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FreeCAD

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Re: FreeCAD

#41

Post by IshKebab »

devmor wrote: post #17
jwrallie wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used it once or twice to open an existing .step file just to know if I was exporting it correctly from KiCad. Speaking of KiCad, I am convincing lots of people to move from EAGLE to it now that EAGLE is about to be killed by AutoDesk, and everyone seem to be having a good time. I am hoping FreeCAD can become good to the point I can convince people to move to it too.

KiCad is frustrating because it’s actually good enough to make a lot of models but it’s just unfriendly enough to make it take way too long to do… but it’s also still way easier than learning how to do it in a full-featured cad program. I would kill for something like KiCad with more refined controls.

I can second Horizon EDA. It's not perfect, but it has the good KiCAD kernel without the abysmal UX.

FreeCAD may also be good - it's the only other one I haven't tried.

On the other hand if you're convincing EAGLE users to move they'll probably be happy with KiCAD because they're already used to an even worse UX, as if such a thing were possible.

Re: FreeCAD

#42

Post by andrewshadura »

erremerre wrote: post #26
beachy wrote: post #6

I feel CAD is one area where open source does not shine. The problem space is too complex, and the UIs demand continuous, thoughtful development driven from customer demands rather than developers scratching their own itches. Not least there are free (as in beer) solutions available, like fusion 360, that are enormously capable. Theres certainly a place for open source, and openscad would be a great tool to reach for…

I never understood this UI problem. Because... You can copy the UI of the leader and problem solved. There you have GIMP with an absolute nightmare UI to use, but people keep saying, just get used to it. On the other hand, a single developer, in javascript, made a copy of photoshop, and most people I know prefer to use that over GIMP... Just copy the UI that works, if you can't research your own UI.

Why do you think GIMP is a nightmare? I don’t find it problematic at all. The only issue I’m hitting once in a while is that I click on a button on the toolbar, and I guess I hit its edge, as I doesn’t switch modes. Other than that, I don’t have any complaints at all. What are yours?

Re: FreeCAD

#43

Post by bsza »

beachy wrote: post #6

I feel CAD is one area where open source does not shine. The problem space is too complex, and the UIs demand continuous, thoughtful development driven from customer demands rather than developers scratching their own itches. Not least there are free (as in beer) solutions available, like fusion 360, that are enormously capable. Theres certainly a place for open source, and openscad would be a great tool to reach for…

Another advantage of OpenSCAD (if you can call it that) is that LLMs seem to be able to work with it pretty well. A few days ago I asked chatgpt to make me a box for storing batteries, and it came out perfect on first try without any modification. It also made an okay-ish looking 3D pelican after some back-and-forth.

Re: FreeCAD

#44

Post by rcarmo »

Deep-States wrote: post #30
kilpikaarna wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to check out Dune3D. It advertises itself as combining the constraint solver from SolveSpace with a OpenCASCADE geometry kernel supporting fillets and chamfers. :) Haven't used it much apart from some minor tests (I tend to prefer MoI3D, but that's in a different category in several ways...), but as far as FOSS solid modelers it seems like the most promising to me. I do remember some small UI quirks, b…

Agreed: The Dune3D developers made the wise decision to start from scratch implementing a parametric modeling UI. Extremely robust software; very fast, and almost intuitive (high praise for CAD). The problem with FreeCAD, on the other hand, is that it's a "just two more weeks and it'll be great" solution. The developers are clearly talented in a raw-math kind of way, but FreeCAD offers the eternal promise of usabilit…

This. I just can’t bring myself to use FreeCAD for anything. It’s been almost a decade of occasional attempts during vacation breaks and it is still one of the worst, most counter-intuitive pieces of 3D software I’ve ever used (and I paid my way through college doing early multimedia work, some 30 years ago).

Re: FreeCAD

#45

Post by rcarmo »

ghayes wrote: post #25

I’ve really enjoyed Shapr3D (built on Parasolid). Nothing particularly better than the usual competitors but the interface is really intuitive and you can realistically develop on an iPad. Curious if anyone else has had experiences with it.

It’s my default. It is hands down the easiest to use modern CAD software today, and I’ve tried most of them. I too use it on the iPad and Mac, wish I could get it to install under WINE.

Re: FreeCAD

#47

Post by willis936 »

bsza wrote: post #43
beachy wrote: post #6

I feel CAD is one area where open source does not shine. The problem space is too complex, and the UIs demand continuous, thoughtful development driven from customer demands rather than developers scratching their own itches. Not least there are free (as in beer) solutions available, like fusion 360, that are enormously capable. Theres certainly a place for open source, and openscad would be a great tool to reach for…

Another advantage of OpenSCAD (if you can call it that) is that LLMs seem to be able to work with it pretty well. A few days ago I asked chatgpt to make me a box for storing batteries, and it came out perfect on first try without any modification. It also made an okay-ish looking 3D pelican after some back-and-forth.

The problem with openSCAD is that you cannot modify it easily. I had made a complex geometry several years ago in openSCAD and I have been waiting for a model that can actually convert it into a python script that generates freecad parametric sketches that recreate it in an editable way. All frontier models fail at this, some more spectacularly than others (gemini never spent 40 minutes / $4 trying and failing, but opus 4.6 did).

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4335532

Re: FreeCAD

#48

Post by tda »

I recently gave CadQuery (a Python wrapper around OpenCASCADE) and its Jupyter and VSCode integrations another try. Two years ago installation was a mess across conda, Docker, and pyenv, and the API itself felt like a dense, bespoke DSL you had to fight.

This time everything just installed, and Claude Code turned out to be pretty good. Designing with code is sometimes more work upfront, but iteration is so much better. You get proper abstractions: functions, encapsulation, loops. You can drop in a SAT solver to optimize part placement or grab data from an excel sheet. No more clicking through a GUI that crashes and loses your session. I've spent time with Fusion, SolidWorks, NX, OnShape, FreeCAD, and Rhino, and each has its merits, but none of them can benefit from the LLM revolution the way a code-first tool can.

I asked Claude Code to generate a set of Lego bricks in various sizes, apply a nice color palette, and pack them optimally into a grid. It needed some steering, but all in all I was impressed

Re: FreeCAD

#49

Post by fainpul »

dracotomes wrote: post #29
kuratkull wrote: post #4

I'm a occasional hobbyist maker and i've used Autodesk Fusion, Solid Edge, OpenSCAD and other niche parametric programs, but always felt FreeCAD was too complex. But I really wanted it to work for me because it's FOSS and 100% offline. So with the new FreeCAD 1.1 RC I found an hour long tutorial and dove in. (1.1 is supposedly much easier to work with) After doing the tut I can say that 1.1 is very nice, i can uninst…

I switched from Fusion to FreeCAD when I bid Windows goodbye (this video inspired me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEfNRST_3x8 ). Fusion does a LOT of stuff for you that FreeCAD doesn't - i.e. extrude a pad from two intersecting shapes in a sketch. While this is annoying at first I feel it forces me to design smarter. I've had a few crashes and the constraint solver sometimes seems to behave weird and takes a ctrl+…

> extrude a pad from two intersecting shapes in a sketch

You can do that in FreeCAD 1.1. Select the sketch, enable "Make Internals" in the data tab. You can also enable it permanently in settings.

Re: FreeCAD

#50

Post by tda »

beachy wrote: post #6

I feel CAD is one area where open source does not shine. The problem space is too complex, and the UIs demand continuous, thoughtful development driven from customer demands rather than developers scratching their own itches. Not least there are free (as in beer) solutions available, like fusion 360, that are enormously capable. Theres certainly a place for open source, and openscad would be a great tool to reach for…

The real problem is that BREP CAD kernels are hard. A few of proprietary kernels dominate the scene: Parasolid powers NX, SolidWorks, Fusion, and Onshape, while ACIS (owned by Dassault) is used by Inventor and BricsCAD. Catia uses Dassault's own CGM kernel. The open-source world relies mostly on OpenCASCADE, which is unfortunately a lot less capable than any of these.

Fillets and chamfers are a good example. They seem simple but are geometrically non-trivial, and OCC will fail on cases that Parasolid handles without complaint. You can push either kernel to its limits if you try hard enough, but OCC hits that ceiling much sooner. So any CAD tool built on top of it inherits that ceiling too.

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