[gregpilling]

Yes it would be a useful endeavor. You will save hours of time on each new product. I would suggest that Google SketchUp is easier to learn (and free) but SolidWorks is very common in manufacturing. Doing a quick mockup in SketchUp is the new version of the cocktail napkin sketch, but with 3 dimensions instead of two. I recently used it to explain to a contractor how I wanted my bathroom remodeled (keeping my wife happy) and the time it save in discussions was immense. The contractor could immediately see what I wanted to do - move a wall, change a doorway, move a sink. Easy.

Make sure you learn how to specify dimension in SketchUp when you learn it. That will save you a lot of effort, and find video tutorials on YouTube. It was much easier for me to understand it by watching the video than by reading Google's documentation.

[morganpyne]

+1 for SketchUp. It has many limitations but it so easy to get started with compared to the popular giants of 3d. Follow some of the tutorial videos.

It has a hugely active community writing custom plugins for just about everything you could imagine. My tipping point was finding all these plugins are written in Ruby :-) As a programmer I loved being able to hack together new extensions based on examining the source to other peoples work.

If you plan to do anything regarding animation, physics engines, or spline-based surface modeling etc then you'll need to look elsewhere of course. Blender is free and has a massive amount of features but a steep learning curve (and I personally dislike the interface).