Hoping to strike the right balance between those two issues, Autodesk has begun beta testing AutoCAD Fusion 360, a version of its popular AutoCAD engineering application running in the cloud.

While these programs certainly helped makers get into 3D modeling, most had serious limitations. Only a few have been truly open-source, and even fewer have been both open-source and parametric.

AutoCAD is a popular 3D modeling software that is widely used in the manufacturing industry. It is a comprehensive software that provides all the necessary tools for designing, engineering, and ...