5 ms·

Because for a hobbyist, that just wants to get things done, there sadly aren't really any alternatives. Otherwise could you reccommend any?

RossBencina 8y ago
Rhino 3D looks to be similarly priced.
tjoff 8y ago
It is similar to the old days of piracy and photoshop. Every kid had photoshop. Which killed the market for the software that was actually aimed at regular people. Autodesk had excellent timing in capturing the market before it had time to mature. OpenSCAD is great, but a bit limited. Also latest release is almost 4 years old, could do with some further development. FreeCAD is very capable, but it is a bit buggy and not very user friendly. Solvespace looks really neat, but also a bit limited and from the looks of it isn't actively being developed. Those two points make me hesitate to invest too much time in it but someday I think I will play around with it some more. Blender isn't CAD software, but it is the gold standard in my opinion. Sacrificing nothing and a really good UI. But it is more free-form than architecture and technical modelling. So wouldn't recommend it if that doesn't align with your purpose (look up blenderguru donut tutorial for an excellent start). All the mentioned applications are pretty odd in how they behave though. It requires that you commit to learning it. Personally I've used OpenSCAD quite a bit and I've now committed to learn FreeCAD. I had trouble creating maintainable code for OpenSCAD for anything but small projects, and also it takes some effort to create visually pleasing parts with it. It is hard to find good material on all the software above (except for blender), I really liked this (hard to find) 3-part tutorial for FreeCAD. I have had huge help from it and it is what helped me to grok enough of FreeCAD to start actually attempting to do anything on my own. If you are curious about FreeCAD maybe it will give you a better idea of it than only playing around with it yourself. Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dJEPg06G-o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dJEPg06G-o Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PESZxM_eSqY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PESZxM_eSqY Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkNkpPxb8W0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkNkpPxb8W0
- helb 8y ago
  > Also latest release is almost 4 years old, could do with some further development. There's a "2019.01-RC1" tag on github, so we can probably expect a new release soon.
jononor 8y ago
FreeCAD is quite workable, I've constructed some 100 parts for 3d-printing, lasercutting and CNC in it. There are some warts in the UI for sure, but once you get to know them not that hard to deal with. Quite a bit fewer learning resources online compared to Fusion360, but enough videos on Youtube to get started, and the FreeCAD Forum is pretty helpful. For programmers, one can also use Python to define more complex parts or workflows.

RossBencina 8y ago

Rhino 3D looks to be similarly priced.

tjoff 8y ago

It is similar to the old days of piracy and photoshop. Every kid had photoshop. Which killed the market for the software that was actually aimed at regular people. Autodesk had excellent timing in capturing the market before it had time to mature. OpenSCAD is great, but a bit limited. Also latest release is almost 4 years old, could do with some further development. FreeCAD is very capable, but it is a bit buggy and not very user friendly. Solvespace looks really neat, but also a bit limited and from the looks of it isn't actively being developed. Those two points make me hesitate to invest too much time in it but someday I think I will play around with it some more. Blender isn't CAD software, but it is the gold standard in my opinion. Sacrificing nothing and a really good UI. But it is more free-form than architecture and technical modelling. So wouldn't recommend it if that doesn't align with your purpose (look up blenderguru donut tutorial for an excellent start). All the mentioned applications are pretty odd in how they behave though. It requires that you commit to learning it. Personally I've used OpenSCAD quite a bit and I've now committed to learn FreeCAD. I had trouble creating maintainable code for OpenSCAD for anything but small projects, and also it takes some effort to create visually pleasing parts with it. It is hard to find good material on all the software above (except for blender), I really liked this (hard to find) 3-part tutorial for FreeCAD. I have had huge help from it and it is what helped me to grok enough of FreeCAD to start actually attempting to do anything on my own. If you are curious about FreeCAD maybe it will give you a better idea of it than only playing around with it yourself. Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dJEPg06G-o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dJEPg06G-o Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PESZxM_eSqY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PESZxM_eSqY Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkNkpPxb8W0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkNkpPxb8W0

helb 8y ago
> Also latest release is almost 4 years old, could do with some further development. There's a "2019.01-RC1" tag on github, so we can probably expect a new release soon.

jononor 8y ago

FreeCAD is quite workable, I've constructed some 100 parts for 3d-printing, lasercutting and CNC in it. There are some warts in the UI for sure, but once you get to know them not that hard to deal with. Quite a bit fewer learning resources online compared to Fusion360, but enough videos on Youtube to get started, and the FreeCAD Forum is pretty helpful. For programmers, one can also use Python to define more complex parts or workflows.