4 ms·

For those interested in open source 3D CAD applications, there's a really interesting application called SolveSpace which is a very, very fast and low resource

For those interested in open source 3D CAD applications, there's a really interesting application called SolveSpace which is a very, very fast and low resource 3D parametric CAD application. It's really useful, really fast and very stable - all in a tiny executable. Definitely worth a try if you're coming from a CAD background - it's the first open source 3D CAD application I've used which could replace Solidworks for quick, painless part modelling. http://solvespace.com/index.pl http://solvespace.com/index.pl

kwk1 9y ago
There's also some effort in the FreeCAD forums to adapt SolveSpace's assembly functionality for FreeCAD.
- app4soft 9y ago
  > adapt SolveSpace's assembly functionality for FreeCAD This project has name - FreeCAD Assembly3[0], and test builds already available too[1], so soon it could be merged in main FreeCAD branch. Read details on this project wiki[2] ;-) [0] https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?t=19111 https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?t=19111 [1] https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3/releases https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3/releases [2] https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3/wiki/Build-Instruction https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3/wiki/Build-...
app4soft 9y ago
> For those interested in open source 3D CAD applications, there's a really interesting application called SolveSpace which is a very, very fast and low resource 3D parametric CAD application. Yeah, it's cool project, and I'm one of contributors to SolveSpace development ;-) (mostly, tester and idea generator). SolveSpace not only 3D CAD - it is 2D/3D CAD and CAE too. I like to make stress tests for SolveSpace and already know many tricks, so if need some help with SolveSpace - ask me! (I often answer on SolveSpace Forum too). One of most active users of SolveSpace is Eric Buijs[0], that has many videos on his YouTube channel[1] about SolveSpace usage for solving tasks from different CAD challenges and competitions[2], such as "/r/CAD/ Challenge" (I has own archive[3] of those tasks), etc. > It's really useful, really fast Agree, it useful for daily work & small 3D printing tasks. But sadly it's not very useful for very big construction that consists of many sub-models yet... > and very stable Not so stable. Be careful - while SolveSpace often work like a charm, if you create redundant constrains it could freeze your PC very fast! Just need be careful with constrains and complex models design in SolveSpace. [0] https://eribuijs.blogspot.com/2016/09/switching-from-freecad-to-solvespace.html https://eribuijs.blogspot.com/2016/09/switching-from-freecad... [1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPwwPIXHMZYcVyJ2SuRJjuA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPwwPIXHMZYcVyJ2SuRJjuA [2] https://github.com/m2n037/awesome-mecheng#competitions https://github.com/m2n037/awesome-mecheng#competitions [3] https://github.com/symbian9/reddit_cad_challenge https://github.com/symbian9/reddit_cad_challenge
virtualritz 9y ago
When I played with SolveSpace last year and did some small projects with it I took the single page HTML docs from github and manually created Sphinx docs from them. They're hosted at [1]. I posted to the SolveSpace forum at the time but there was never any feedback from there. I didnt feel inclined to put more work into it. I'm happy if someone forks the GitHub repo and becomes the maintainer. [1] http://solvespace.readthedocs.io http://solvespace.readthedocs.io
- app4soft 9y ago
  > I posted to the SolveSpace forum at the time but there was never any feedback from there. Yeah, I know that filling too... It's happen because current main developer (whitequark) not very friendly with SolveSpace's users and their feature requests... Sadly, but I dream that some time SolveSpace will be maintained such developers as Yorik van Havre and other developers of FreeCAD ;-) Hope, FreeCAD team will fork SolveSpace for further development and give SolveSpace second breathe then. > I didnt feel inclined to put more work into it. I'm happy if someone forks the GitHub repo and becomes the maintainer. OK, think, I could work on it[0] soon ;-) Currently I try setup[1] AppImage builds with patches (features), that already exists as pull requests but still not merged in official SolveSpace branch. [0] https://github.com/symbian9/solvespace-docs https://github.com/symbian9/solvespace-docs [1] https://github.com/symbian9/solvespace-appimage https://github.com/symbian9/solvespace-appimage
newnewpdro 9y ago
Interesting bit of trivia: SolveSpace comes from M-Labs, formerly known as Milkymist, creators of the Milkymist One video synthesizer. M-Labs now focuses on quantum information experiment control software. [1] I remember watching Milkymist/Migen talks [2][3] given by creator Sébastien Bourdeauducq years ago and stumbling across the early SolveSpace site at the time in researching his background. It was already looking quite promising back then, and I got the impression they were using/developing it for their own CAD needs based on what I saw in their IRC channel. There's clearly a lot of talent in that group. [1] https://m-labs.hk/about.html https://m-labs.hk/about.html [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se0VhwgpzZg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se0VhwgpzZg [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zADdKAtHM1Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zADdKAtHM1Y
- jwesthues 9y ago
  > Interesting bit of trivia: SolveSpace comes from M-Labs I developed SolveSpace, and whitequark (via M-Labs) is the current maintainer. He's responsible for all the non-Windows ports, plus the last few years of features and some significant refactoring. We hope the latter will make the codebase more accessible to other contributors. SolveSpace's NURBS operations are worse than OpenCASCADE's, but they're literally orders of magnitude smaller. There's still no great free alternative to Parasolid, SOLIDS++, etc. SolveSpace's constraint solver is pretty good, and people seem to mostly like the UI.
  - app4soft 9y ago
    Jonathan, You write faster than me[0] :-) > plus the last few years of features and some significant refactoring. Last few years there only Alexey Egorov's new features... :-/ While 'whitequark' is good programmer, his role as maintainer very bad for SolveSpace project itself - he don't work well with community at all. He fully non-responsive to Linux users, he not want hear any ideas from community... Project now mostly in freeze... Hope, You will find better project manager (such as Yorik now is in FreeCAD) for SolveSpace for make it more friendly for community. 'whitequark' should be just one of SolveSpace programmer, not maintainer, IMHO. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16797563 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16797563

kwk1 9y ago

There's also some effort in the FreeCAD forums to adapt SolveSpace's assembly functionality for FreeCAD.

app4soft 9y ago
> adapt SolveSpace's assembly functionality for FreeCAD This project has name - FreeCAD Assembly3[0], and test builds already available too[1], so soon it could be merged in main FreeCAD branch. Read details on this project wiki[2] ;-) [0] https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?t=19111 https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?t=19111 [1] https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3/releases https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3/releases [2] https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3/wiki/Build-Instruction https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3/wiki/Build-...

app4soft 9y ago

> For those interested in open source 3D CAD applications, there's a really interesting application called SolveSpace which is a very, very fast and low resource 3D parametric CAD application. Yeah, it's cool project, and I'm one of contributors to SolveSpace development ;-) (mostly, tester and idea generator). SolveSpace not only 3D CAD - it is 2D/3D CAD and CAE too. I like to make stress tests for SolveSpace and already know many tricks, so if need some help with SolveSpace - ask me! (I often answer on SolveSpace Forum too). One of most active users of SolveSpace is Eric Buijs[0], that has many videos on his YouTube channel[1] about SolveSpace usage for solving tasks from different CAD challenges and competitions[2], such as "/r/CAD/ Challenge" (I has own archive[3] of those tasks), etc. > It's really useful, really fast Agree, it useful for daily work & small 3D printing tasks. But sadly it's not very useful for very big construction that consists of many sub-models yet... > and very stable Not so stable. Be careful - while SolveSpace often work like a charm, if you create redundant constrains it could freeze your PC very fast! Just need be careful with constrains and complex models design in SolveSpace. [0] https://eribuijs.blogspot.com/2016/09/switching-from-freecad-to-solvespace.html https://eribuijs.blogspot.com/2016/09/switching-from-freecad... [1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPwwPIXHMZYcVyJ2SuRJjuA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPwwPIXHMZYcVyJ2SuRJjuA [2] https://github.com/m2n037/awesome-mecheng#competitions https://github.com/m2n037/awesome-mecheng#competitions [3] https://github.com/symbian9/reddit_cad_challenge https://github.com/symbian9/reddit_cad_challenge

virtualritz 9y ago

When I played with SolveSpace last year and did some small projects with it I took the single page HTML docs from github and manually created Sphinx docs from them. They're hosted at [1]. I posted to the SolveSpace forum at the time but there was never any feedback from there. I didnt feel inclined to put more work into it. I'm happy if someone forks the GitHub repo and becomes the maintainer. [1] http://solvespace.readthedocs.io http://solvespace.readthedocs.io

app4soft 9y ago
> I posted to the SolveSpace forum at the time but there was never any feedback from there. Yeah, I know that filling too... It's happen because current main developer (whitequark) not very friendly with SolveSpace's users and their feature requests... Sadly, but I dream that some time SolveSpace will be maintained such developers as Yorik van Havre and other developers of FreeCAD ;-) Hope, FreeCAD team will fork SolveSpace for further development and give SolveSpace second breathe then. > I didnt feel inclined to put more work into it. I'm happy if someone forks the GitHub repo and becomes the maintainer. OK, think, I could work on it[0] soon ;-) Currently I try setup[1] AppImage builds with patches (features), that already exists as pull requests but still not merged in official SolveSpace branch. [0] https://github.com/symbian9/solvespace-docs https://github.com/symbian9/solvespace-docs [1] https://github.com/symbian9/solvespace-appimage https://github.com/symbian9/solvespace-appimage

newnewpdro 9y ago

Interesting bit of trivia: SolveSpace comes from M-Labs, formerly known as Milkymist, creators of the Milkymist One video synthesizer. M-Labs now focuses on quantum information experiment control software. [1] I remember watching Milkymist/Migen talks [2][3] given by creator Sébastien Bourdeauducq years ago and stumbling across the early SolveSpace site at the time in researching his background. It was already looking quite promising back then, and I got the impression they were using/developing it for their own CAD needs based on what I saw in their IRC channel. There's clearly a lot of talent in that group. [1] https://m-labs.hk/about.html https://m-labs.hk/about.html [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se0VhwgpzZg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se0VhwgpzZg [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zADdKAtHM1Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zADdKAtHM1Y

jwesthues 9y ago
> Interesting bit of trivia: SolveSpace comes from M-Labs I developed SolveSpace, and whitequark (via M-Labs) is the current maintainer. He's responsible for all the non-Windows ports, plus the last few years of features and some significant refactoring. We hope the latter will make the codebase more accessible to other contributors. SolveSpace's NURBS operations are worse than OpenCASCADE's, but they're literally orders of magnitude smaller. There's still no great free alternative to Parasolid, SOLIDS++, etc. SolveSpace's constraint solver is pretty good, and people seem to mostly like the UI.
- app4soft 9y ago
  Jonathan, You write faster than me[0] :-) > plus the last few years of features and some significant refactoring. Last few years there only Alexey Egorov's new features... :-/ While 'whitequark' is good programmer, his role as maintainer very bad for SolveSpace project itself - he don't work well with community at all. He fully non-responsive to Linux users, he not want hear any ideas from community... Project now mostly in freeze... Hope, You will find better project manager (such as Yorik now is in FreeCAD) for SolveSpace for make it more friendly for community. 'whitequark' should be just one of SolveSpace programmer, not maintainer, IMHO. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16797563 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16797563