My 10 year old son and I are very excited to receive the Zim. We’re wondering best how to actually print something out and are looking for software suggestions (the more free, the more better) to take us from Idea to visual model to instructions that the Zim can take and create the 3D object. My son and I are fairly proficient with Sketchup at this point. Any Thoughts?
Software - Design and Interface
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I’m actually a total noob at 3D printing, but I’m very proficient with electronics hardware and software design, graphics, audio, video, anything to do with computers… so I plan on mastering this soon! (Once I get some advice from some 3D printing pros) Like you, I’m also very well versed with sketchup down to rendering visually appealing scenes… however I’ve never been confident that sketchup could be a good CAD package for designing anything that needed to be “to scale”. Especially anything small. I’ve designed some larger projects like a complete workbench, but that was fairly large. I guess I’m used to designing things with a grid in mind, or being able to accurately measure things… and that kind of falls apart with 3D and sketchup for me. Maybe I’m doing it wrong, so it would be great to hear from some 3D printer pros that use sketchup and other software. Even if something were to cost $100, I think that’s well within the range of most do-it-yourself’ers but free is obviously best! 
EDIT: Here’s a great list of free software for 3D printing: http://www.3ders.org/3d-software/3d-software-list.html Not the most in-depth description of pros/cons of each one, but a list nontheless. Hopefully some that have experience with these can comment. Looking at the list I forgot that I spent some time with Blender and it’s definitely a powerful tool, but can be a little complex to get it to do exactly what you want. Like all tools you need to spend the time with them, so picking one and really trying to learn it well is probably good advice. I know blender has a ton of Youtube tutorials, as do many other programs. Those are great to learn from.
I’m a noob to, and I’ve not used Sketchup, but I’ll add my to cents anyway 
I’ve used Wings 3D some years ago. It is nice for making complicated and organic looking shapes, and the models stay solid (no wrong facing surfaces or glitches between surfaces). As far as I know it is not easy to model to scale. I think it can be a very nice companion to a more CAD-centric program.
I’ve looked at OpenSCAD, and I like the programming approach. It is easy to make adjustments late in the process, and you can have variables that let you make major controlled changes to your model (for instance how many studs/bumps you want on a lego peace (adding the necessesary length to the brick as well as the studs)). It probably isn’t for everybody, but I think it can be good in combination with Wings 3D.
I had a quick look at TinkerCAD, and it seems very simple to getting started, but I could also very quickly see limitations. You can’t cut holes in a model with another model (only with predefined hole models) which I think will make it hard to make a model printed in two colors or with a support material. It will also make it harder to make many things. For instance if you want to make a wrench, you can’t just find a nut model and use that to cut out the shape.
I have tried Blender. It is a very complete 3D software that can handle beautiful renders, amazing animation as well as 3D printing. It got some special tools for 3D printing recently. Part of those are just tools to find errors because you don’t work with solid models all the time, but some are interesting like analyzing overhang and thickness. I still wouldn’t choose Blender if the goal is primarily to make models for printing, simply because there are so much of the program you wouldn’t need and all that functionality adds up to a more complex user interface.
A quick search for tools for analyzing overhang brought up Meshmixer. It looks like a program that might be of interest, and it is free (made by AutoDesk) and available for Windows and Mac (the other programs are available for Linux as well).
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