Sketch Up is so fast and simple.
A great 3d study tool.

Rhino is great for CNC routers and all that jazz.

My brief experience with Studio Max is that it is clumsy and difficult to get a handle on. It may be powerful but is overly complex and annoying to learn.

Don't know other 3d programs.

my assessment:

Rhino -- best for fabrication in my opinion too.

Studio Max -- i sincerely don't see the use in this thing anymore. with rendering engines like maxwell and vray that can be tightly integrated into rhino and maya, studio max's fort is still in low poly count models and transformations (which maya can do though). i don't know about it's latest release, but it had huge stability issues when i used it during a summer internship internship two years ago.

Microstation GC -- never used it.

Lightwave -- i haven't used lightwave in 4 years. back then it had the clunkiest interface ever, only second to blender's clunkiness.

Cinema 4D -- the most intuitive modeling interface i've yet to encounter. it has a pretty intuitive rendering engine too -the stochastic lighting and easy to use image based lighting is awesome. i was introduced to 3d modeling by this program.

Revit -- never used it. i really should learn this.

Maya -- best single modeling program if you are going to produce images/renderings as your final product. the scripting engine the most powerful one of all of these in my opinion, and it integrates super tightly with maxwell.

the thing is, if you end up going super hardcore on the rendering side, maya will allow for a lot of control through mental ray.

Form Z -- never used it.

XSI -- i really want to try this out. the ICE scripting feature looks really really cool.

Maxwell -- best photorealistic rendering engine when it comes to setup time / quality.

V-Ray -- best diagrammatic rendering engine available when it comes to setup time / quality.

Mental Ray -- best overall engine if you had a couple of full work days to devote to learning it. i remember a partner in the first i interned for actually going off and saying "those plexi-models are really nice" and my boss going "naw man, those are rendering c. dished out.".

if you have time to go REALLY hardcore you can learn to code shaders which essentially control every single aspect of a material's interaction with light. as an example of what can be done, check out http://divine-error.deviantart.com who actually specializes in coding shaders (and making cute witty images out of his girlfriend's sketches).

I've been using Form Z for a long time now. I have extensive experience with other modeling programs and Form Z's been the best, most stable solid-modeling program i've encountered despite how dippy it looks. they really should hire a decent graphic designer. would probably do wonders for its customer base.

I can tell you that many product designers are currently using Rhino, and they have been for 5+ years now. Solidworks is another that is a favourite, but my experience with that is limited - my impression is that it's more appropriate for mechanical designers. And anything auto or transport (boat, plane, helicopter, aerospace) is done in CATIA.

Digital projects by Gehry Technologies is really good. It's the arch version basically of CATIA. Parametric and hard as hell to use but fabrication wise it can do some incredibly sophisticated things. Ball Nogues have been using it for their installations (judgement of their work left for you to decide). But they're fundamentally legitimizing their work by way of the fabrication and the digital processes they use.


2 Books I like:
From Control to Design: Parametric / ALgorithmic Architecture
and Digital Materiality in Architecture (Gramazio & Kohler)

sketchup doesnt belong on this list. shouldnt be allowed on the list. call me an ass, i dont care.

Solidworks?

wht about kerkythea

the user interface for digital project leaves a lot to be desired. also the version changes are not backward compatible enough. me and colcol spent a whole semester working out a structurally inspired parametric system in digital project, and when it was updated last year, the models would run, but changing a parameter would create a million errors. it had something to do with it not dealing well with parent child hierarchies. rather lame.

also the scripting engine leads a lot of be desired. even though maya forces me to do parametrics from the ground up when scripting, dp left a lot of things to be desired in terms of specific functions that you could not access via macro scripts back then.

*leaves

thanks for the replies everyone!

I forgot CATIA and Digital project, far superior fabrication programs to rhino but also financially prohibitive for most single-users...

johnszot - is form Z reliable for exporting 3d models for fabrication?

Yes, Solidworks, by Dassault (same company as Catia). Again, it's a rather engineering-oriented program, but it's always good to know you have options.

isn't kerkythea rendering only software??

“Shape to Fabrication” Architectural Conference is on its IVth now?

Pro E and Inventor are both parametric modelers that appear to have strong simulation capabilities and are specifically tailored to manufacturing. I only have limited experience with inventor 2009, but the commands and UI are very intuitive to anyone with an intermediate 3d experience. I believe 2010, like most ADSK products has switched to the ribbon.

Anti- They had the Shape to Fabrication 3 symposium april 15, 2009 and even showed a sneak peak Rhino 5 version (won't be ready for a while though) with one of the most important updates: an automatic spelling correction!!!

I started using Form Z when I started out, moved to Maya, then Max and finally Rhino... There isn't another software more frustrating and unstable to use then Form Z imo.. plus Its too technical so unless you want your designs looking like they were created in CAD, i say avoid it. Maya and Max are excellent for lighting, animation, rendering etc.

I've recently started using Rhino and must say its the best all round tool... Some say its limiting when designing, but if you know the tools well, it gives you the best of all worlds

yes it is the best of all works it can do what many other tools were needed for

and v5 is production ready i have been using it each day since April. barbaric, download it if you have v4.. http://download.rhino3d.com/rhino/5.0/wip/

Remember that for fabrication you need a particular kind of accuracy, which most of the polygon modelers like 3DS won't give. Car designers etc use surface and solid modelers which are based on NURBS geometry. Rhino is a great NURBS surface modeler. You have also got SolidThinking on mac and PC which is a step up from rhino and Alias Studio which is an industry standard.
For solid modelers you have got solidworks, pro/e, NX etc. Solid modelers are more like BIM in that the parts have real material qualities allowing you to do calculations etc.
Digital Project from Ghery, like barbaric said, is from CATIA which is probably the industry leading solid modeler. With so much 'double curvature' architecture these days the BIM and solid modeling worlds are coming together.
Solid modeling goes even further with PLM (Product lifecycle management) where the digital file takes you all the way through to the manufacturing floor and beyond to servicing when the built object is being used. In a way this is where BIM is going.

autocad or pro-e if your looking to do full scale prototypes that work. if your looking to do basic models/3d-printed/etc then stick to the other programs.