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FreeCAD

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Re: FreeCAD

#141

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: FreeCAD

#142

Post by mechette »

I learned CAD (formally, in a classroom) on Solidworks/AutoCAD, and once I understood the difference between part and part design, I didn't have major issues with FreeCAD-the concepts of good modeling are the same. I had some "okay, what does this software call this function" moments, but it wasn't nearly as bad as when I learned NX and couldn't find the constraints menu. I personally find the shortcomings in techdraw & assembly to be a much bigger problem than the UI-frankly, if I compare it to every engineering software I've used, it is solidly middle-of-the-pack in UI. The worst ones were commercial, expensive software. At least with FreeCAD if something is unbearably stupid I can go in and _fix_ it.

Re: FreeCAD

#143

Post by beachy »

sho_hn wrote: post #61
fifticon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fusion 360 is exactly "free" for that reason, to make people reason like you do. They do not want a blender moment.

Note as a Linux user, the only version of Fusion you can really use is the (bad) browser one, which requires a $900/year subscription. I like Fusion, but this is a powerful motivator to make due with FreeCAD or Dune3D.

Fusion 360 and my golf sim software are the only two reasons I have windows dual boot.

Re: FreeCAD

#144

Post by burnt_toast »

I'm a big fan of FreeCAD and have been using it to design and sell 3d printed parts. The learning curve was kinda steep because FreeCAD really wants you to things the "FreeCAD way" but once I got past that I started to enjoy using it.

My only gripe with FreeCAD is that the program runs on a single CPU core as far as I can tell and it's easy to lock up the program for multiple seconds if you do too complex of an operation. This isn't usually an issue for me though.

Re: FreeCAD

#145

Post by fainpul »

sho_hn wrote: post #129
fainpul wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I think freeopinion is right, though. I don't think "Make internals" is off by default only because the developers are conservative, but because the meaning and behavior of it changed a few times recently around the merger of the RealThunder forks and the TNP work. I did a casual search and 2025 comments are full of it doing nothing. So a more productive specific thing would perhaps be indeed to strike up a "It seems…

> So a more productive specific thing would perhaps be indeed to strike up a "It seems to work nicely now, why isn't it default?"

That may be. It's just not what I'm interested in. I don't have the energy to fight lots of little battles to improve some minor things, when – in my perception – the end result would still *suck. I think a major rework is needed. For example, I don't think simply enabling "Make Internals" would be the best thing to do. IMO it should be always on AND the setting should be removed AND the toggle from the data view should be removed AND that would imply that it must always work bugfree so that nobody has a need to disable it. I don't think this is ever gonna happen if I start a discussion or even make a pull request.

* I'm not a hater, I'm a FreeCAD user. Out of all the offerings that exist, it's my preferred CAD tool for my private hobby use. I just wish it was better, because I see untapped potential.

Re: FreeCAD

#146

Post by dgroshev »

elaus wrote: post #14
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 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.

It's probably impossible for FreeCAD to catch up with the industry-standard CAD systems (SOLIDWORKS, NX, Fusion) unless they somehow pour a stupendous amount of money into their geometry kernel [1].

All major CAD systems use mature geometry kernels like Parasolid [2]. Parasolid was developed for 40 years and is still in active development. This is the piece of code that enables CAD systems to do things like computing an intersection of a G3 smooth fillet with embossed text, handling all corner cases.

FreeCAD runs on OpenCASCADE [3], which is both less sophisticated today and is slower to gain new features than Parasolid, being seemingly maintained by one person [4]. FreeCAD's geometry is hard limited by what OpenCASCADE can do.

This is the main difference from Blender. Blender ultimately operates on vertices, which doesn't require nearly the same level of inherent complexity. Blender isn't bottlenecked in what it can do like FreeCAD is.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_modeling_kernel

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasolid

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Cascade_Technology

[4]: https://github.com/Open-Cascade-SAS/OCCT/commits/master/

Re: FreeCAD

#147

Post by beachy »

willis936 wrote: post #74
bsza wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your ball looks well parametrized to me, what kind of editing are you missing from it? Unless you want to change the shape of the locking mechanism altogether, which I think would be a chore in any format.

Yeah the lock is what needs iterating. It was always marginal and took several rounds of prototyping to even get to a printable state. I'd like to experiment with something like a keyed screw. The issue with this scad file is that I built the geometry up with no functions. I tried and failed to get them working so I just pushed through, so now it is mind melting to try to refactor it. I'm hoping to one day melt a mec…

Openscad models are a bit like complex regexps, write only artifacts that do the job at the time but are regarded with trepidation afterwards.

Re: FreeCAD

#148

Post by karotte »

mijoharas wrote: post #104
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…

I was excited about dune3d but one of the things I needed to do I had to import an SVG as a path to extrude (or similar) and I couldn't see a way to do it. I managed to do it (painfully) with freecad, so that's what I settled with. Does anyone know if that's a feature yet?

Dune 3D developer here. Use inkscape to convert the SVG path to DXF and import that.

Re: FreeCAD

#149

Post by karotte »

IshKebab wrote: post #38
sakras wrote: post #12

Earlier 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…

If you want a solvespace with chamfers and fillets, then give Dune 3D a try.

Disclaimer: Dune 3D developer here.

Re: FreeCAD

#150

Post by bityard »

burnt_toast wrote: post #144

I'm a big fan of FreeCAD and have been using it to design and sell 3d printed parts. The learning curve was kinda steep because FreeCAD really wants you to things the "FreeCAD way" but once I got past that I started to enjoy using it. My only gripe with FreeCAD is that the program runs on a single CPU core as far as I can tell and it's easy to lock up the program for multiple seconds if you do too complex of an opera…

What kind of parts do you sell? Do you print them yourself?
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