Live data from Hacker News

FreeCAD 0.16 release notes

freecadweb.org

51–60 of 76 posts

Re: FreeCAD 0.16 release notes

#53

It's true. It's amazing. I'm using it at work for years for simple modeling and assembly. But now I can't. Why you ask? They compiled it with buggy version of C++11 library ("boost" or something) and it doesn't work at all. Thank you developers! You ruined my experience with this great software.

Has a bug been filed?

And you can still use the older version, presumably.

Re: FreeCAD 0.16 release notes

#54
post #46
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…

I worked on a project that used the OpenCASCADE CAD kernel, and our conclusion was that it still has a ways to go. We often got errors with boolean operations and the speed of operations was generally slow.

Are there better CAD kernels available as open source? What did you go with in the end?

Re: FreeCAD 0.16 release notes

#56

For an open source tool this release notes log is huge!

Yeah, I really like this style, especially for GUI intensive apps. Some other open source projects with similar release notes:

Krita: https://krita.org/krita-2-9-the-kickstarter-release/

Blender: https://www.blender.org/features/2-77/

Re: FreeCAD 0.16 release notes

#59
post #54
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked on a project that used the OpenCASCADE CAD kernel, and our conclusion was that it still has a ways to go. We often got errors with boolean operations and the speed of operations was generally slow.

Are there better CAD kernels available as open source? What did you go with in the end?

Nearly all commercial tools use ACIS or Parasolid or Dassault's CGM I think.

Re: FreeCAD 0.16 release notes

#60
post #50

FreeCAD is a 3D CAD tool with features and UI similar to Catia, SolidWorks or Solid Edge. With CATIA being the gold standard tool that is used in aerospace, automotive, etc industries. So FreeCAD is on a very great path. (It also highlights how important the UI is. Everyone who every used a 3D CAD tool, can use FreeCAD in no time. On the other hand, everyone who used a polygon based 3D modeling like 3DMax or Maya wil…

I just started to dive into FreeCAD as an Inventor alternative.

(Are you talking about pre-Blender 2.5? If so, I agree.

It was a challenge going from 3ds r4 and 3ds Max 2... Had to memorize hot keys and get used to a tile based layout. But once I did, I was fast.

The ui was very different, but in a good way, IMHO. The 3D concepts are mostly the same.

But post 2.5, everything is much more discoverable. You can search for commands, pie menus, change hotkeys... and there's great learning resources now.

So I have to ask people that had a difficult time using blender, if they tried it in the last few years.)

Post reply on HN