Free 3D CAD software

[Ryan M.]

Has anyone actually installed the software and scanned for viruses or spyware yet? Once you do and it passes, then I will register... maybe.

[Not2B]

And if they don't get 100,000 people?

You get nothing but junk mail for years?

They said nothing on their site to make me think it was for real. It was more marketing speak than anything else...

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by DeepWater

I heard about this a week or so ago and surfed around and from what I can tell the speculation is that X-CAD = Alibre (www.alibre.com).

Alibre is based out of Richardson TX, and X-CAD out of Austin.
Could be a possibility I guess.

But the webmistress of the X-CAD site uses a hotmail e-mail account as her main contact. Kind of fishy.
And the address provided leads to a park in Austin. Even more fishy.

Meh, that's what secondary e-mail addresses are for.
Just call me #56480.

[[527]phil]

We'll thats why i have more than 1 e-mail address, actually 5, so I'm #55,884, #55,885, #55,886, and #55,889

[jdiwnab]

Originally Posted by DeepWater

I heard about this a week or so ago and surfed around and from what I can tell the speculation is that X-CAD = Alibre (www.alibre.com). I think (90% sure) the offer is real but I haven't signed up yet because I can't quite figure out what the catch is yet. I am thinking they give you a crippled copy of Alibre for free and offer you an upgrade to the full version for a discounted price or something. Think about it. Even if the upgrade was $50 or maybe $100 with an instant user base of 100,000 people that would be an easy $5,000,000 to $10,000,000. You have to give it to them. It's a neat marketing scheme.

I have tried Alibre and have found it so finikey and touchy that it is difficult to do some basic things like extrude. It took me an hour to do in Alibre what it took 20 minutes to do in Inventor. Even it this is real, if it is a crippled version of Alibre, then it is going to be very bad.

[ChuckDickerson]

Just reviving this thread in case anyone was considering signing up for X-CAD. It looks like they are at 99,200+ and will hit the 100,000 mark today or tomorrow. I went ahead and signed up yesterday but only gave them my name and email NOT my phone number so we will see what happens. I figure the worst that will happen is I can send their junk email to the spam folder.

EDIT: Looks like X-CAD = Alibre Xpress

http://www.alibre.com/xpress/news/press-release.asp

[sanddrag]

Yep, that's cool to know it is for real. Even though most say Alibre is aweful, it is free (and probably the best you can get for free) so I created a spam account and registered for it.

[ChuckDickerson]

Would I be considered overly pessimistic to wonder if their server is going to mysteriously crash 1 second after the 99,999th person registers so that the last 100,000th person is unable to register and blow the whole deal but they now have 99,999 email addresses??? We'll just have to wait and see now I guess.

[mechanicalbrain]

608 more people!!!

[mechanicalbrain]

293!!!

[mechanicalbrain]

200 LEFT!!! hurry up and get yours

[spears312]

I've never heard or seen much about alibre, but heck, if it's going to be free, I'm game, especially since I don't have any CAD software right now. Looks like they are ~60 out from having all 100,000.

Update: Looks like we have reached the magic number (and evidentially have passed it). Nothing yet though.

[sanddrag]

100,000!

[miketwalker]

100,009 and no link.... hmmmm...

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by miketwalker

100,009 and no link.... hmmmm...

I was thinking the same thing, but maybe it either takes time to send out 100,000 e-mails or maybe they won't be sending it until August 1st.