CnC and 3D printing question: Which software do you use?

[Bmachine]

My background is in motion picture special effects. At work, we use 3D software like Houdini, Maya and Katana, so I am well versed in those. But I need to do some home remodeling and since I would not need any animation capabilities and I don't want to spend much money on buying a personal copy for infrequent use, I was thinking of taking a crack at Sketchup Free for that at home.

In the near future, however, I may get into some simple CnC and possibly 3D printing. So I am thinking that if I am going to send time learning a new software I might as well do it on something that may be useful later on for those new applications. Sketchup seems to offer a fairly low learning curve, but can it export the data required for CnC and/or 3D printing?

Thank you.

 

[Markos]

The resources that I work with use SolidWorks.

 

[Bmachine]

Yes, but Solidworks is a fairly high end big bucks software.

I believe one can export dxf or stl out of sketchup to it for final cleaning.

 

[JFENG]

Go to grabcad for recommendations

 

[autokunst]

We use SketchUp for 3d modeling and visualization (free trial, inexpensive license), and strictly 2d AutoCAD for all other work. Call me a dinosaur, but classic, timeless architecture requires the designer to "see" in 3D, but represent in conventional plan, elevation, section and detail. That's what the field uses to build it. I can spot a building a block away that was 'designed' in Revit - not good.

EDIT: I realize I didn't actually answer the OP's question. Sorry - it is half past taco Tuesday and margaritas...