231–240 of 243 posts
I really hope CADmium can wean me off of OpenSCAD. With OpenSCAD, I don't really have to think at first; I use a simple language to write modules that build on other modules. The problem with OpenSCAD is there's no solver: I have variables, but no constraints. As I make changes, suddenly I have to think hard and solve the constraints manually and it's easy to introduce errors. However, the problem isn't severe enough…
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BRL-CAD is a true gem
And interestingly "the oldest known public version-controlled codebase in the world that's still under active development" dating back to 1979. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRL-CAD#toc-History
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In the realthunder form of freecad, I wrote a macro to give me a form of parametric variant generation. I am so looking forward to this.
In the meantime, have you ever watched the Brodie Fairhall video I mention in a sibling comment? The shapebinder technique near the end of this video is amazing! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp6cIMA7LsI And there's another clever technique using variant links (which you can take a bit further with BaseFeatures): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9C_ahIVKOI It's funny. People describe FreeCAD as maddening or sadisti…
The macro expect a part container named "export_family" with a single spreadsheet that is used as a template to set any properties and generate the part name.
It will also export any objects within a part container named "export". It also handles recursive part container.
All of that makes possible to export for 3D printing in a single click. Including handling multi material objects more conveniently.
I tried the variant link, but I could only have one variant per link somehow. I couldn't import the same part with multiple variant in the same assembly.
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I will say that the FreeCAD weekly builds have made massive strides; I believe the toponaming fix is in the latest mainline weekly now and Ondsel have been contributing great work back from their branch as well. I’ve been playing around with the weekly version and using the OpenDark theme. It looks pretty slick. It seems like a really exciting time for open-source CAD (hopefully!).
FreeCAD suffers from the same issues that much open-source software suffers from: it has bugs. Bugs erode user confidence. Apparently, there are now > 500 bugs open. When commercial software has bugs, you don't even know they exist often. Sure, but there are also ways to make bug free software, but hardly any open-source software exists that uses those development techniques.
The attachment editor is horrible, for instance. If you want to attach a sketch to a datum plane, it will be attached at a random orientation. There is no preview for this, since datum planes are just planes, except you know, the part where it actually is an LCS with a default attachment orientation internally. So now you have to go into the sketch and draw an arrow pointing up and then rotate the sketch into place so that it actually points up. You will have to do this for every single sketch. It is so painful and an every day occurrence that surely someone should have come up with the idea of fixing it years ago, right?
There is usually no preview for additive parts unless it successfully creates the final model. The idea of displaying a transparent preview of just the operation itself never occurred to them. Also, there are hardly any interactable UI features such as draggable arrows in the 3D editor, you mostly enter numbers in the left panel.
I haven't had much trouble with "bugs". The attachment editor thing is considered a feature by the way.
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Which doesn't necessarily mean that job will ever get done.
In my experience it always has, every single time.
If people have no alternative in their field or the alternative requires discarding years of experience, the incentive to fix bugs isn't as high as it could be. That's how you get problems like Excel invalidating data with automatic formatting for decades.
It's exciting to see a new entry into this space, especially one that is trying to create a new kernel. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely to be successful. The top kernels in the industry have been in development for decades by armies of CAGD PhDs and programmers, with funding from automotive and aerospace companies. Getting to table-stakes with the feature set will take a long time. I also question what user problems…
While there are certainly challenges to open source development, there are no downsides to using open source software. It works just as well for people who don't know what it is or means and just as well for people who are indifferent to it. There are great reasons to avoid proprietary software, though, and they're even stronger when you're talking about SaaS (as we increasingly are nowadays, and specifically are in this case). CAD software is an area where many users have /already/ been burned by proprietary systems changing their offerings /after/ they've invested hundreds of hours learning and using their platform.
I'm aware I'm in the minority, but open source is absolutely a goal in and of itself for me. I've been using open source software exclusively for a very long time.
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I used solid works on my robotics team. Tried using some other program but I loved the way solidworks let's you create parts, and then some other features where its hard to exactly discribe the exact thing but for me solidworks seemed so much more intuitive. I dropped my summer internship money on the version which was a few hundred bucks. ...pretty sure it was cuz I got the student or the hobbist deal.
Solidworks finally has an affordable personal license https://www.solidworks.com/solution/3dexperience-solidworks-...