41–50 of 117 posts
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
KiCad - https://www.kicad.org/
This project improves on SolveSpace, but it does this by requiring dozens of mutually conflicting libraries. I create CAD videos, but for my students I decided against this project after seeing how difficult it was to compile.
A FlatPak installer might help with this installation issue.
Again, the Windows executable gets around these issues, for people still willing to put up with Windows.
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(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…
Agree - selection isn’t broken, but it’s definitely sometimes frustrating and as it’s such a common function, absolutely should be as close to perfect as possible. I think it’s partly that the visual indication of what you’re hovering over and would be selected is too subtle, and also I’ve found (on Mac; I’ve not confirmed on other OSs) that it’s not selecting what’s at the exact tip of the pointer, but is rather selecting a couple of pixels away.
> Getting the constraints to behave is like pulling teeth.
Huh, once I’ve actually selected correctly, I find the constraints are fine - say, 95% as good as Solidworks.
> It also kind of sucks that you have to have really sparse sketches that only contain one closed figure.
Can you explain what you mean by this? Do you mean you can’t have a sketch with (to take a very simple example) a circle inside a circle, or two unrelated circles, or something else?
Okay, but unless you choose to download the Windows executable, compiling from source is very difficult. Many people won't accept the Snap option on an otherwise open-source platform. This project improves on SolveSpace, but it does this by requiring dozens of mutually conflicting libraries. I create CAD videos, but for my students I decided against this project after seeing how difficult it was to compile. A FlatPak…
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Got any example results/chat sessions? I've had little luck with LLMs for 3d modeling
I've had better luck telling it to use CadQuery. Here's an example where I stumbled around a bit, but was successful in creating a cat food container (Sheba Perfect Portions) dispenser https://claude.ai/share/ebce7c8e-4e5a-42ec-8ee9-cf066f68858f
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FreeCAD: https://freecad.org
I would not suggest anyone use FreeCAD. The UX is the worst I've seen for any software. Finding any functionality is next to impossible.
Okay, but unless you choose to download the Windows executable, compiling from source is very difficult. Many people won't accept the Snap option on an otherwise open-source platform. This project improves on SolveSpace, but it does this by requiring dozens of mutually conflicting libraries. I create CAD videos, but for my students I decided against this project after seeing how difficult it was to compile. A FlatPak…
Okay, but unless you choose to download the Windows executable, compiling from source is very difficult. Many people won't accept the Snap option on an otherwise open-source platform. This project improves on SolveSpace, but it does this by requiring dozens of mutually conflicting libraries. I create CAD videos, but for my students I decided against this project after seeing how difficult it was to compile. A FlatPak…
brew install ... and ./scripts/build_macos.sh
For windows instructions look equally trivial.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
FreeCAD: https://freecad.org
I would not suggest anyone use FreeCAD. The UX is the worst I've seen for any software. Finding any functionality is next to impossible.
Yes they have some unconventional names for certain operations, like "pad" instead of "extrude", and yes there's a confusingly-similarly-named "Part" workbench for doing CSG-style CAD, and yes it takes a bit of practice to get good at it. But it's not next to impossible.