Best Surface Modeling Software with a Free Trial

Compare the Top Surface Modeling Software with a Free Trial as of July 2025

What is Surface Modeling Software with a Free Trial?

Surface modeling software is used to create complex, curved 3D surfaces, often applied in industries like automotive, aerospace, and industrial design. Unlike solid modeling, which focuses on volume, surface modeling defines shapes using intricate, lightweight surface layers, allowing for detailed and flexible design adjustments. It enables designers to manipulate surfaces with precision, crafting visually refined and aerodynamically optimized forms. The software typically includes tools for freeform modeling, surface continuity, and curvature control, supporting highly customized and aesthetically driven designs. Surface modeling software is essential for projects where shape, style, and performance are closely interlinked, leading to innovative and visually compelling products. Compare and read user reviews of the best Surface Modeling software with a Free Trial currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.

  • 1
    AutoCAD

    AutoCAD

    Autodesk

    CAD software to design anything—with time-saving toolsets, web, and mobile apps. AutoCAD® is computer-aided design (CAD) software that architects, engineers, and construction professionals rely on to create precise 2D and 3D drawings. Draft, annotate, and design 2D geometry and 3D models with solids, surfaces, and mesh objects. Automate tasks such as comparing drawings, adding blocks, creating schedules, and more. Customize with add-on apps and APIs. AutoCAD includes industry-specific features and intelligent objects for architecture, mechanical engineering, electrical design, and more. Automate floor plans, sections, and elevations. Draw piping, ducting, and circuiting quickly with parts libraries. Auto-generate annotations, layers, schedules, lists, and tables. Use a rules-driven workflow to accurately enforce industry standards.
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    Starting Price: $1,268 per user per year
  • 2
    SketchUp

    SketchUp

    Trimble

    Design delightfully, collaborate clearly, and build better buildings. The joy of drawing by hand. The ease of super-smart 3D modeling software. Make sustainable buildings. Change the world, hundreds of professionally-developed extensions at your fingertips. Design in 3D. Document in 2D. Make work easier, bring efficiency to your team and the 3D community. A great idea can be its best with the right technology. Draw in 3D, analyze and improve your building’s performance, and creatively document and share your ideas with your class. Integrated with Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive. Works on Chromebooks or any Internet-connected computer. Students have access to free and intuitive 3D modeling tools. Positioning-centric information is changing the way people, businesses and governments work throughout the world. By applying Trimble's advanced positioning solutions, productivity increases and safety improvements are being realized.
    Starting Price: $119 per year
  • 3
    Plasticity

    Plasticity

    Plasticity

    With a workflow optimized for creativity, unparalleled fillets, sophisticated surface modeling, and the most advanced direct editing tools, Plasticity is the perfect choice for those who demand the best. Plus, with no subscriptions, you own your software. Try it free for 30 days and see the difference for yourself. Plasticity is the ultimate tool for creative professionals in the video game industry, product design, vehicle design, and beyond. Say goodbye to clunky CAD workflows designed for manufacturability. Plasticity offers all the power of NURBS modeling combined with the best workflow innovations from modern polygonal modeling software. This unique combination gives you the flexibility and creativity you need to bring your ideas to life. Plasticity's advanced geometry and fillet engine are second to none, thanks to Parasolid's best-in-class algorithms. With Plasticity, you can create the absolute best fillets, booleans, and offsets, and change them whenever you want.
    Starting Price: $149 per month
  • 4
    Civil 3D

    Civil 3D

    Autodesk

    Civil 3D® civil engineering design software supports BIM (Building Information Modeling) with integrated features to improve drafting, design, and construction documentation. Conduct grading design studies based on project constraints. Grading Optimization is available in Civil 3D only as part of the Architecture, Engineering & Construction Collection. Transform how you navigate, visualize, and interact with Civil 3D design models. Project Explorer is an extension available in Civil 3D only through the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Collection. Experience more efficient workflows for surface modeling, corridor modeling, site design, storm and sanitary, and plan production and documentation with Civil 3D® civil engineering design software. Securely access Civil 3D files, data shortcuts, and xrefs from multiple locations and companies, all in a common data environment.
    Starting Price: $2,430 per year
  • 5
    Autodesk Fusion 360
    Fusion 360 unifies design, engineering, electronics, and manufacturing into a single software platform. Get integrated CAD, CAM, CAE & PCB on a single development platform. Also includes EAGLE Premium, HSMWorks, Team Participant, and access to consumptive services, such as generative design, cloud simulation, and cloud rendering. Engineer products with a comprehensive set of modeling tools. Ensure form, fit, and function of your products with various analysis methods. Create and edit sketches with sketch constraints, dimensions, and a powerful suite of sketch tools. Edit or repair imported geometry from non-native file formats. Make design changes without worrying about time-based features. Create and edit complex parametric surfaces for repairing, patching or designing geometry. Create history-based features, including extrude, revolve, loft, sweep, etc., that update with design changes.
    Starting Price: $495 per year
  • 6
    Autodesk Alias
    Seamlessly collaborate across different workflows and personas. Increase productivity and eliminate the need to toggle between siloed systems. Use a single source for design from sketch through production surfacing. Create and reuse templates across design and surfacing teams—sharing surfacing language. Curve and Surface replace workflows with the History Visualizer tool, enabling automatic rebuild of geometry. Collaborate across teams and manage projects with a single suite of tools for faster decision-making. Allow Alias and non-Alias modelers to collaborate with Alias Assemblies and Master Alias Assembly Concept. Review design projects with Shotgun to keep creative teams focused.
    Starting Price: $585 per month
  • 7
    3ds Max

    3ds Max

    Autodesk

    3ds Max offers a rich and flexible toolset to create premium designs with full artistic control. Create massive worlds in games. Visualize high-quality architectural renderings. Model finely detailed interiors and objects. Bring characters and features to life with animation and VFX. The built-in Arnold renderer provides a rich experience and can handle your more complex characters, scenes, and effects. Save time with centralized creative tools for interactive light mixing, color correction, and lens effects on the rendered image. Work faster with an artist-friendly user experience and intuitive controls. Iterate and produce high quality renders and variations faster. 3ds Max lets you scale your workflow with automation, allowing you to spend more time on creativity. Use 3ds Max as a compute engine to scale content production. Extend built-in workflows with accessible APIs.
    Starting Price: $215 per month
  • 8
    form•Z

    form•Z

    AutoDesSys

    form•Z pro is a powerful 3D design application featuring a variety of modeling personalities and tools with an easy to use interface to express and communicate your imagination. It is based on advanced 3D solid and surface modeling methods that maintain accurate representations as you progress from design to visualization, layout, animation and fabrication. Object Symmetry creates a plane of symmtrey for an object. Subsequent operations to the object maintain symmetry by updaing the opposte sids of the model to match. The symmetry functionality has special consideration for NURBs curves, NURB surfaces and Sub-D objects. Reference Files are simply data from one project displayed inside another project. Reference files allow for complex static data to be mainteined in external files and supports coloboration where files can be shaered between team members as a design evolves. Python is a easy to use yet rich scripting language.
    Starting Price: $175
  • 9
    3DCoat

    3DCoat

    3DCoat

    3DCoat is the one application that has all the tools you need to take your 3D idea from a block of digital clay all the way to a production ready, fully textured organic or hard surface model. Today 3DCoat is available to learn at 300+ Universities, colleges and schools worldwide. 3DCoat is one of the most advanced software applications for creating detailed 3D models. Where other applications in this market segment tend to specialize in one specific task, such as Digital Sculpting or Texture Painting, 3DCoat provides High-End capability across multiple tasks in an asset creation pipeline. These include Sculpting, Retopology, UV Editing , PBR Texture Painting and Rendering. So it can be called a 3D texturing software and 3D texture painting software and 3D sculpting program and Retopology software and UV mapping software and 3D rendering software all combined. In short, 3DCoat removes the need to purchase (and learn) multiple specialty software titles.
    Starting Price: $49 one-time payment
  • 10
    Slide3

    Slide3

    Rocscience

    Locate critical failure surfaces and compute the correct factor of safety using a combination of global metaheuristic search methods and local surface-altering technology. With parallel processing added for both failure searching and FS computations, results can now be generated within minutes. Streamline your workflow and get more detailed insights by integrating 3D wireframes (representing surveyed topography, geological surfaces, modeled faults, etc.) directly into your 3D models. Constructing slope stability models is easier and faster than ever before. Import surfaces from geological modeling or mine planning software or use built-in surface construction methods using coordinates or borehole data. Choose to build surfaces from point cloud data or import block models from applications such as Leapfrog, Deswik, Datamine, and Vulcan.
    Starting Price: $5,895 per year
  • 11
    Pix4Dfields

    Pix4Dfields

    Pix4Dfields

    Collect images using a drone and any standard RGB or select multispectral cameras. You can also use satellite data import to enhance your mapping experience with Sentinel-2 satellite data. Process imagery with the instant processing engine and get your maps directly in the field, 6.8 GB, 2948 images, 10 min (with the new radiometry module). Generate precise ortho mosaics, digital surface models, index maps, zones, and accurate prescription maps. Trim your fields to a desired field boundary to create more targeted outputs. Visualize and understand your crop growth stages and stress levels. Analyze and compare different layers of information for a full insight into your yield performance and use them to increase crop production and reduce costs. The only hybrid mapping software solution for agriculture based on knowledge from farmers, agronomists, and researchers. Create precision agriculture maps using images from drones and satellites.
    Starting Price: $137.5 per month
  • 12
    Inventor

    Inventor

    Autodesk

    Professional-grade 3D CAD software for product design and engineering. Inventor® CAD software provides professional-grade 3D mechanical design, documentation, and product simulation tools. Work efficiently with a powerful blend of parametric, direct, freeform, and rules-based design capabilities. Work with anyone, anywhere no matter what CAD software they use. Use cloud-based design reviews to collect feedback from key stakeholders wherever they are. Follow the entire product development lifecycle with one data model. Design efficiently using specialized tools for sheet metal, frame design, and tube and pipe. Enable design, documentation, and process automation powered by iLogic. Access Inventor API to create your own add-ins. Go further by investigating Forge Design Automation API for running your job processes in the cloud.
    Starting Price: $2,190 per year
  • 13
    SURE Aerial
    nFrames SURE software delivers an efficient solution of dense image surface reconstruction for mapping, surveying, geo-information and research organizations. The SURE software delivers derivation of precise point clouds, DSMs, True Orthophotos and textured Meshes from small, medium and large frame images. This advanced solution is designed for applications including countrywide mapping, monitoring projects that use manned aircraft and UAVs, cadaster, infrastructure planning, and 3D modeling. SURE Aerial is specifically designed for aerial image datasets captured with large frame nadir cameras, oblique cameras and hybrid systems with additional LiDAR sensors. Without limitation in image resolution, it empowers the production of 3D Meshes, True Orthophotos, Point Clouds and Digital Surface Models on common workstation hardware and in cluster environments. Simple to setup and operate, SURE Aerial is compliant with mapping industry standards and accessible for web streaming technologies.
  • 14
    TerrainTools

    TerrainTools

    Softree Technical Systems

    Ideal for 3D site design, stockpile volume calculations, mine surveying, quantity takeoffs, pad and pond design, geological mapping, surface contouring and visualization, and landfill site design. Includes functions for: surveying, coordinate geometry, image manipulation, digital terrain modeling, contouring, volume and earthwork calculations, design, grading, visualization and report generation. Create surface models from large LiDAR and UAV datasets. Have complete control over your point data thinning functionality. Thinning to polygons, corridors, coordinates regions, or exterior regions. Import and management of a variety of survey and file formats, including: total station, LiDAR, ASCII, DWG, DGN, USGS DEM, LandXMl and image formats (TIFF, BMP, JPG). Total station data can be included with automatic control of linear features, breaklines and symbology. Import georeferenced background imagery from our Live Maps tool.
  • 15
    Cinema 4D
    3D computer animation, modeling, simulation, and rendering software. Cinema 4D Subscription Release 24 (S24) includes functionality to easily browse and obtain models, materials and other assets, and to intuitively place them within the scene. The release also includes key workflow enhancements and a sneak peek at the continued progress on the Scene Nodes and Scene Manager interfaces to the new core. Cinema 4D is a professional 3D modeling, animation, simulation and rendering software solution. Its fast, powerful, flexible and stable toolset make 3D workflows more accessible and efficient for design, motion graphics, VFX, AR/MR/VR, game development and all types of visualization professionals. Cinema 4D produces stunning results, whether working on your own or in a team. Cinema 4D is widely recognized as one of the easiest and most accessible 3D packages to learn and use. To soften that learning curve Maxon offers thousands of tutorials on Cineversity and hundreds of Quick Tips.
    Starting Price: $16.58 per month
  • 16
    Geomagic Wrap
    Geomagic Wrap® delivers the most affordable, fast, accurate path from point clouds to 3D polygonal and surface models that you can use instantly in downstream engineering, manufacturing, art, industrial design, and more. As part of your 3D digital thread, Geomagic Wrap provides the digital bridge for creating perfect data to use directly in 3D printing, milling, archiving, and other 3D uses. With advanced exact surfacing tools, Geomagic Wrap delivers powerful, easy-to-use, cutting-edge modeling functions for that flawless 3D model. Scripting and macros also automate functions for repetitive tasks during the reverse-engineering process. Geomagic Wrap enables you to transform point cloud data, probe data, and imported 3D formats like STL and OBJ into 3D polygon meshes for use in manufacturing, analysis, design, entertainment, and archeology.
  • 17
    Creo

    Creo

    PTC

    Imagine, design, create, and innovate your products better with Creo, 3D CAD/CAM/CAE software, and solutions for product design and development. Now, more than ever, product design and manufacturing teams are expected to create products more efficiently and cost effectively, without sacrificing innovation or quality. Fortunately, Creo delivers the most scalable range of 3D CAD product development packages and tools in today’s market. Creo 7.0 has breakthrough innovations in the areas of generative design, real-time simulation, multibody design, additive manufacturing, and others! Take your products from concept to digital prototype efficiently, precisely, and intuitively with Creo—on the cutting edge of CAD for more than 30 years. With Creo 7.0, PTC amply demonstrates its skill at adding compelling new features to an already robust tool-set using smart partnerships to extend its capabilities even further.
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