Help. Please suggest good beginner's software.

There is a list here: <a href="https://www.shapeways.com/tutorials/supported-applications " target="_blank"></a> Plenty of choices. I would like to find out a good program to start with. And also, what would be the follow up program once some basic experience is acquired?
Thank you in advance.

I had never modeled before, and decided to start with Blender because it's free and powerful. That is, there's no cost to try it out, and you'll probably never need anything else.

The learning curve is steep. Still, I was able to go through the Blender: Noob to Pro tutorials and learned what I needed from those, plus fanatically reading the Forum here. I paid a lot of attention to the typical problems people were having (non-manifold, thin walls) and tried to view Blender through that lens.

It took a few weeks to really become comfortable. I had a fairly complex project that motivated me. Now, as promised by the tutorials, I often wish that other applications worked like Blender.

I've never regretted the choice, and have many complex prints to show for it. Blender is a very Shapeways-friendly environment, complete with tools developed specifically for Shapeways to check models and compute prices. Shapeways' new rendering environment is also done in Blender.

Hope this helps!

Great, thanks. BTW, scarab looks fantastic.

Thanks for the kind words. Incidentally, I've learned a lot since then. Blender's Sculpt mode has completely changed how I model. For organic models of the sort I'm interested in, this kind of interface (add material, pinch, grab, layer, inflate, smooth) makes modeling a joy. Everything in my shop, though, was made in regular old Object mode.

Hopefully I'll have results to share soon -- watch the "It arrived!" forum. Good luck with your startup phase! The up-front investment of your time and energy, in my experience, yields truly wonderful rewards. No experience is quite as satisfying as holding a metal object that you designed.

Depending on what you want to make, I use SolidEdge (not free) but I also know a little bit of Google Sketchup (what i use for my color models)

Sketchup is really easy to use, but if your into organic objects blender might be the way to go.

Check out some video tutorials, download them (they are freeeee) and check them out. Follow a few basic tutorials for each and you will probably be able to decide which will satisfy your needs best.

Good luck! and welcome to the community!

Blender is amazing, especially for rendering.

For beginners to learn modeling though, I am increasingly favoring Wings3D for a number of reasons. It is a very intuitive way to learn the editing concepts behind the tools in other software. Amazingly it can even handle color and UVW mapping. I think it's so powerful for certain tasks that I use it more than any other program for basic mesh modeling.

It's especially good in conjunction with Inkscape for extruded text and objects, and for easily hollowing out your models.