Mihai Pruna's favorite freeware CAE applications

3d Modeling:

FreeCad - even though it can seem clunky at first, I prefer it to Autodesk123D.

STL generation, repair and editing:

NetFabb (free version) and MeshLab. Both have their strengths and complement each other.

Meshing (3D)

GMSH: relatively easy to generate a volumetric mesh inside a surface or around it with another surface of primitive as a domain.

Read more about how I use these tools here:

Mihai Pruna's Interoperability Page

Best regards,

Mihai Pruna