What's New? In CAD

Opinion by Ralph Grabowski

Oct 16, 2025

Manual arrangement of parts, which now has logical groupings

◇ Arvin Poddar shows us how he uses CAD to construct models from paper, taking advantage of 3D models made of polyhedron meshes, flattening them like sheet metal, and then gluing them together.

He illustrates this with a model of an SR-71 aircraft at www.arvinpoddar.com/blog/3d-modeling-with-paper.

◇ “It’s wild that at some point everyone stopped talking about NFTs/ SPACs/ Metaverse/ Web3/ Smart speakers/ Blockchain, and just carried on like nothing had happened, and it worked out fine for everyone being totally wrong.”

-Tom Goodwin

◇ Thingverse offers thousands of 3D models downloadable in STL format suitable for 3D printing. I especially liked this flower pot.

View and download from www.thingiverse.com.

◇ QGIS is a free open-source geographical information system (GIS) that runs on Linux, MacOS, and Windows. It supports raster, vector, mesh, and point cloud data, as well as data abstraction frameworks.

Download the code from github.com/qgis/QGIS.

◇ As best as I recall, Moment of Inspiration by Triple Squid Software Design was the first CAD program to operate largely by touch. That took a whole lot of rethinking about how to implement the user interface.

It is still available for $295 from moi3d.com/index.htm.

◇ Pepakura Designer from Tama Software unfolds 3D models into patterns for paper crafting. Imports OBJ, 3DS, and STL formats, and exports DXF and PDF, among other formats. $69 for a lifetime license.

Download from pepakura.tamasoft.co.jp/pepakura_designer.

◇ FOSS (free and open-source software) is attractive, because it incurs no license and royalty fees, and some of it is of very high quality. Indeed, much of the software I highlight here is FOSS. But the kind of developer that uses FOSS might not be prepared for law suits from jealous competitors.

F-Droid offers tips on how to handle legal takedown requests at f-droid.org/2025/09/10/how-foss-projects-handle-legal-takedown-requests.html.

◇ PTC continues to offer a version of its Creo design software for free. Creo Direct Molding Express edits with direct cut-and paste, push-and-pull, and drag-and-drop. Running it requires registration from https://www.ptc.com/en/products/creo/elements-direct/modeling-express.

◇ Metasequoia from tetraface does 3D modeling with polygons. For instance the Bone function deforms bones, and the Morph function slides vertices. Among the CAD file formats it imports and exports are DXF and STL. Runs on Windows and Mac. $100. Compare the Standard and EX editions at www.metaseq.net/en/editions.html.

“When an architect designs a building that collapses, his career is ruined. When an intellectual creates an idea that unravels society, he gets speaking engagements.”

-Seán Ono Lennon

◇ “If you understand the AI alignment problem, you understand that advocating for AI accelerationism means betraying humanity.”

-Geoffrey Miller

◇ “Life is not machine readable.”

-Neil Turkewitz

◇ “Technology folk always misunderstand what it is to be human.”

-Tom Goodwin

◇ “Their revolutionary business model consists of wedging themselves between existing markets and participants, then bleeding both sides dry with escalating fees and commissions.

This has become the dominant tech playbook.”

-Joan Westenberg

finis