3D freebies: a guide to high quality 3D software available via the Internet
Rosalee J. Wolfe · ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics · 1998
A perennial challenge to teaching 3D graphics is obtaining appropriate software, Instructors are aware of many excellent packages that are commercially available, but unfortunately their cost often puts them out of reach.A recurring theme heard over lunch and in the halls at educational conferences is that budget considerations preclude revisiting or reconsidering the 3D topics in a graphics curriculum.There's good news for educators in this situation, however, as a rich variety of" high quality 3D software is available free of charge.All of the rendering and modeling packages mentioned in this article have good documentation about installation, so the amount of time needed to ready a package for student use is quite reasonable.Even better news: many of these packages have extensive documentation, tutorials and examples that help those who want to learn.Lastly, all of the packages run on platforms that are commonly available in educational settings.