How many would buy Cue desinging program?

[shoutout33]

I think you might be able to create something cost effective for 2D renderings. For 3D there are already a number of programs that people can use (Solidworks, AutoCAD, ProE, Catia, etc). I don't think you could develop a stand-alone 3D design product that would allow you to do much and sell it for less than $1000. The great thing about programs like these is you can create CAM profiles to cut out inlays and make parts that have real dimensions. I personally use Solidworks and it worls great but it's not cheap.......

Metal,

This is true; however, these programs have a very high learning curve, especially for someone who is not mathmatically inclined. Remember, a lot of the cue makers/builders out their, have background with enginieering and or machining in some sort of way. If Snapshot could make something that gave you the perks of AutoCAD and the pzazz of say Maya, but make it user friendly where anyone from a pro to a beginner could use it, that would be something unique in itself. I'm not saying it wouldn't be hell to pull off, but Snapshot says he can do that level of programming, so why not have that level of usability.

 

[MacGyver]

I wasnt talking about making users create 3d things or manpulate them with a 3d program....

Blender is completely open source, and not limited when compared to Maya /3ds if you know what your doing(you can output to the same renderer's that they use and get comparable quality).

I'll admit plugins like fluid, cloth, hair and some other things are missing from blender, but as far as cue's go I can't imagine any quality difference betwene blender/maya/3ds that isnt the fault of the user.

ANYWAY, what I originally meant, was that you could pretty easily(and freely) program a custom interface into the modeling/material/renderering parts of blender, such that the interface would be very simple and wouldnt even have to look anything like blender.

You could drag and drop 2d maps onto different parts of the cue to have them auto mapped to it and then have like 3 different lighting/camera setups that you can rotate through.

The point is that because its open source and GPL'd(you can sell basically repackage blender as "MacGyver's 3D program" and sell it to people as long as you provide the source for download somewhere for free) afaik you only have to provide the GPL'd code and not the after market stuff you are programming yourself which would be the whole point of people buying it.

So you can add in 3d functionality pretty easily and cheaply imho without going to costly programs....

Before I scrapped the project due to lack of profitabiltity, it was going to be half 2d image creation and half 3d renderer.

The 2d part could pick custom woods/materials and then number of points, design of points, or image input for putting in custom things, and then all that easily ported to a cue model which you can pick joints, butts, tapers and whatnot.

It would be more for visualization for both creativity and better communication between cue builder and cue buyers, but overall again time vs. profit just isnt there, even if you add functionality for full solid splices and whatnot.