AutoQ3D CAD

Visual design is greatly enhanced thanks to the abundance and variety of applications you can install on a PC. These are used to create blueprints in construction, highly-detailed animated objects, or models for video games. Saved under special formats, these require programs like AutoQ3D CAD to be viewed and handled.

In terms of visuals, the application wraps all of its features in a simple interface, with a large, interactive preview area you can split into multiple view types and angles, a side properties panel for object manipulation, as well as an upper toolbar with quick access to operations you can perform.

File support isn't extensive, but it's enough to work with popular 3D object files such as 3DQ, DXF, OBJ, STL, and 3DS. These are available both for import and export. What you don't get to experience is analysis of your project in high quality, because there's no built-in render engine.

If you want to start your projects with what the application puts at your disposal, drawing tools are the ones to turn to. Accessed either from the upper toolbar or menu entry, these let you create lines, triangles, polygons, rectangles, boxes, spheres, text, circles, arcs, and cameras. Additional elements give you the possibility to spread a design with an array tool, region editing, resolve, as well as extrude.

For more comfort and easy editing, you can split your canvas in multiple regions so that you can view your objects from different angles at the same time. It's recommended to do so, mostly because you have a hard time using navigation controls.

These are used for zooming, panning and rotating, but need to be toggled. In fact, each function needs to be turned on and off, and can't be combined with anything else. For instance, when you can't exactly reach a specific angle while editing, you need to turn off the modification tool and select the one for navigation, thus making the whole process a little too time-consuming.

Editing can be a little confusing at first. The side panel lets you quickly select all created objects, but only puts a few, rudimentary options at your disposal, such as size and location values. For thorough editing you need to activate a specific state, which lets you resize, apply textures, array, rotate, extrude and more, by managing specific points and object surfaces.

To sum it up, AutoQ3D CAD comes with good intentions, but doesn't bring anything new on the market of 3D object creation and editing applications. It's a little rough around the edges, with editing and viewing tools taking a lot of time to use separately, especially because of their odd way of working. Not a lot of variety is found, with shallow editing, no presets, or renderer for high-quality feedback. In the end, you have a hard time modifying and creating even simple objects.