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Re: FreeCAD

#181

Post by mixmastamyk »

sho_hn wrote: post #62
andrewshadura wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's mostly a received holdover opinion from the days when Gimp still defaulted to being strongly multi-windowed. The people who keep repeating it probably haven't used Gimp for a while. The usability may still not match Photoshop, but at this point the Gimp UI is largely conventional for this genre of software. Popular opinions take ages to shift sadly.

Yes, I learned on Paint Shop Pro and have used many image editors over the years. GIMP is very similar to the rest of them.

Re: FreeCAD

#182

Post by Klaster_1 »

rounce wrote: post #78
VorpalWay wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parametric modelling is not the cause of the bad UI in FreeCAD, Fusion 360, Onshape, etc are also parametric. No, the main problems (last I tried it around 1.0) were that it had a clunky UI and that it was buggy. It would refuse to chamfer or bevel edges for no apparent reason that other CAD software wouldn't have issues with. There were occasionally crashes. Editing previous steps would destroy the later steps much…

> It would refuse to chamfer or bevel edges for no apparent reason that other CAD software wouldn't have issues with. I'm guessing you're trying to set a fillet which would completely consume one of the faces adjacent to the edge being filleted. In these cases I've found that a workaround is to make the fillet 0.001mm smaller than the size which would consume the entire face. You end up with a very very small amount…

I experience this all the time and UX is absolutely one of culprits here. The workaround works, but UI doesn't nudge you to adjust the value, it just throws an opaque error. It's so obvious to me that even such a simple thing as saying "Try smaller radius" would make things more obvious, or even better - have a button in that error to "Set radius to largest valid". Saying that "but it's cause by OpenCascade" is a thought-stopping cop out. If there's a manual workaround trick, you can always integrate that into UI, but not doing so is a choice.

Re: FreeCAD

#183

Post by fainpul »

GorbachevyChase wrote: post #153
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…

FreeCAD is one of those programs that I want to like and I’m rooting for, but for modeling outside of work I’m a much bigger fan of plasticity and blender. I’m hopeful now that language models are so good at software development that we can get a fork of freeCAD with a focus on ease of use. Unrelated to part modeling, I would love to have a browser based roadway design tool that is domain-first, CAD second. Autodesk…

Blender is a great piece of software, but it's a mesh editor (and many other things). It will never be a CAD tool and no add-on will change that.

Plasticity looks great, but it focuses on visual modeling instead of constraint based modeling. It's not a general purpose CAD tool.

Re: FreeCAD

#184

Post by mft_ »

randusername wrote: post #87
mft_ wrote: post #40

(I’ve posted this before on HN but it’s worth repeating) I’m an CAD hobbyist, and I’ve tried to work with FreeCAD multiple times over past years, always failing…. …until I saw this video and learned about version 1.1: https://youtu.be/VEfNRST_3x8 FreeCAD is now in the same ballpark of capability and usability as Solidworks. It can still be a bit clunky and frustrating sometimes, but then so can most CAD programs, in…

Awesome, thanks for repeating. I have, like, an old married couple relationship with SolidWorks. Stockholm syndrome may be more accurate. It shaped how I think, it aggravates me as only a long-time companion could, but overall I'm fond of it. It gives me hope that others have made the switch. I've wanted to love FreeCAD for a long time, too.

I think we’re in a similar place. I invested enough time over several years to understand the quirks and avoid the frustrations of a certain CAD package (allegedly, possibly Solidworks).

And it’s now helpful to remind myself, each time I find FreeCAD difficult or clunky, of all of those times that Solidworks was also, just in different ways. Or the time that Fusion lost a whole part of a model. Or the lack of a parametric history in lots of other competitors. Or the awfulness of trying to refer to specific parts of a model in progress of OpenSCAD. And so on…

Re: FreeCAD

#185

Post by unionpivo »

dgroshev wrote: post #135
JKCalhoun wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I find SOLIDWORKS for Makers [1] a great middle ground between bait-and-switch "free" Fusion and the real, very expensive, deal. SW is one of industry standards, its interface is much better than FreeCAD's, and it's more powerful than both FreeCAD and Fusion. For example, both FreeCAD and Fusion struggle with G2/G3 smoothness [2] where SW doesn't even blink. Fusion doesn't allow to pattern features on sketch points (…

Problem is, its not available in many countries including mine.

They are saying "we are expending countries" but i check once in a while and hasn't changed in years.

Re: FreeCAD

#186

Post by unionpivo »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #155
dgroshev wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find SOLIDWORKS for Makers [1] a great middle ground between bait-and-switch "free" Fusion and the real, very expensive, deal. SW is one of industry standards, its interface is much better than FreeCAD's, and it's more powerful than both FreeCAD and Fusion. For example, both FreeCAD and Fusion struggle with G2/G3 smoothness [2] where SW doesn't even blink. Fusion doesn't allow to pattern features on sketch points (…

Subscription-based, cloud-based. That's two strikes. It sounds like Solidworks is better for someone who is always using it—I maybe use a 3D CAD tool two or three weeks out of the year. Rent-anxiety (paying for it but not using it) keeps me from subscription apps.

They have 2 versions.

One is cloud based one is local install. They are pushing cloud based one because, their local installer is really bad (it's also bad for commercial version, people often joked, that the hardest thing about SW is getting it to run)

But yes, you pay yearly subscription. Which I am not a fan of, but it's a decent price, and I understand that such niche programs, can't sustain themselves on volume

Re: FreeCAD

#187

Post by obelisk79 »

regularfry wrote: post #174
obelisk79 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I wasn't implying you were doing that. I don't play the 'this isn't fusion or xyz cad' argument when someone brings a suggestion. I'm only stating that not every idea will work properly in the context of FreeCAD, but comparisons are considered when such suggestions are made.

The thing you are complaining about is the immediate dismissal the forum used to shoot back at people with ideas. Most likely a conditioned (and very toxic) response from receiving a lot of equally non-constructive feedback using things like F360 as their litmus.

Either way, there is the Design Working Group which evaluates ideas and feedback with a fair lens about what will work in context of FreeCAD and what is feasible to implement without causing unnecessary disruption to existing users. It is a complex social paradox to deal with.

Re: FreeCAD

#189

Post by snapetom »

kuratkull wrote: post #96
snapetom wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar experience. I tried to learn FreeCAD a while ago. People recommended Mango Jelly's tutorials. I used those among others and dove in. However, it was a pretty frustrating experience. Things never worked quite right. I would drill into a certain point and then realized you couldn't get there from here, and had to start over. I recently had a desperate need to 3D print a part and tried FreeCAD again. A couple of…

Yeah the tutorial I linked was from Mango Jelly for FreeCAD 1.1 :) He seems to have a perfect balance of getting it done, and you understanding what you are doing.

His latest 1.1, 1 hour tutorial does. It's great - basic tinkering and explaining philosophy behind things. It really set you up to explore on your own to get you the remaining 20%.

His previous ones were geared for making you an expert. I remember thinking, "I'm not watching a week's worth of videos to make a hollow box with holes around it."

Re: FreeCAD

#190

Post by rounce »

Klaster_1 wrote: post #182
rounce wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would refuse to chamfer or bevel edges for no apparent reason that other CAD software wouldn't have issues with. I'm guessing you're trying to set a fillet which would completely consume one of the faces adjacent to the edge being filleted. In these cases I've found that a workaround is to make the fillet 0.001mm smaller than the size which would consume the entire face. You end up with a very very small amount…

I experience this all the time and UX is absolutely one of culprits here. The workaround works, but UI doesn't nudge you to adjust the value, it just throws an opaque error. It's so obvious to me that even such a simple thing as saying "Try smaller radius" would make things more obvious, or even better - have a button in that error to "Set radius to largest valid". Saying that "but it's cause by OpenCascade" is a tho…

> but not doing so is a choice

The workaround mentioned isn't a magic solution, it fails in a bunch of more complex cases too. Chamfers are a complicated operation and predicting valid values across of the operation in order to set a maximum value is, as far as I'm aware, in a similar region of difficulty. It would also be unfeasible in many cases to attempt the actual operation across a wide range of values. It's not so much a choice as just being hard to do.

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