(This FAQ page is regularly updated. See the rest of the FAQ pages.)

Today I’d like to take a moment to talk about the commonly practised but sometimes contentious subject of combining jewellery CAD programs together.

The Limitations of One Jewellery CAD Program

While every fine jewellery CAD program tries its best to provide all the tools a user might need to create jewellery, there are just some tasks which have stubbornly remained beyond the scope of a single piece of software. For CAD users faced with these tasks, it’s almost inevitable that they will have to discover creative solutions involving combining two programs together. Often, they discover that the advantages found in the design philosophies of one particular program can complement their main jewellery CAD program, or sometimes even offset the weakness of the other completely.

The trouble is, no self-respecting CAD software salesman will ever admit out loud that their software makes a good second choice to another program. Who can blame them? It’s not in their interest to start toting their main flagship as secondary to anything.

However, it makes sense that a good craftsman will always look for new and more efficient ways of getting your job done, and sometimes this can come from finding unorthodox combinations using existing tools.

What Works Well Together?

In this spirit, I have compiled a summary of some popular jewellery CAD software combinations mentioned by colleagues and from my own experiences. These have been grouped below by suitability for specific complex tasks which come up frequently in a professional CAD technician’s role. If you know of a combination which has consistently worked for you, then let me know and I’ll add it.

Please note that this is only meant as a list of tools to help make your existing work practices easier. I’m not holding any of these combinations superior to the others, nor am I suggesting by any means that you should go out and buy them all (even though I reckon that would please the software developers greatly). But if you find yourself working with any of the following processes all the time, and you’re already using one of the programs I’m listing, perhaps it might be worth giving that particular combination a look.

A Couple Notes Before We Begin

• All combinations listed below have been confirmed to be effective as of the most recently released versions of the specified software.
• I’m not endorsing any of these combinations over any others. They are just solutions myself or others have discovered to handle complex design problems efficiently.
• Once again, If I’ve missed a useful combination, please let me know.

 

Efficient Jewellery CAD Software Combinations

Best Combinations for 3D Sculpture and Texturing

3D sculpting and texture are the most common reason why users would combine two separate CAD programs. This is because the model architecture used to create NURBS models is not particularly well suited to creating surface textures.

There are several ways to get around this.

First, you can use a SubD modelling suite, either embedded in the software or as a plug-in. Specifically, 3Design has its Shaper tools, Rhino has a suite of SubD tools since version 7, and MatrixGold has its Clayoo plug-in.

Second, a portion of the model or all of it could be created using a mesh modelling tool. Carveco does exactly this for bas relief, which can be brought into any other 3D CAD program such as Rhino. Alternatively, Zbrush allows you to import a CAD model made in another 3D CAD program to sculpt and texture freely.

 

Best Combinations for Rendering Post-Production/Compositing

Post-production (also known as photo-editing) is an important part of refining images for presentation on a website or in print. This has always had a role in the rendering process.

Photoshop and its younger competitor Affinity Photo remain the best choices for refining rendered images from any jewellery CAD renderer.

 

Best Combinations for Converting Logo Images or Complex Hand Drawings into Jewellery (AKA Pixel-To-Vector Conversion)

While any CAD program is capable of importing a drawing or a logo image, being able to extract precision vector lines from a pixel image has never been as simple as just hitting a button to convert.

Having said that, Adobe Illustrator‘s Image Trace tool is as good as pixel-to-vector conversion is ever going to get. Indeed, that combination of Illustrator and Photoshop was designed to give total control over both image types. So when working with clean pixel logos without any aliasing issues this solution works well for creating vectored logos from pixel images. Affinity Designer has some of this capability as well to a lesser extent. There have also been efforts made to try to make image to vector tools in MatrixGold and RhinoArtisan, although they aren’t as effective as Adobe Illustrator.

Note that automated vector-to-pixel conversion will always have limitations. As often as not, it’s faster just to trace the shape. Every single 3D CAD program has a vector line tool suite, but even then Adobe Illustrator and Affinity Designer are well-suited for more efficient tracing than their 3D CAD counterparts.