I was on AutoDesk's 123D site yesterday, looking to see the state-of-the-art printing, and they offered a direct download of something called MeshMixer, which I thought was one of their products, but it's developed by other people, and the darned thing is free.

It can import obj files and you can do some zBrush-like things in it, Boolean operations, some primitives to get you started, and it's completely free. They don't even email you friendy messages three times a week.


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MeshMixer

The UI support and hints make it self-explanatory although they have PDF docs for the program. Here's waht I was able to do in about 15 minutes:

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It doesn't have a rendering engine, so if you want final product for free, you might want to get a copy of LuxRender. I found it quite relaxing to build freeform objects. I already have programs that have all the features of MeshMixer, but that's not the point. It's just a tidy little parcel that can make organic 3D shapes that might be nice to sketch in Xara when you don't feel like toting a camera somewhere for resource images.

My Best,

Gary