Best Surface Modeling Software

Compare the Top Surface Modeling Software as of April 2025

What is Surface Modeling Software?

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 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
    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
  • 4
    CATIA

    CATIA

    Dassault Systèmes

    CATIA is the world's leading solution for product design and experience. It is used by leading organizations in multiple industries to develop the products we see and use in our everyday lives. CATIA delivers the unique ability not only to model any product, but to do so in the context of its real-life behavior: design in the age of experience. Systems architects, engineers, designers, construction professionals and all contributors can define, imagine and shape the connected world. A Social design environment built on a single source of truth and accessed through powerful 3D dashboards that drive business intelligence, real-time concurrent design and collaboration across all stakeholders including mobile workers. An Instinctive 3DEXPERIENCE for both experienced and occasional users with world-class 3D modeling and simulation capabilities that optimize the effectiveness of every user. An Inclusive product development platform that is easily integrated with existing processes & tools.
  • 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
    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
  • 7
    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
  • 8
    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.
  • 9
    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.
  • 10
    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
  • 11
    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
  • 12
    ZBrush

    ZBrush

    Pixologic

    ZBrush is a digital sculpting and painting program that has revolutionized the 3D industry with its powerful features and intuitive workflows. Built within an elegant interface, ZBrush offers the world’s most advanced tools for today’s digital artists. With an arsenal of features that have been developed with usability in mind, ZBrush creates a user experience that feels incredibly natural while simultaneously inspiring the artist within. With the ability to sculpt up to a billion polygons, ZBrush allows you to create limited only by your imagination. Designed around a principle of circularity, the menus in ZBrush work together in a non-linear and mode-free method. This facilitates the interaction of 3D models, 2D images and 2.5D Pixols in new and unique ways. ZBrush gives you all of the tools needed to quickly sketch out a 2D or 3D concept and then take that idea all the way to completion. You can create realistic renders directly in ZBrush with lighting and atmospheric effects.
    Starting Price: $39.95 per month
  • 13
    Eyeshot

    Eyeshot

    devdept

    Eyeshot is a CAD control based on the Microsoft NET Framework. It allows developers to add CAD functionalities to WinForms and WPF applications in a snap. Eyeshot provides tools for building geometry from scratch, for analyzing it with finite element method and to generate toolpaths on it. Geometry can also be imported or exported using CAD exchange file formats. Combine multiple data sources, input devices and CAD entity types as has never been possible before. Import your dataset from file or from Visual Studio project resources or from database. Allow end-users to interact using keyboard, mouse, 3D mouse or fingers. Select between Mesh, Solid and Nurbs surface modeling technologies to unleash your creativity. Eyeshot is the only 100% NET CAD component on the market. With 60+ source code samples (in both C# and VB NET and for both WinForms and WPF platforms) it’s also the easiest to learn.
    Starting Price: €700 one-time payment
  • 14
    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.
  • 15
    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.
  • 16
    ICEM Surf

    ICEM Surf

    Dassault Systèmes

    Often described as the reference system for the creation of Class-A surfaces, ICEM Surf is the industry-leading curve and surface explicit geometry modeling tool for defining, analyzing and performing high-end visualization of complex free-form shape CAD surface models to the highest quality. Used in product design processes throughout automotive, aerospace, consumer goods and press-tool design industries, providing solutions for direct surface modeling, refinement, reconstruction and scan modelling. Advanced tools such as Global modelling and industry-defined analysis tools enable designers to detect subtle surface problems and check for compliances with regulations, whilst simultaneously performing high precision surfacing and experiencing real-time 3D visualization. With the core module you can define complex free-form shapes of a desired aesthetical high end Class-A quality, create, modify and diagnose surfaces and existing designs.
  • 17
    GeoThrust

    GeoThrust

    GeoTomo

    GeoThrust has been designed with a workflow architecture to obtain an accurate earth model and earth image in time and in depth from data recorded with irregular geometry in areas with rough topography, complex near-surface, and complex subsurface, with uncompromisingly high technical specifications for data analysis and quality control, but easy to learn and easy to use. The near-surface model is estimated by nonlinear tomography applied to first-arrival times that accounts for topography and resolves lateral and vertical velocity variations. Aside from statics corrections, the corrections for the near-surface are performed by wavefield dating - an essential requirement for imaging from irregular topography. GeoThrust performs subsurface velocity estimation, modeling and imaging from topography, not from a flat datum, based on rms and interval velocities estimated at reflector positions, not at reflection positions.
  • 18
    IrriExpress

    IrriExpress

    Senninger Irrigation

    IrriExpress lets you design irrigation projects with pivots, sprinklers and drip using a simple, intuitive, and powerful program. It lets you evaluate installation alternatives in advance, survey any terrain, produce a contour plan, draw the details, and apply the irrigation design. Easy to use and flexible interface. Full irrigation system design. Easy to analyze and validate designs. Digital terrain modeling and computer-aided drafting. There is no need to manually calculate coordinates, reduce survey field books, or do manual plotting of the proposed terrain. IrriExpress converts survey data into a computerized DTM format using up to 9,000 survey points to generate a triangular surface model. It can also generate contour plans with data imported from ASCII coordinates, DXF, DWG, and GPS files. IrriExpress reports problems that can arise based on inputted upper and lower limits for different types of slopes and/or angles.
  • 19
    SurfaceWorks

    SurfaceWorks

    AeroHydro

    SurfaceWorks by AeroHydro is a freeform surface modeling software designed to integrate with SOLIDWORKS, enhancing it with robust surface editing capabilities ideal for industrial design. It enables associative modeling, allowing modifications in SOLIDWORKS sketches to automatically update dependent SurfaceWorks surfaces and vice versa. This bi-directional associativity supports complex designs where relationships among points, curves, and surfaces are maintained, allowing for seamless adjustments throughout the design process. Originally developed for marine design, SurfaceWorks is now utilized across various industries, including aeronautics and medical devices​.
  • 20
    MultiSurf

    MultiSurf

    AeroHydro

    MultiSurf is a sophisticated 3D design software by AeroHydro, Inc., tailored specifically for marine design applications. Used widely by naval architects and marine engineers, it allows precise modeling of complex boat, yacht, and ship structures through its extensive support for varied geometric shapes and surfaces. MultiSurf uses a "relational geometry" approach, meaning that changes to one part of a model will automatically adjust related parts, allowing for quick, iterative design refinements. This makes it particularly useful for creating hydrodynamic and structurally optimized designs.
  • 21
    Carlson Survey

    Carlson Survey

    Carlson Software

    Carlson Survey is designed to complement land surveying operations and provides a variety of survey features to process data from surface modeling to least squares network adjustment. Users work seamlessly between the office and the field by utilizing company-wide design styles for ease of use and efficiency. Upload and download to popular data collectors. Spreadsheet editor for raw data with graphics and processing for traverse adjustments. Draw points with styles and in point groups set by point descriptions and draw linework by several flexible methods. Inspect all field-to-finish elements, see description source and re-draw based on descriptions edits. Transform coordinates and screen entities between lat/lon and grid projections as well as local to local by Helmert and least-squares methods. Enter deed by description, read deed data from deed file, deed reports, deed correlation and generate legal description from drawing.
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