) software allows you to create 3D objects and export them as STL files for printing.

But what happens if you get bored with all the STL files you find online? Or a downloaded 3D model does not quite meet your requirements? In these cases you should look more closely at CAD software. Many hobby designers will look for models for 3D printing on one of the many websites for 3D models like Thingiverse, MyMiniFactory or Pinshape.

Fusion 360 free for hobbyists