Easy 3D Modeling Software
The easiest way to get started in 3D
Get started in minutes with a free trial of Strata Design 3D
The easiest 3D modeling software for beginners
Strata Design 3D is the easiest way to get started in 3D. Strata makes it easy to bring your ideas to life in 3D — without needing an engineering degree. Whether you’re a professional designer, student, hobbyist, or just curious about 3D, Strata is the easiest program to learn and start creating right away.
Most 3D programs are built for developers or engineers, which makes them overwhelming for creative professionals – especially beginners. If you’re just starting out, you need software that makes learning 3D easy, fun and frustration-free. That’s where Strata Design 3D stands out.
Why ease of use matters
3D is quickly becoming a must-have skill for designers & creatives – whether you’re working on packaging, branding, web, or product visuals. But jumping from 2D to 3D can feel intimidating.
Strata Design 3D bridges that gap by bringing the power of 3D into a space that feels natural – using tools and concepts familiar to anyone who’s worked in Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign. That ease of use matters because it removes the steep learning curve and gives designers the confidence to start working in 3D right away – no technical background required.
What makes Strata Design 3D the easiest 3D software
1. Intuitive Interface: Strata looks and feels familiar to creatives – especially if you’ve used Adobe tools.
2. Tools That Make Sense: Drag-and-drop modeling. Simple shapes. Prebuilt materials. Real-time previews. You’ll be building in 3D within minutes – not hours
3. Built-In Tutorials: Follow along with step-by-step guidance through beginner projects.
4. Start In Minutes: Download the 15-day free trial, open it up, and get started in minutes with this beginner project.
Who is Design 3D for?
Designers & Creatives
Built for designers & creatives – Strata is perfect for making the jump into 3D. Add 3D mockups and renders to your branding, packaging, product, or advertising projects. Design custom packaging, displays, and so much more with ease. Export clean, high-res images and animations for your portfolio or client work. Branding studios & advertising agencies love Design 3D for it’s simple learning curve, yet powerful capabilities. See what designers like you have built in Design 3D – check out the image showcase.
Students & Educators
Easy to learn, easy to teach, and easy to get started. The Strata 3D University has a vast library of tutorials going over modeling, texturing, rendering, and more. The Strata 3D University is available to all Design 3D subscribers – included at no extra cost.
Whether you’re just starting out in 3D, trying to sharpen your skills, or teaching a class of future designers – the Strata 3D University can help.
Professionals Choose Strata
Beginner-friendly – and professional-focused
Frequently Asked Questions about Strata Design 3D
1. Is Strata really beginner-friendly? Yes – Strata was built for design professionals with familiarity and easy-of-use in mind.
2. Do I need any 3D experience? None at all. Strata has a large library of tutorials & documentation that make it easy to get started and learn as you go.
3. Who is Strata built for? Strata is built for professional designers who work in packaging design, product design, display design, and more.
4. Does Strata work on Mac? Yes. Strata Design 3D is compatible with the latest release of Mac and macOS. See system requirements here.
5. Does Strata work on PC? Strata Design 3D also works on the latest PCs. See system requirements here.
Intel® Embree Powers Rendering
Design 3D CX includes the Embree raycasting technology by Intel to improve rendering speed up to 800%. Added to the Stage Model feature, Design 3D CX makes it easy to create professional quality images. Speed and efficiency rolled into one.
Strata is a proud Intel Software Partner. Working directly with Intel engineers, and utilizing Intel technology like Embree, Strata is committed to maximizing your experience in 3D, VR and AR
Case Study: A Market Bull’s Eye For Kraft
When Kraft’s® Bull’s-Eye® BBQ Sauce marketing team undertook an extensive review of the BBQ category – and the BBQ consumer – they saw an opportunity that resulted in a killer new sauce. With superior taste and more authentic BBQ flavor, the team at Kraft went on to develop a new brand position to go with the new recipe. This required new packaging to bring all these elements together – this included the bottle, label and the shipping box that doubles as a point-of-purchase pallet display.
Featured Artist: Blair Buttke, Graphic Designer / Art Director
Blair Buttke is a senior graphic designer/art director from Arizona who has focused on package/product design for over 30 years. Blair has created retail packaging and brand identities for global, national and regional consumer products. He has designed and developed packaging and point of purchase for such companies as; Dial/Henkel, Dole, Conagra, Armour Star, H.E.B. and Inventure foods. “The magical twenty-four inches between the shopping cart and the shelf.”
Case Study: Finding Just the Right Fit for Gatorade
Gatorade was looking for something more. Through extensive market & formulation research, they realized that there was an opportunity for a product and brand targeting women with an active lifestyle.
Norberto Calderon and his team at design firm Five Seconds were tasked with the challenge to develop a creative concept fitting for the product name – Fitline.
Detailed Feature List
- 2D/3D Text
- 2D Drawing Tools (rectangles, ellipsis, etc.)
- 3D Primitives (cubes, spheres, etc.)
- Spline Curves (Bezier lines/regions)
- Polyspline SDS (subdivision surfaces)
- Meld MetaSurfaces
- Bezier Surfaces
- Extrude
- Lathe
- Boolean
- Skin
- Polygonal Modeling
- Path Extrude
- Construction Objects
- Shy Objects
- Shape Instancing
- Replicate / Duplicate
- Object Manipulation
- Drop a Curve
- Hide Objects
- Fillet
- Thickness
- Mirror
- Hull Surface
- Deformation Lattice
- Grids – World, Custom & View
- Guides – Custom and Default
- Smooth Mesh
- Decimation
- Segment Edge Command
- Show Face Normals
- Point Snap
- Familiar Interface
- Split Views
- Camera View
- Multi-Views
- Depth Cueing
- Image/Movie Backdrop
- Spotlight Views
- OpenGL
- LiveRay
- Ground Plane
- Air Refraction
- Visible Backgrounds
- Reflective Backgrounds
- Atmosphere
- Gravity
- Wind
- Point Lights
- Spot Lights
- Global Lights
- Glowing Surfaces
- Lightdome HDRI
- Intensity
- Host Object
- Soft Edges
- Ambient Light
- Gels
- Animatable Lights
- Overflow Handling
- Spotlight Window View
- Effects Applied to Light
- Direct Manipulation Interface
- HDR Light Studio Integration (optional)
- Lens Flares
- Particle Collision Detection
- Script FX
- Auras
- Caustics
- Fountain Effects
- Global Gravity Control
- Global Wind Force Control
- Global Air Control
- Fire & Smoke
- Hair
- Hotspots
- Pixie Dust
- U3D (in)
- Collada (in/out)
- Illustrator/EPS (in)
- Photoshop PSD (in/out)
- STL (in/out)
- XMM (out)
- Quicktime (in/out)
- PICT (in/out)
- Quicktime VR (out)
- TGA (in/out)
- TIFF (in/out)
- BMP (in/out)
- JPEG (in/out)
- 3DS (in)
- PDF (in)
- DXF (in/out)
- AVI (in/out)
- MiniCAD (in)
- Amapi (in/out)
- OBJ (in/out)
- VRML 1 & 2 (in/out)
- Flash SWF (out)
- True Type Fonts (in)
- Postscript Type Fonts (in)
- OpenGL
- Toon
- LiveRay
- Photons
- Raytracing
- Raydiosity
- Render to Layers
- Flat Shaded
- Hidden Line
- Outline
- Pointcloud
- Smooth Shaded
- Wireframe
- Scanline
- Transparency
- Alpha Channel
- Anti-Aliasing
- Oversampling
- Glow
- Reflectivity
- Blurry Transparency and Reflectivity
- Instance Rendering
- Anti-Matter Effect
- Field Rendering
- Atmospheric Effects
- Shadows
- MIP Mapping
- Soft Shadows
- Stereoscopic
- Custom Environments
- Specular Highlights
- Suspend Rendering
- Marquee Select Rendering
- Scripting
- Hierarchial
- Visible Paths
- Everything Time Variable
- Animation Preview
- Shatter
- Explode
- Jiggle
- Convert to Path Event-Based
- Cycle Back & Forth
- Key Frames
- Velocity Graphs
- Life Checkbox
- Align to Path
- IK (Inverse Kinematics)
- FK (Forward Kinematics)
- TCB, Spline & Natural Paths
- Proportional Event Scaling
- Native UV Mapping
- Scripting
- Hierarchical
- Visible Paths
- Photoshop Linking
- Illustrator Linking
- Displacement
- Box Wrapper
- Normal Maps
- Mist
- Image Textures
- Corrosion
- Starfield
- Rainbow Reflection
- Mock Tile
- Shadow Catcher
- Ripples
- Solid Brick
- Silk
- Solid Candy
- Solid Concrete
- Solid Marble
- Solid Moonscape
- Solid Rock
- Solid Stone
- Solid Terrain
- Solid Wood
- Wildlife
- Mock Plank
- Surface, Solid & Volume
- Layer & Mix
- Fog
- Haze
- Clouds
- Burn UV
- New Conform to Mesh option; using Least Squares Conformal Maps technology
- LSCM unwrap (Conform, Conform Connected) Unwrap entire objects, single UV island or just selected polygons
- Pin UVs (Toggle pinned vertices on or off)
- Fit (to UV, U or V)
- Fit Each (to UV, U or V)
- Rotate Connected (to Grid, U or V)
- Move (to U, V; Center to U, V)
- Select Perimeter
- Select Pinned UVs
- UV Edge Seam Assignment
- Select UV Seam Edge
- LiveRay Texture Preview: see all texture effects with interactive rendering directly in the modeling view
- Scripting
- Hierarchial
- Visible Paths
- Motion Blur
- Depth of Field
- Boom
- Pan
- Dolly
- Arc
- Pitch
- Yaw
- Roll
- Host Object
- Target Object
- Focal Distance
- View Angle
- Stereoscopic Camera
- Panorama Camera
- Cubic Camera
- Fisheye Camera
- Spherical Camera
- VR 360 Stereo Camera
- Shutter Speed
- Live Window Updates
- LiveRay Scene Preview
With Lua you can script shaders and textures to: access the rendering pipeline; lens scripting for the creation of custom lenses, effects and warps; Filter FX which allows you to write custom Lua scripts to apply filters based on an object’s surface normal, direction, lighting, volume, and by pixel color, depth, transparency, layer within the psd file – and much, much more. In fact, Design 3D comes with a whole series of special effect shaders created using Lua. These “Script FX” let you do things like bounce, vibrate, alter acceleration and more. Each Script FX gives access to the full Lua source code, so you can edit them if you like.
Additional features are implemented directly in Lua throughout Design 3D such as Match Motion and Instance Node Control. If you’re somebody who’s interested in scripting, Lua gives you the opportunity to extend Design 3D in a variety of important ways.
Mac System Requirements
- OS: Mac OS X Mojave and newer (for older versions of MacOS inquire with sales@strata.com)
- Intel and Apple Silicon (“M-Chips”) are both supported
- Memory: 8 GB of RAM (more is highly recommended)
- Hard Disk Space: 5 GB of available hard-disk space for install
- Display: 1024 × 768 capable display (or better)
Windows System Requirements
- OS: Windows 10 or later (64-bit)
- 64-bit (x64) processor
- Memory: 8 GB of RAM (more is highly recommended)
- Hard Disk Space: 5 GB of available hard-disk space for install
- Display: 1152 × 864 capable display (more recommended)
- 3D graphics card with latest driver updates (cards with more VRAM typically work better)
Start Your 3D Journey Today
Whether you’re a designer, student, or total beginner..
Strata is the easiest way to get started in 3D.
Get started in minutes with a free trial
Design 3D CX 8 – Purchase Options:
All purchases include a 30-day money-back guarantee. Coupon codes can be applied prior to checkout.
Subscriptions include Strata 3D University, Premium Support and continuous upgrades.
