I’ve been working on designing some parts to print with my 3D printer. I started out with some CAD software, and it worked pretty well, but it was all extremely expensive, and at my skill level, it didn’t make any sense. So I decided to try this software, because I figured I’d want a good sculpting software for being able to create sculptures to print. I’ve been amazed by the capabilities of this software! Pretty much everything I was doing in CAD software I’ve been able to learn how to do in Nomad, even though CAD-level functionality isn’t really the scope of this software! Some things are a little bit harder than they would be on CAD, like adding edge chamfers, and precisely snapping objects together. But the same results can be achieved using some tricks in the software, such as creating a radial array of planes or rectangles at the angle you want a hard chamfer to be cut, hiding them, and then voxel merging. And for rounded edges, you can use the smoothing brush with certain settings. For precise alignment of objects you can use the XYZ coordinates of the two objects you’re trying to align. For scaling, you can pretend that 1 unit in Nomad = 1mm and then select the unit as millimeters when you go to slice and print it. You can create cavities in objects by creating the shape you want for the cavity, moving it into the other object you want to remove material from, hide the shape, and then voxel merge the two, and the software will form a cavity the shape of the object you inserted into the other one. Are these functions as quick as they possibly can be in CAD software? Probably not, but the convenience of being able to sculpt and do “CAD” stuff in the same app is well worth it! Also the fact that this is a software I can use on my phone as well for making touchups or working on small projects. That’s something that simply doesn’t exist with most CAD software. Are there still applications that CAD would be far better for? Absolutely. If you need simulations of how your part is going to work, if you’re designing something very complex like an engine, then CAD is definitely the way to go. But I’m not designing very complex parts, and even for some very complex parts, there’s no reason you couldn’t do these things in Nomad, it just might take a bit longer. I think for basic CAD work, Nomad is already at a point where you can do a lot. With a few more object-based modeling tools and functions, it would be even easier for this type of work. As this software currently is, the tricks and techniques in this app to do some of these CAD operations aren’t hard enough or time-consuming enough to deter me from using it that way. I just thought this might be an interesting perspective, because I don’t think many people have tried to use Nomad Sculpt like a CAD software, and I never cease to be amazed at how flexible this app really is!
I have made many videos on this topic, here is an example:
There are also several videos about this without the search term CAD in the title, which can be found via the playlists. I would have to make some videos NEW, because there are always updates with new options.
1 Like
This looks great! Thank you for making these helpful videos! . I love that this software has enough core functionality that it can be used for such a wide range of applications!