Originally Posted by MassiveD

For an all carbon frame, not that common. People playing around with solidworks, very common. Back when the chopper craze was all over, there were guys getting solidworks, and coming back with awesome drawings, after playing with the program for a few evenings. It was sorta annoying. I met a guy at a party who was an architect, and took a university course in CAD, and said he couldn't draw a square. But after Solidworks, everyone was an expert, in fact the pictures looked so great you had to be careful not to buy into stuff that had not the slightest iota of common sense in it.

I design frames in simple 2 d cad. All I really need are the angles between the tubes, and the lengths between the saddles of the notches. I use tube mitering programs, or fixtures to get the actual parts from that. A lot of people don't make their own forks, because of high end racing, carbon, forks, and suspension forks. But if one does the parts and dimensions pretty much take over. The same thing can be true of rear ends which can be bought either as bolt or weld on parts, or even when made up, the tubes or benders, kinda make it a 2.5D process.

The nearest thing to what you are doing, that was done by an amateur was that guy who made female molds by 3D printing, and then laid carbon into them. He was making lugs in carbon for carbon tubes. At the pro level there was that project where they 3D printed a whole frame in Ti.

There are packages for Bike Cad, one called BikeCAD, and another called Rattlecad. They are mainly for tube builders, and I have never thought they offered much that simple 2D did not. BikeCAD is sorta an enterprise solution, though, for frame builders. You rent it or something. Never much liked the sound of it.

If it isn't just a fantasy exercise, CAD, often ends up writing checks that the builder side of things will not want to have to cover. One can do all kinds of great looking things that are a nighmare to build. Doubtless present company knows this, but it is worth keeping in mind.