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FreeCAD

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171–180 of 197 posts

Re: FreeCAD

#171

Post by vablings »

sho_hn wrote: post #65
fainpul wrote: post #49

Earlier 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 blender moment is required. There is a reason most CAD software looks and operates similarly apart from NX (fuck you nx)

Re: FreeCAD

#172

Post by qup »

erremerre wrote: post #134
qup wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean photopea? Great alternative in-browser.

I do, it is indeed. I'm always surprised that a single developer in javascript managed to do it.

Same. When I first saw it, I couldn't believe that was possible in the browser.

It makes me want to investigate that style of application.

I think it even works offline.

Re: FreeCAD

#173

Post by sho_hn »

Jblx2 wrote: post #170
beachy wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I wonder if anyone has first-hand experience they can share with Fusion 360 under Wine.

It's incredibly rough and unreliable, sadly.

Re: FreeCAD

#174

Post by regularfry »

obelisk79 wrote: post #162
regularfry wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one of the real problems. The other real problem is an active resistance to UI improvement simply because another CAD package did something similar.

FreeCAD doesn't resist those comparisons anymore. They happen regularly. Implementing change is just slow, and purely copying how xyz cad built their UI isn't always compatible with FreeCAD, so a lot of careful consideration goes into things before concepts from other software get implemented. Not to mention that developers seem to really dislike doing frontend work.

Aaaaah! No! You're doing it too! I am not talking about copying how xyz cad built their UI. I am not talking about consciously implementing concepts from other software. I'm talking about this crazy tendency to assume that the reason someone wants UI feature X is because xyz cad does it, not because it's a natural, intuitive thing to want to do. Natural, intuitive things tend to get independently invented; more than once I've made a suggestion and had "this isn't Fusion 360, you know" thrown back at me, despite the fact I've never used F360 to know what comparison they're making.

Re: FreeCAD

#175

Post by upboundspiral »

jcgrillo wrote: post #73
tda wrote: post #48

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 bette…

I believe there's a cadquery workbench for freecad, I messed around with it about a year ago but ran into similar struggles as you describe. I'll have to give it another try.

There is actually, though I suspect it's a different one I found.

https://github.com/jopdorp/build123d-freecad (it also supports cadquery)

Set it up today and I am really liking build123d in general. I've always wanted something code-based for CAD and I can't believe I missed something this promising.

Frankly even the visualization tools that you can plugin like OCP Cad viewer mean that outside of complex assemblies you can do everything in your editor of choice.

Re: FreeCAD

#176

Post by jcgrillo »

upboundspiral wrote: post #175
jcgrillo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe there's a cadquery workbench for freecad, I messed around with it about a year ago but ran into similar struggles as you describe. I'll have to give it another try.

There is actually, though I suspect it's a different one I found. https://github.com/jopdorp/build123d-freecad (it also supports cadquery) Set it up today and I am really liking build123d in general. I've always wanted something code-based for CAD and I can't believe I missed something this promising. Frankly even the visualization tools that you can plugin like OCP Cad viewer mean that outside of complex assemblies…

I'm playing with this now too and it's really wonderful. I'm hoping that I can use build123d 100% for modelling individual parts and then FreeCAD for assemblies, simulations, etc.

Re: FreeCAD

#178

Post by lq9AJ8yrfs »

sho_hn wrote: post #65
fainpul wrote: post #49

Earlier 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…

i like the way prusaslicer has a conspicuous setting to enable intermediate and advanced settings so that users can start with a less intimidating setup and opt in to the bells and whistles if and when they are ready.

this pattern could probably benefit a lot of apps

Re: FreeCAD

#179

Post by lq9AJ8yrfs »

bsza wrote: post #67
willis936 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

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.

there are a lot of "do what I mean" type papercuts in openscad. BOSL2 is a library that, for me at least, takes away enough of them to make a rewarding experience. still find myself brute forcing which axis to translate or rotate things the way i want.

concur otherwise that openscad is parameter friendly. the lightbulb moment for me was when i finally grasped its functional grammar and leaned into it, esp recursion instead of algebraic solutions. that should probably be the subject of a tutorial or several.

Re: FreeCAD

#180

Post by Klaster_1 »

aw-engineer wrote: post #94

MangoJelly makes great video tutorials for FreeCAD: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUWhaOxsRk_5oPPq00_Y7Dw "MangoJelly Solutions for FreeCAD"

MJ is awesome, but I recently discovered this another treasure trove of a YT channel that has only 5k subscribers and covers topics MJ has less focus on, like reverse engineering or surfaces: https://www.youtube.com/@DuyQuangDang/videos
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