8 Good Computer-Aided Design Software That Are Open Source

1.Archimedes

Archimedes – "The Open CAD" – (also called Arquimedes) is a computer-aided design (CAD) program being developed with direct input from architects and architecture firms. With this design philosophy, the developers hope to create software better suited for architecture than the currently widely used AutoCAD, and other available CAD software.

2.Blender

Blender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software product used for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D printed models, interactive 3D applications and video games. Blender's features include 3D modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, raster graphics editing, rigging and skinning, fluid and smoke simulation, particle simulation, soft body simulation, sculpting, animating, match moving, camera tracking, rendering, video editing and compositing. Alongside the modelling features it also has an integrated game engine.

3.Calculix

Calculix is a free and open source finite element analysis application that uses a similar input format to Abaqus. It has an implicit and explicit solver (CCX) written by Guido Dhondt and a pre and post processor (CGX) written by Klaus Wittig. The pre processor component of Calculix can generate grid data for the Computational Fluid Dynamics programs duns, ISAAC and OpenFOAM. It can also generate input data for the commercial FEM programs Nastran, Ansys and Abaqus.

4.Code_Aster

Code_Aster is a free and open source software package for civil and structural engineering, finite element analysis, and numerical simulation in structural mechanics. Code_Aster contains 1,500,000 lines of source code, most of it in Fortran and Python, and is being constantly developed, updated and upgraded with new models. 

5.FreeCAD

FreeCAD is a general purpose parametric 3D CAD modeler. It is free software (GPL and LGPL License). FreeCAD is aimed directly at mechanical engineering and product design but also fits in a wider range of uses around engineering, such as architecture or other engineering specialities. FreeCAD is currently in a beta stage of development.

6.LibreCAD

LibreCAD is a free Computer Aided Design (CAD) application for 2D design. It works on GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, Unix and Microsoft Windows operating systems. LibreCAD was developed as a fork of QCad Community Edition. The GUI of LibreCAD is based on Qt4 libraries, so it runs on several platforms in the same way.

7.MeshLab

MeshLab is an advanced 3D mesh processing software system which is well known in the more technical fields of 3D development and data handling. MeshLab is free and open-source software, subject to the requirements of the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 2 or any later, and is used as both a complete package and a library powering other software.

8.QCad

QCAD is a free computer-aided design (CAD) software application for 2D design and drafting. It is available for Linux, Apple OS X, Unix and Microsoft Windows. The QCAD GUI is based on the Qt framework. QCAD is released under the GNU General Public License.