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Dune3d: A parametric 3D CAD application

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Re: Dune3d: A parametric 3D CAD application

#21
post #8

FreeCAD is the worst. Thanks for building this!

(I seem to be cast in the role of FreeCAD advocate on HN these days, but here goes!) For years I agreed with you - I tried FreeCAD multiple times, different versions, always sucked. Then I watched this video [0] and discovered that v1.1 is different - and that it's good enough for solid reliable hobby usage. It's still a touch frustrating in a few areas (text, for example) but I've now switched over to it completely.…

I really, really want that to be true, but my experience trying to adopt it has been really painful.

Even selecting things in the UI has sucked. I went in and increased the selection radius or whatever, that helped. But really, should I need to do this as a new user?

Getting the constraints to behave is like pulling teeth.

It also kind of sucks that you have to have really sparse sketches that only contain one closed figure. I gather you can create a "master sketch" and selectively project geometry into other sketches. But the last few times I've tried the app, I haven't gotten far enough into my sketches before rage quitting to validate the technique.

Right now I am back F360 with their hobby license wanting to escape their regular messing with the terms and conditions.

Re: Dune3d: A parametric 3D CAD application

#27
post #6

Some other open source 3D CAD tools: Code-based - CadQuery - https://github.com/CadQuery/cadquery/ - build123d - https://github.com/gumyr/build123d - OpenSCAD - https://openscad.cloud/openscad/ GUI (browser-based) - Cadmium (abandoned, cool idea) - https://mattferraro.dev/posts/cadmium

I've been "vibe coding" with OpenSCAD with good results! OpenSCAD will automatically detect changes in the current open file and reload it, so I can use VS Code (with the OpenSCAD extension) to vibe code with Claude, and watch the changes appear on the OpenSCAD screen

Got any example results/chat sessions? I've had little luck with LLMs for 3d modeling

Re: Dune3d: A parametric 3D CAD application

#28

Dune3d comes off like a reskin of SolveSpace. SolveSpace is pretty awesome, so that's not a knock, per se. I'll leave it to somebody with more experience to fill in what value Dune3D adds beyond SolveSpace.

I found the UI far more approachable in Dune 3D than any other 3D CAD program I've tried and as the readme notes, Dune 3D imports STEP files and does fillets/chamfers which SolveSpace does not (in the current version)

There was a recent video on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1VNpC0nwF4

If someone knows of a general introduction to 3D CAD which focuses on vendor-neutral descriptions of terminology and concepts, I'd be very interested --- I've done the tutorial for Dune 3D twice now (which is farther than I've gotten in any other 3D CAD tool), but keep getting hung up on subtleties/specifics which I have trouble describing for want of the correct terminology/understanding:

https://github.com/dune3d/dune3d/discussions/118

When I tried to write up the usage of a far simpler program, one of the things which I tried to do was define all terminology as it was brought up:

https://willadams.gitbook.io/design-into-3d/2d-drawing

are there any tutorials for 3D CAD which attempt definitions along the way in this fashion?

Re: Dune3d: A parametric 3D CAD application

#30

Dune3d comes off like a reskin of SolveSpace. SolveSpace is pretty awesome, so that's not a knock, per se. I'll leave it to somebody with more experience to fill in what value Dune3D adds beyond SolveSpace.

The documentation addresses that[0]. Basically, Dune 3D uses solvespace's solver, but it can do fillets and chamfers, and has a slightly more approachable user interface.

0: https://docs.dune3d.org/en/latest/why-another-3d-cad.html

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