I would like to get better at creating high quality 2d technical drawings, so, especially after struggling and failing to get CAD software to produce drawings, I'd like one that is specific to the 2d technical drawing purpose. My question is: What are the best tools for creating 2d technical drawings, which have the ability to import 3d STL and create the 2d drawings based on that 3d model? But I don't want to purchase one just to find out that it's 2d technical drawing capabilities are just an afterthought, as appears to be the case with OpenSCAD and FreeCAD. That, in addition to their 3d modeling ability, should ensure that I could start with my 3d STL in creating the drawings. Having tried these free options, I realize I may have to purchase one of the purchasable cad options: fusion360, autocad, solidworks, or catia, which I've read have some ability to generate 2d drawings. I am less familiar with it than with OpenSCAD, but read that it has the same issues that I have with OpenSCAD, namely in being good for modeling but not good for drafting 2d technical drawings. I also noticed DraftSight, but think that runs into the same problem, as I have read that it is 2d-only as well.įreeCAD I installed and imported into it my STL. I looked into LibreCAD, but it apparently does not support importing 3d STL files, according to this. OpenSCAD can, however, export to various formats including STL, and I thought perhaps there is some technical drawing software that could import the STL and use that as a starting point to make the 2d drawings. I tried using OpenSCAD's wireframe view, but that did not hide hidden lines, and in other ways just generally did not seem tailored to the purpose of creating high quality technical 2d drawings. I've created a 3d model using OpenSCAD, and now need to convert that into various 2d technical drawings for use in a patent application.

2d drawing in freecad