@jmilton01 said: I am about to be contracted to model a large piece of flying machinery. Along with the model I will be providing schematics and interactive 3D environments so the mechanics can look at the way the engine is built or how the wing is assembled. This will be my first job doing this. I am fluent in most CAD softwares. However, I didn't know if some of you had any recommendations for which softwares to use with each other. For example, I was thinking about doing my modeling in Sketchup then using Inventor for my schematics. I'm not sure what to use so the end user (mechanic) can rotate the part and look at it or click a name in the bookmarks and the view change to that part, ect. All input is greatly appreciated. Edit: Hi josh. Would not really trust SU with precision. Inventor does stress tests as well ontop of what you stated. You could use SU to project a visualisation of what you intend to make. Quick and fast. Not sure how good SU pro exporters are since i use the free edition. Okay not really free since i had to pay over $1000 in plugins & renderers

The cool thing of the Sketchup version is that you can also export for IPAD About the 3D PDF itself that works very fine but don't use very heavy file!

I wonder what will happen with the use of a third dimension... Nice little DUH?!

ah, thank you gilles should have thought of that before i hope no one will comes up and saying, "here's another duh moment" though

You could try Profile Builder: http://www.smustard.com/script/ProfileBuilder http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVSFZ5yXn-A