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FreeCAD

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Re: FreeCAD

#31

Post by goku12 »

kantord wrote: post #10

I only used it for some hobby modeling, but I have to say it's fantastic and very impressive. It seems like it's fully community-maintained, there is no big company or foundation behind it. Honestly it's hard to believe! There was just one major problem, the infamous "topological naming problem" which caused issues downstream is you edited a non-leaf node. That was pretty frustrating to deal with, but in later releas…

The solution for Topological Naming Problem (TNP) was merged just before the 1.0 release. A lot of other significant changes were also merged in at the same time. Some people have reported that the UX has improved a lot since then.

I don't know much about the internal architecture of FreeCAD. As far as I know, FreeCAD does a lot of heavy lifting including managing TNP. It's supposed to be handled by the CAD kernel - OpenCASCADE in this case. I suspect that the reason why open source CAD lags behind their proprietary counterparts is really the CAD kernel. Many proprietary CAD software share the same kernel, in fact. For example, SolidWorks, Solid Edge and OnShape use Parasolid. It tells you how critical the kernel is.

Perhaps we should be focusing more on a more capable open source CAD kernel. There are a few projects around that are trying this. But they either have very limited scopes, or don't have enough support and momentum.

Re: FreeCAD

#32

Post by _flux »

VorpalWay wrote: post #28
lich_king wrote: post #21

I really want to support open-source CAD, but it's so hard to take FreeCAD seriously. It reminds me of POV-Ray, which was (and still is) a parametric raytracer. An impressive feat of engineering completely derailed by the choice of a "UI" paradigm that made the simplest things unreasonably hard. Designing 3D parts is hard enough, and while parametric modeling has uses... come on.

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…

FreeCAD relies on OpenCascade kernel to actually deal with the models, and yes, there's still room for improvement..

As I understand it, there are no other open source alternatives around. On the commercial side there are some, perhaps the foremost being the venerable Parasolid, which is used by Onshape, Solid Edge, Solid Works, Siemens NX, Shapr 3d and others.

Creating a solid 3d kernel is hard. Parasolid is from 1986.

Re: FreeCAD

#33

Post by imtringued »

Deep-States wrote: post #30
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…

Agreed: The Dune3D developers made the wise decision to start from scratch implementing a parametric modeling UI. Extremely robust software; very fast, and almost intuitive (high praise for CAD). The problem with FreeCAD, on the other hand, is that it's a "just two more weeks and it'll be great" solution. The developers are clearly talented in a raw-math kind of way, but FreeCAD offers the eternal promise of usabilit…

>Those who are profoundly cynical might consider the possibility that the legacy CAD industry has infiltrated the FreeCAD development team and run Pied-Piper ops there to prevent a Blender-moment stealing their revenue.

If you've been around on the FreeCAD forums, you'll see that the majority of users essentially believe that all comparisons of FreeCAD with commercial CAD software is illegitimate and become incredibly defensive. They have developed a huge arsenal of coping strategies to avoid improving FreeCAD and the results speak for themselves.

It's like they've got the Steve Jobs attitude but without the good taste that justified it.

Re: FreeCAD

#34

Post by lm28469 »

VorpalWay wrote: post #28
lich_king wrote: post #21

I really want to support open-source CAD, but it's so hard to take FreeCAD seriously. It reminds me of POV-Ray, which was (and still is) a parametric raytracer. An impressive feat of engineering completely derailed by the choice of a "UI" paradigm that made the simplest things unreasonably hard. Designing 3D parts is hard enough, and while parametric modeling has uses... come on.

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.

These are almost all caused because they use Open Cascade under the hood

Re: FreeCAD

#35

Post by imtringued »

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.

>Because... You can copy the UI of the leader and problem solved.

For whatever reason, the FreeCAD community is explicitly against taking note from competitors. Copying the UI of the leader is a thoughtcrime.

Re: FreeCAD

#36

Post by imtringued »

devmor wrote: post #17
jwrallie wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used it once or twice to open an existing .step file just to know if I was exporting it correctly from KiCad. Speaking of KiCad, I am convincing lots of people to move from EAGLE to it now that EAGLE is about to be killed by AutoDesk, and everyone seem to be having a good time. I am hoping FreeCAD can become good to the point I can convince people to move to it too.

KiCad is frustrating because it’s actually good enough to make a lot of models but it’s just unfriendly enough to make it take way too long to do… but it’s also still way easier than learning how to do it in a full-featured cad program. I would kill for something like KiCad with more refined controls.

There's HorizonEDA. Just be prepared to spend a ridiculous amount of time setting parts up.

Re: FreeCAD

#37

Post by Deep-States »

imtringued wrote: post #33
Deep-States wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed: The Dune3D developers made the wise decision to start from scratch implementing a parametric modeling UI. Extremely robust software; very fast, and almost intuitive (high praise for CAD). The problem with FreeCAD, on the other hand, is that it's a "just two more weeks and it'll be great" solution. The developers are clearly talented in a raw-math kind of way, but FreeCAD offers the eternal promise of usabilit…

>Those who are profoundly cynical might consider the possibility that the legacy CAD industry has infiltrated the FreeCAD development team and run Pied-Piper ops there to prevent a Blender-moment stealing their revenue. If you've been around on the FreeCAD forums, you'll see that the majority of users essentially believe that all comparisons of FreeCAD with commercial CAD software is illegitimate and become incredibl…

>They have developed a huge arsenal of coping strategies to avoid improving FreeCAD and the results speak for themselves.

Exactly. These FreeCAD "strategies" you mention align themselves perfectly with the objectives of the legacy CAD industry: To delay; break; and obfuscate opensource CAD.

In other words: The FreeCAD team may not be infiltrated by the legacy-CAD industry, but its behavior is entirely consistent with such a state.

One solution is to fork the behemoth; but if FreeCAD is a hedge-maze-by-design, the only way to win is not to play the game: Build alternatives elsewhere, from scratch.

FreeCAD feels like a time-drainer honeypot. Though whether by accident, or malice, is unknown.

Re: FreeCAD

#38

Post by IshKebab »

sakras wrote: post #12
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…

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 something like that)... But overall it's better than Solvespace now.

Re: FreeCAD

#39

Post by lgtx »

villgax wrote: post #2

Few points that I've not seen being factored in over the past decade- * This needs a better renderer in today's day & age * Need cross-device/web support * Topology Optimization w/ pure physics code ----- Hopefully LLMs can work on forking this or adding better features with AI-assists

The last thing FreeCAD needs is AI integration. LLM contributions to the project have been of poor quality so far (just like most LLM contributions to FOSS)

Re: FreeCAD

#40

Post by mft_ »

(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 their own ways.

Side note: the creator of the video above also has a video on optimising the FreeCAD interface. (There are some frustrations related to the interface generally, and this would seem to be a low hanging fruit for the FreeCAD team to address.)

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