A solid CAD with the ability to output .stl files

[sombertattoo]

Hey all, I'm an aerospace engineer who unfortunately is stuck with Pro/Engineer.

I have a virtualbox machine running the Schools Edition but I find it awfully slow. I have an E2180 @ 2.6ghz + 9800GT Ultimate + 6gb of ram so there's oomph there. All the assignments I have a fairly straightforward in that all we need to produce is a copy of the figure wireframe and shaded. Nothing specific to Pro/Engineer. I'd like to use a native 3D modeller in 8.10, 64-bit.

Any really good ones there that can also output .stl files for the year end assignment and perhaps has compatible file formats with Pro/Engineer so that they could be also opened there when I'm at school?

[meborc]

i don't know if blender has .stl capability, but maybe this is interesting for you - http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/