Before CAD services became mainstream, advertisers and other marketing professionals had relatively little choice but to go through the expense of a carefully designed product photography shoot. These shoots not only cost them a fortune, but there was also no guarantee that the product would be shown to its best advantage. With CAD, not only can you expect a crystal-clear 3D rendering of your product, but every detail in the frame can be carefully controlled to perfection.
Lighting, camera angle, and product quality can be easily set up when you use a 3D product modeling service. The renders are so realistic that you often can’t tell them apart from the real thing.CAD has become an essential part of businesses for a variety of reasons, from animal and human safety to simple cost-effectiveness. You can use a model to do pretty much anything these days, and at a fraction of the cost of the real thing. If you’re looking for free 3D product models you can use in your own business, here are our top 10 picks for free 3D model websites.
Cad Crowd – 3D models
Cad Crowd has a collection of 3D models contributed by over 50,000+ industry designers, engineers, and 3D modelers. The downloads have a variety of licenses including creative commons attribution for sharing and incorporating into 3rd party projects. A majority of the designs are in the mechanical engineering and product design space.
3D Warehouse
If you’re at all familiar with CAD, you’ve probably heard of SketchUp. 3D Warehouse is an online collection of 3D models associated with SketchUp. You can get a full range of different 3D models on 3D Warehouse, including furniture, animals, and architecture. The 3D models are available for free in connection with your SketchUp account or get access to more models through the subscription program.
CG Trader
CG Trader is a place where you can buy and sell computer-generated models. It also has a large selection of free models from artists hoping to get their work out there. While there are plenty of models for sale on here, CG Trader offers a filter that lets you look for only free models. There is a huge variety of models to choose from on CG Trader. It has everything from “crowds” to give life to your 3D architecture designs to interiors of kitchens, cars, or androids. Whatever you can imagine is probably available on CG Trader, and the odds are good you’ll have at least one free option.
3D Export
3D Export is a 3D modeling company that has a great free offer to those interested in their free 3D models. If you subscribe to their email list, they will send you six free 3D models every week and promise no SPAM to go along with it. If you are doubtful of how true that is, or simply don’t want to share your email address, they also have over 300,000 3D models in their searchable database, many of which are free. 3D Export has a wide variety of options, including models for 3D printing, low-poly 3D models, and 3D tutorials should you need any of these as well. It’s a very versatile website to get started with.
Thingiverse
Thingiverse is the world’s largest 3D modeling community and is free to join and use. The idea behind Thingiverse is to make 3D models, like the ones you need, freely and widely available. There are well over 1,500,000 models uploaded. These models range from items you can 3D print to general 3D models and even tutorials. There’s a wide range of different CAD-related freebies on this website, many of them top tier work. All of the models on Thingiverse are free.
You can also join the community, submit your own 3D models, remix old designs, or share the ones you like. Apps are available to help you work with the models, and the website is thoughtfully designed to make downloading and using models as easy as possible. Thingiverse is fully integrated with the Makerbot 3D ecosystem, a widely used 3D printer.
If you’re planning to 3D print your product, this website may be of particular use to you since many of the models on the website were designed specifically for that purpose. All in all, this is a great website. Even if you’re not specifically looking to 3D print or for 3D product design companies, you can get a wealth of ideas from the website as well as some exquisitely detailed models.
3D Ocean
With 71,000 3D models available, 3D Ocean has a lot to offer in the way of available models. It also offers CG textures, animation data, and other files related to 3D modeling. This website is part of a larger marketplace, called Envato Market. The larger marketplace makes it easier to find everything you need, 3D models included.
Like most other free 3D modeling websites, not all of the models on 3D Ocean are free. The 3D models are in a lot of ways better than on other websites. That’s because rather than going for millions of 3D models, these ones are screened for quality over quantity.Every month, they offer up freebies you can grab to use, giving you an incentive to check back monthly for more fresh items.
Free3D
Need a great background for a game? A house? A whole city? Free3D has everything you need. These 3D models are mainly meant to be used in a game, but they also have lots of other items you can adapt to your needs. Whether you want a pair of shoes, a human model, or even a helicopter, Free3D has it all.
The categories are divided up by what software they were made in at the top of the website, and by what sort of object it is to the left of the screen. You can search either way to find the model you are looking for. Free3D also has premium models available for a price, just as most other free 3D modeling websites. Fortunately, the majority of the 3D models are free and readily available.
CubeBrush
This website has pretty much everything you could dream of for your business. If you need reference photos to show your drafting services, they have a whole category. 3D models curated for quality? These are readily available. Realistic cloth that drapes in a believable manner? They’ve got a whole data set for that. CubeBrush is thoughtfully designed and carries just about everything you can think of for your website.
Even if you’re exclusively looking for 3D models or their related files, you’re sure to find something useful to you as you browse the selection available. For the most part, CubeBrush is a for-pay website. But if you’re patient, you can get what you want through their weekly freebies. Check back every week to see what new and exciting products they have available for your use.
Sketchfab
This website features thousands of royalty-free 3D models. The 3D models range in quality from simple fantasy cartoons to vividly detailed robots. You can search by category to find the right 3D model you’re looking for and use them however you please. Sketchfab also has 3D models for sale, as well as a premium membership, which allows you to download larger file sizes.
These aren’t necessary to access the free models—they’re just part of the system used to help keep Sketchfab running. The company has a thriving community of 3D modelers who regularly make new additions to the website. If you don’t see what you’re looking for, you can always check back later to see if there’s a freebie that works for you.
Turbo Squid
Turbo Squid has thousands of free 3D models available, and many freelance 3D character modelers upload there work on there. The models are easy to browse through, with an adjustable display that starts with 100 per page. The models are sorted between various categories, so whether you need a realistic piece of fruit or a cool model of the human body, there’s something available for you.
Turbo Squid sells 3D models as well as offering free models, but these can be filtered out so you only see the free ones. Turbo Squid has purchased some of the other free model websites out there. If you search for a 3D modeling website that looks different, don’t be too surprised if it redirects back here.
GrabCad
Last but definitely not least is GrabCad. GrabCad is a huge community, with over 6,000,000 CAD designers using the website. Their combined efforts have led to over 3,000,000 free models and other related CAD files all available on the website. GrabCad allows you to search the website both by the kind of models available, such as cars or people, or by the software used to create it. This makes it really easy to find the right model you need to use.
There are tons of tutorials available to help freelance mechanical drafting services work on models of their own, and regular challenges that help add new models to the website. If you’re looking for great, free 3D models, this is definitely a great website to visit.
Final thoughts
There are dozens of free websites available for 3D models, but they’re not all created equal. Some have a tiny selection, and others have so many advertisements that it’s too difficult to use the website. These 10 websites all offer free 3D models, but more importantly, they’re high quality. You can expect good quality 3D models no matter which one of these great websites you choose.
How Cad Crowd can help
Cad Crowd is an online platform that pairs companies with vetted, talented 3D modelers. View 3D rendering services available through Cad Crowd, or get started on a quote and connect with talented professionals.
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