A chance meeting lead me to Fusion 360, and now I am trying my hand at 3D printing.
I first knew about 3D printing in 2002. I was teaching 3D solid modelling on AutoCAD then, commands like slice had just been introduced. I could see the potential then but the 3D printing machines were about £30,000 to buy.
Fusion 360 has a free working version that can only save ten models. The full version costs £400 or so. For now I am happy to learn with this free version. The learning curve is steep and my knowledge of AutoCAD perhaps gets in the way. Fusion 360 is back to front when compared to AutoCAD but that's not fair, I first used AutoCAD in 1984. 36 years on I should expect things to be different. To draw a line from one point to another is the same, draw a line that is tangential to a curve in AutoCAD you specify "Tan to" within the command. In Fusion 360 you draw the line near enough and then make it tangential to the curve.
Then I found that once a model was saved you could export the STL file. The file is then sent to anyone who has a 3D printer, well that's the next step.
