Posted by Dave Lock on August 19, 2001 at 19:50:05:In Reply to: 3d cad for cabinet design, rendering & installation posted by Donald J. DaCosta on August 17, 2001 at 06:58:02:
It depends what output quality you are looking for (such as photo realistic rendering etc.), but I don't think your computer will handle anything but a basic 3D application. For example, I use a full blown 3D modelling and animation program, & I have a Pentium 700 with 256Mb of RAM & 32Mb of video RAM running Windows 2000, & some of my complex renders can take over 12 hours! I'm looking to double my RAM, double my video RAM, & get a Pentium 1GHz to help.
3D is very hardware intensive, so I think you may need to consider a hardware upgrade.
The 'lightest' 3D program that I know of (& it is FREE incidently) is Anim8or. It needs a minimum of a Pentium 300 with 64Mb of RAM (128Mb recommended) & an OpenGL video card.
Maybe a light CAD package with 3D capabilities might suit your machine, but it cetainly won't output quality images for you. Even high end CAD programs don't produce very good quality rendered images, when compared to 3D computer graphics modelling and animation programs.
Hope this helps,
D.L.