I wish they would just copy the gui format of Solidworks, Creo, NX, etc. Every time I open it to try and learn it, it frustrates the crap out of me and I close it until it's been long enough that I'm willing to try again.
FreeCAD
111–120 of 197 posts
Re: FreeCAD
#112Re: FreeCAD
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you tried SolveSpace? It's easily my favorite open source CAD program. The main things it's missing are shells, fillets, and chamfers. But I've been able to 3D print quite a few parts using it!
Solvespace is nice, but missing fillets and chamfers is kind of a deal-breaker. Last time I tried it it also had issues with small holes turning into diamonds. That said, pre-1.0 FreeCAD had a terrible UX so it was the best FOSS CAD option. With the 1.0 release of FreeCAD the UX is much better though. There are still a few WTFs (e.g. it took me quite a while to figure out rollback is done via right-click->set tip, or…
Set tip makes sense if you think of the steps taken to build up a parts as a history. Setting the tip isn't a rollback. It is saying "I want to insert a new step in the history".
Re: FreeCAD
#114I 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'm use Vectorworks professionally, but that's because it's become the de-facto program for drawing in the entertainment / production space, and uses Parasolid. I'd love to have any, ANY alternative to VW and Nemetschek's awful pricing / subscription scheme, but I don't see FreeCAD being a competitor in this space for many, many years. Maybe for hobbyists, but I agree that the problem space is oversized for a community project like FreeCAD.
Re: FreeCAD
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well said. It seems to me, many FOSS projects suffer from long time contributors which are extremely conservative and don't like any kind of change. Hence every new or improved feature becomes merely a setting (which barely anybody will discover) which is not enabled by default. The UX does only worsen this way because old cruft coexists with its replacement, settings grow fast, the combinatorial explosion of all fea…
Please be careful about voicing generic complaints in a discussion of a specific product. IMO, FreeCAD 1.0 took some huge leaps in ergonomics. I was surprised about how much work had been done. The workers behind FreeCAD don't deserve lazy sniping that doesn't even apply to their creation. My guess is that they might appreciate specific criticism. It would probably help focus the work they are doing. But don't genera…
But I mean it. In my opinion, all the criticism of my post also applies to FreeCAD, not just other projects. Look what brought this up: a hidden feature someone wanted but wasn't aware of.
I'm not trying to blame anyone. I think this is a structural problem with FOSS projects in general (and it also applies to FreeCAD specifically).
Re: FreeCAD
#116I'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…
Yeah, I avoided Fusion (etc.) because of the usual bait-and-switch I've seen with commercial applications that claim to be "free" at some point. If I'm going to invest in learning a new application, I'd rather it be an open one. I dove into FreeCAD with either version 1.0.0 or earlier. It was… rough. To be sure, it was a whole new app so I expect initial navigation around the app to be challenging. But, wow. Nonethel…
> If I'm going to invest in learning a new application, I'd rather it be an open one.
I wouldn't worry about it too much. The concepts are very transferrable.
At work I used to use SolidWorks exclusively, now I'm using Onshape and will probably switch to Inventor soon. At home I typically use Fusion 360. They all work more-or-less the same and moving between them isn't too hard.
Re: FreeCAD
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
I too feel like the latest versions are quite a big improvement and I finally lost that feeling of slowing myself down just for the sake of using OSS. But I still hope for a "blender moment" where a concerted effort gets rid of old cruft, improves UI/UX and jump-starts growth (also in developers/funding) and further improvements.
I kinda wish blender could just do CAD honestly, It feels like all those 3D modeling apps like 3DSmax,Fusion even Zbrush share like 90% of their feature set but your are forced to literally juggle(for videogame dev at least) because of one or two arguably extremely niche capability.
>> I kinda wish blender could just do CAD honestly
Have you tried the "CAD sketcher" add-on? I think Blender should have similar functionality built-in, but for now this looks like a nice add-on.
Blender is a very very long way from being used as a general purpose CAD tool, and IMHO it should not strive to be that. But having this ability to do simple CAD designs without opening and learning a different program is cool.
Re: FreeCAD
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
This shows a general problem that FreeCAD still has: Inside an initially off-putting and frustrating UI experience is a really good application trying to get out, but at the moment a new user still has to dig it out themselves. For example, problems like this one. Or the confusing 3D navigation (switch to Gesture or TinkerCAD mode in the Settings), or the non-interactive view cube. And many other gotchas and paper cu…
> The authors get somewhat blinded to the pain because they're used to it, plus change is difficult for the established userbase. There's also a feeling that emulating competitors is surrendering one's own identity, and the idea that some of the rough edges are justified by "the powerfulness". Thus radically changing defaults, streamlining, simplifying and even just matching user expectations is often perceived as "taking the power away" and really difficult to have the daring-do to just do. Even though on the other side of the transition a much larger and happier userbase awaits.
I think it is unfair to say that they are "blinded to the pain". They are well aware of it from what I've seen of the Dev discussions on Discord. But the vast majority of the devs are volunteers so they can only do so much so fast. There are also some very nice usability improvements as of late that borrow from other programs, like the Solidworks-style navigation settings and the on-screen draggers for pad / pocket / transform type operations. Yes there are tons of preferences and some of the defaults might not be great, but they've added a "Search Preferences" field to help sort through them all. Then there are issues like in the link below where the discussion of how to improve FreeCAD considers comparisons with other pieces of software.
https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/issues/19440#issuecomment...
Another point I'll add is their creation of a Design Working Group to help sort through usability issues and generate a consensus for devs to subsequently implement.
Re: FreeCAD
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you tried SolveSpace? It's easily my favorite open source CAD program. The main things it's missing are shells, fillets, and chamfers. But I've been able to 3D print quite a few parts using it!
Just checked it out [1] but it appears the last version released was in 2022? Makes me wonder if it is still active. [1] https://solvespace.com/index.pl
We have been very close to version 3.2 final for far too long. Development has slowed but not stopped. I would try a nightly/development build.
Re: FreeCAD
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
I kinda wish blender could just do CAD honestly, It feels like all those 3D modeling apps like 3DSmax,Fusion even Zbrush share like 90% of their feature set but your are forced to literally juggle(for videogame dev at least) because of one or two arguably extremely niche capability.
It may look like they're all easily interchangable because the UI and actions are similar (you have a viewport and can do extrudes, etc..) but fundamentally, they're all working on very different objects at their core. Blender and 3DS Max are the most alike, but Zbrush is an entirely different paradigm and so is parametric CAD. An extrude in Blender is massively different from a pad in FreeCAD. Maybe, with a ton of t…
You can do sculpting in Blender as well as parametric objects, similarly you can emulate most of substance designer with shaders, maybe just not _quite_ good enough that's the thing.
It feels like we have been so so close to an unified 3D content creation tool kit for many years now!