Better pack a lunch.
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I have my lunch, some snacks and a six-pack of metaphoric brew! 
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I’m in the same boat as far as not knowing where to start with CAD. I’m thinking of working up an “advanced beginner” type of project to use as a common exercise and just trying out a few of the programs suggested in this topic.
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I tried several. Fusion, openscad, tinkercad, sketchup, onshape, librecad. I learned something from each one and the skills were mostly transferrable.
I would suggest you just pick one and try it. The browser and free ones are easier to start with, because they require no commitment. That’s my honest recommendation. Just try which ever one you want and then pick another one.
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My kind of acceptance 
I think it might be helpful if some of the more experienced here who have toured a few different types of the available software and give a quick rundown as some are no doubt better for sign-making, some for copying pictures, some for original designs, etc.
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The big line in the sand is art vs. dimensions. Inkscape, illustrator, etc. are much better at sign making, logo art, text.
CAD, is what I would call all the ones I mentioned plus solidworks (which I’ve never tried). There are also some huge professional tools that go even further. The CAD space is definitely multidimensional. But the main sliding scale is beginner vs. advanced. Stuff like tinkercad and sketchup are easier to learn, but some complex parts are really hard or impossible to make in them. I would even put openscad in that category. As you climb up you get special features which take longer to learn, but they allow you to work faster or easier once you know what to do. It’s more complicated than that, and there are weird flip flops.
I went over some of this if the software workflow doc. There are overlaps. You can do dimensional drawings in inkscape and art in solidworks. But not many people would recommend that.
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I saw this. Seems like a neat tool right now (while you can run plugins):
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Thanks this is great… I have soooo many designs in fusion it would be impossible to do this manually.
I have a feeling this will be running all night.
Justin’s script seems to work great! It is nice to have my projects exported just in case.
Maker’s Muse threw up a video about the changes and he lists out some good alternatives.
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I think that Jeffeb3 is on the right track, here. Trying to find the one CAD/Vector Art program that will do everything evermore is a hopeless quest. I’m pretty new to the engineering aspects of all of this, mostly came up doing architecture, games modeling, VFX. So my goal is to make mostly fine/commercial art, and not try to be a machinist.
My basic CAD tool kit is:
Autodesk 3dsmax: Most modeling.
Fusion 360: Filleting that 3dsmax can’t handle, CAM
ZBrush: 3D sculpture
Illustrator: Actual graphics, to be moved into 3dsmax.
I don’t know that I’d heartily recommend 3dsmax to everyone, I’ve just used it since before the beginning. Love the spline tools, though! For me, personally, I can’t say that I’ll miss some of those advanced features in F360 that I’ll never use. Sometimes cracking open F360 is like opening up an overstuffed hall closet- too much stuff in there!
Business first, THANKS again to jeffe for finding that export script. Motivated me to clean out all the garbage files I haven’t gotten around to, so they wouldn’t export, and then it worked like a charm. GREAT STUFF.
Now, I’ve been screwing around with freeCAD for the last couple days, and one of us has definitely gotten much better. It’s quite possible that it’s every bit as good as fusion, GUI not included. I still have to learn where some of the features are, but it seems quite capable and configurable.
That said, none of these recent changes to Fusion really bother me much at all. I don’t like being locked in to a choice between proprietary Autodesk files or STLs, but it’s not the end of the world. The cloud storage is a bigger issue for me, honestly. Anybody else have the program hang up, and then wait and wait just to find out it’s trying to sync over a spotty internet connection? On the other hand, my main computer just took a giant crap all over the bed (looks like the MB) and will be down for about 3 weeks give or take, so that cloud storage I’m griping about means my 3d printer build can proceed from the laptop.
I’d like to know where everyone else is coming down on this. I think I’m going to start trying freeCAD first and only switching to Fusion if I can’t finish a job or if I run out of time to try. Not because Fusion has offended me, but because OPEN SOURCE and I think it’s important to be able to use a skill with different tools, or else it isn’t really a skill at all. You know, the difference between “I can design something” and “I can use this software”.
I capitulated and purchased the 3 year subscription. Frankly, I need that much time to get ramped up and capable in QCad/QCAM (Which I also purchased) while looking for a 3d Cad alternative. I spend a few to several hours per day in Fusion360, I just didn’t want to deal with the growing pains of learning something new in a compressed time frame.
I’m almost there as well. I think the free version is still mostly OK for me, but I won’t be surprised if I just spend some money because I LIKE it so damned much. It really is a great product…for paying customers.
Quite a lot of discussion on this thread on reddit about alternatives. Most of the popular ones are talked about over there. Onshape, SolidWorks, and FreeCAD to name a few.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fusion360/comments/iv929n/alternatives_to_fusion/
Having manually, one file at a time, just exported most of my files in .STEP and .F3D formats I now find out that I could have automated the process. So for anyone who has yet to export their data:
The great thing about the timing of all this is that it’s given me a chance to look once again at all of the alternatives. I had not drawn so much as a box in the software that I had already labeled conFusion360 and every time I’d go to get started I become overwhelmed by some side issue.
Realistically I don’t have enough time left on earth for too many more learning curves! OnShape seems to suit the way my brain works (at first glance anyway) so I am fairly sure that my CAD experience will start there this week.
Once I have a fair idea of how things go together because as you say: OPENSOURCE, (and also local machine based stuff) I’ll have a crack at FreeCAD.
Which leads me to the not unrelated, but still over the horizon… CAM. My first impression is that for the cost of buying Parallels for one of my Macs and a legit copy of Windoze, I’d have a fair budget for a paid bit of kit! That, I think will be the subject of an entirely new thread once this first bridge has been crossed!
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Cool. there are some other alternatives. @jeffeb3 gave a link to one of those scripts about 10 meesages back. I had a problem with long filenames in assemblies with it, but think I have shortened the filenames enough now. I had 552 files to convert.
Can I ask that as people investigate alternativesl, they indicate the operating system they are using.
For example FreeCAD might work well on Windows, my experience was it was unstable on Mac Mojave.
Could save people a lot of time (well me for example)
Thanks
Rob
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