FreeCAD 0.16 release notes • Hacker News Board

Re: FreeCAD 0.16 release notes

#21

Post by alvern » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 1:44 PM UTC

chris_wot wrote: post #16

dekhn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's great for hardware projects. I built a number of parts for a microscope and other projects, export as STL, and 3D print them.

STL? What's that?

It's a very old (1980s) file format that is good for 3D printing but not so good for machining or molding. It saves the geometry as facets and not as "faces" so it is pretty limited in making something that is not square.

Re: FreeCAD 0.16 release notes

#22

Post by dekhn » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 1:46 PM UTC

alvern wrote: post #21

chris_wot wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

STL? What's that?

It's a very old (1980s) file format that is good for 3D printing but not so good for machining or molding. It saves the geometry as facets and not as "faces" so it is pretty limited in making something that is not square.

STL works just fine for machining and molding (I do the former with STL all the time). I can make non-square things - for example, printing complex octopus shapes or carving 3D relief surfaces.

Re: FreeCAD 0.16 release notes

#23

Post by taneq » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 1:47 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #18

chris_wot wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

STL? What's that?

I think it's the standard file format export for CAD stuff, like gerbers are for hardware.

Yep, from what I gather STL : 3D printing :: gerber : PCB manufacture.

Re: FreeCAD 0.16 release notes

#24

Post by buovjaga » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 1:49 PM UTC

oxplot wrote: post #17

Unfortunately every time I installed FreeCAD, it crashed me consistently after 10 minutes of work.

Quoting from their FAQ:

If you are on a linux system, it is easy to do a debug backtrace, which provides very useful information about the crash to the developers:

in a terminal, type: gdb freecad (assuming package gdb is installed)

inside gdb, type run

after the crash, type bt to get the backtrace, that you can include in your bug report.

Guide for submitting reports: http://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/index.php?title=Tracker

Re: FreeCAD 0.16 release notes

#25

Post by TallGuyShort » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 1:56 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #11

Can anyone elucidate to someone not familiar with CAD software what this is for? Is it parametric CAD? Is it suitable for making things like cases for hardware projects?

I've been using it in preparation for finishing a basement. It has both a 2D architectural drafting mode as well as a 3D mode (among several other specializations). I've hit the occasional bug but development is active - I looked at a bunch of tools before choosing this one. It's quite good..

Re: FreeCAD 0.16 release notes

#26

Post by unixhero » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 2:05 PM UTC

buovjaga wrote: post #24

oxplot wrote: post #17

Unfortunately every time I installed FreeCAD, it crashed me consistently after 10 minutes of work.

Quoting from their FAQ: If you are on a linux system, it is easy to do a debug backtrace, which provides very useful information about the crash to the developers: in a terminal, type: gdb freecad (assuming package gdb is installed) inside gdb, type run after the crash, type bt to get the backtrace, that you can include in your bug report. Guide for submitting reports: http://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/index.php?title=T…

Ooh thanks! I will try this on other apps that might crash in the future.

Re: FreeCAD 0.16 release notes

#27

Post by optforfon » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 2:42 PM UTC

unixhero wrote: post #26

buovjaga wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoting from their FAQ: If you are on a linux system, it is easy to do a debug backtrace, which provides very useful information about the crash to the developers: in a terminal, type: gdb freecad (assuming package gdb is installed) inside gdb, type run after the crash, type bt to get the backtrace, that you can include in your bug report. Guide for submitting reports: http://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/index.php?title=T…

Ooh thanks! I will try this on other apps that might crash in the future.

the software has to be compiled with symbols... which I don't think the binaries in the default repositories have (I could be wrong)

Re: FreeCAD 0.16 release notes

#28

Post by maxfurman » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 2:58 PM UTC

How comparable is this tool to AutoCAD?

Re: FreeCAD 0.16 release notes

#29

Post by ris » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 3:12 PM UTC

bhouston wrote: post #5

Freecad is an amazing tool. It is based on the open source CAD kernel OpenCascade: http://www.opencascade.com/ If you want to do CAD directly you can use OpenCascade directly or if you can use its various wrappers. The Python OCC wrapper is quite nice: http://www.pythonocc.org/ We use both Python OCC and FreeCAD to help with handling CAD data import/export in http://Clara.io Although if you are interested in create C…

Something I didn't realize is that OpenCascade is now LGPL which means FreeCAD doesn't have the weird licensing restriction it once had.

Re: FreeCAD 0.16 release notes

#30

Post by chromaton » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 3:35 PM UTC

chris_wot wrote: post #15

Looks like I've got a new CAD program for my dad! Dad downloaded and installed A9CAD and it absolutely filled up his computer with malware. He loves A9CAD, but every time he installs it I have to get a copy of MalwareBytes and disinfect the system. Looks like FreeCAD might be just what he needs!

A9CAD appears to be a 2D CAD drawing program, whereas FreeCAD is centered around 3D parametric modeling. They're different approaches to creating things.

If you want a decent free 2D drawing package, try DraftSight, Or LibreCAD if you want open source.