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µcad: New open source programming language that can generate 2D sketches and 3D

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Re: µcad: New open source programming language that can generate 2D sketches and 3D

#111

Post by exasperaited »

arcanemachiner wrote: post #106
exasperaited wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's incorrect, then! Lots changed since 2020 in the current 1.0.2 release, including TNP mitigations and the core assembly workbench. The 1.1 developer release (which is stable and useful and getting quite close to final release) contains further TNP mitigations; further improvements to the core assembly workbench; radically better lighting; datums have moved into the core; there's a way of enabling the advanced att…

It's not negativity. My workflow literally hasn't changed in years. The only difference I've noticed has been cosmetic. Maybe I don't use FreeCAD to it's fullest (I don't) and maybe I don't stay on top of the latest changes (I don't), but I learned years ago to avoid the TNP, and haven't been bothered by it since. The only noticeable changes in recent years to me have been window dressing, plain and simple. Maybe cra…

Right. But you not noticing changes because FreeCAD hasn't broken your workflow is simply not the same as there having been no non-cosmetic changes since 2020: FreeCAD has changed enormously since then (which would be 0.18).

Re: µcad: New open source programming language that can generate 2D sketches and 3D

#114

Post by [deleted] »

exasperaited wrote: post #111
arcanemachiner wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not negativity. My workflow literally hasn't changed in years. The only difference I've noticed has been cosmetic. Maybe I don't use FreeCAD to it's fullest (I don't) and maybe I don't stay on top of the latest changes (I don't), but I learned years ago to avoid the TNP, and haven't been bothered by it since. The only noticeable changes in recent years to me have been window dressing, plain and simple. Maybe cra…

Right. But you not noticing changes because FreeCAD hasn't broken your workflow is simply not the same as there having been no non-cosmetic changes since 2020: FreeCAD has changed enormously since then (which would be 0.18).

[deleted]

Re: µcad: New open source programming language that can generate 2D sketches and 3D

#115

Post by jandrese »

nicman23 wrote: post #40
awinter-py wrote: post #11

Tried openscad and then cadquery for some geometry iteration projects and found them clunky. It wasn't just that I was missing a UI; the functions, constraints and geometry kernel weren't as powerful as onshape, which I've used a bit, and presumably light years behind fusion 360, which I haven't used. Even freecad, a UI-based oss cad, is not quite ergonomic for a beginner-to-intermediate user, though it has come a lo…

freecad with the new ui + its openscad integration is pretty good. openscad in general is quite easy if you can functionally program

I find OpenSCAD to be decent, if somewhat tedious, when making mechanical parts but extremely limiting if you want to work with organic shapes. Even mechanical shapes that just avoid sharp edges require a fair bit of effort. One thing I do like about it is how it encourages users to parameterize their models just by the nature of the language. Pretty much everything I make in OpenSCAD has a list of named parameters at the top I can later tweak if I need to shrink or enlarge some aspect of it.

Re: µcad: New open source programming language that can generate 2D sketches and 3D

#116

Post by skolos »

Looking at examples I see:

``` c = Sector(radius, start = 180°, end = 270°).translate(y = radius); ```

Programming language that requires (maybe it does not require, but then example is not good) to type degrees. Or maybe it is not designed to be typed and rather ai generated?

Re: µcad: New open source programming language that can generate 2D sketches and 3D

#117

Post by naasking »

exasperaited wrote: post #95
naasking wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TNP is much better, but not entirely solved. There are also still lots of minor issues that crop up during normal workflows, particularly when importing geometry from other sketches. I ran into this exact issue just this past week, where importing a half circle from a previous sketch breaks every time I update a dimension in DynamicData (a dimension that isn't used even), but if I manually select "recompute object" i…

TNP essentially cannot be definitively solved , as I understand it. Only extensively mitigated. Other CAD packages still have TNP issues. FreeCAD had an additional problem that OpenCascade doesn't maintain any naming across its interfaces at all, which is what RealThunder's geometry naming scheme, that mainline FreeCAD now uses, largely solved. But his fork still has issues too. Is DynamicData still properly supporte…

I will be posting a minimal example on the forums about this soon once I actually finish the project. Here [1] is the last issue that I had. The issue of getting the needed cutout on that forum post was one problem, but the much deeper issue was how a later operation broke the model in an unrecoverable way once it was removed. To me, that speaks to something deeply broken in FreeCAD's core use of Open Cascade, and I've noticed minor variations on this theme, like when undo operations sometimes don't really undo things and leave sketches broken. less common these days, but it's weird that it was ever a thing.

> Is DynamicData still properly supported in 1.x? Looks like it might be. Never really used it; I use a minimal mix of Spreadsheet (mostly for Configuration Tables) and VarSets.

I used to use Spreadsheets but they just didn't scale, ie. every little addition and modification to the spreadsheet caused very slow global recalculations. DynamicData is a little better on this for some reason, but not much. I like the expression engine they use, but it's not good at only re-evaluating the dependencies that have changed. They should really be using FRP-like signals.

Anyway, I don't want to come across as too negative as FreeCAD is pretty good overall, but these tiny nuisances will continue to hold it back until they're sorted. It is looking better though.

[1] https://forum.freecad.org/viewtopic.php?p=848289#p848289

Re: µcad: New open source programming language that can generate 2D sketches and 3D

#118

Post by masterj »

mft_ wrote: post #68
imtringued wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has been using FreeCAD starting in 2020, I can't tell any major differences. The problems are the same they have ever been. It's only the renderer that got a little bit more "sexy", but that is just looks.

I'm self-taught with CAD, and have repeatedly tried and discarded FreeCAD for several years. (Tangent: perceived absence of a decent CAD solution in Linux is one of very few things keeping me using Windows.) I recently happened upon a video which mostly changed my mind [0], in which someone successfully passed a Solidworks professional certification using FreeCAD. And to my eyes, their workflow was only rarely any wo…

Thank you for this link! I've been wondering if it is possible these days to replace Fusion for my workflow, and this is exactly what I need to see

Re: µcad: New open source programming language that can generate 2D sketches and 3D

#119

Post by exasperaited »

naasking wrote: post #117
exasperaited wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TNP essentially cannot be definitively solved , as I understand it. Only extensively mitigated. Other CAD packages still have TNP issues. FreeCAD had an additional problem that OpenCascade doesn't maintain any naming across its interfaces at all, which is what RealThunder's geometry naming scheme, that mainline FreeCAD now uses, largely solved. But his fork still has issues too. Is DynamicData still properly supporte…

I will be posting a minimal example on the forums about this soon once I actually finish the project. Here [1] is the last issue that I had. The issue of getting the needed cutout on that forum post was one problem, but the much deeper issue was how a later operation broke the model in an unrecoverable way once it was removed. To me, that speaks to something deeply broken in FreeCAD's core use of Open Cascade, and I'…

FWIW I agree that undo is broken — I don't think FreeCAD has a single global undo, rather one that works differently in Sketcher.

Could be wrong but the top-level undo does weird things when there's a recent change in Sketcher.

And yeah, I now use Spreadsheet as little as possible. There is some work going on to try to resolve Sketcher's aggressive recomputation problems. Pop into the (ugh) Discord sometime, there's a channel about it.

Configuration Tables, though, are a really powerful part of Sketcher, particularly when combined with app link variants.

In terms of dependency resolving, the core VarSets are much, much better, and in 1.1 they are better integrated into the expression editor, so you can store an expression as a VarSet property without leaving the expression editor.

Re: µcad: New open source programming language that can generate 2D sketches and 3D

#120

Post by galfarragem »

pedropaulovc wrote: post #22

I've been using zoo and its KCL language with some success for boundary-representation CAD writing. If I understood correctly, µcad serves the same purpose. Comparing code samples between both of them, I personally enjoy KCL's pipelined approach more. My main beef with zoo is the fact that they are promoting vendor lock-in by forcing users to use their cloud-hosted geometry kernel with absolutely no local alternative…

When I see these examples I miss Autolisp…
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