20 ms·

FreeCAD: A free and open source multiplatform 3D parametric modeler

619 points by marcobambini 6y ago

numpad0 6y ago
Also: https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3/releases https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3/releases
_def 6y ago
Does anyone know good learning resources when it comes to FreeCAD? (especially regarding 3d printing)
- samcheng 6y ago
  There are a few decent youtube videos, but I agree - it's a very steep learning curve.
  - bambax 6y ago
    Is it? My workflow: 1. design in FreeCAD (I only ever use the "Part" menu -- NOT "Part Design") 2. export to "STL" format 3. import to Ultimaker Cura 4. export to gcode 5. load into printer and print If your computer is directly connected to the 3D printer you can skip steps 4 and 5 and print directly from within Cura. FreeCAD can export to gcode but Cura does a much better job of setting printer options such as infill, etc. I'm really no expert, I only print small items for prototyping, on a sub-$100 printer, but I don't find it hard. It may be way more difficult if you're trying to print "perfect" pieces for end use though.
    - okamiueru 6y ago
      It's only step 1 that is being discussed here though.
    - StavrosK 6y ago
      What's hard is #1 compared to other tools, the rest of the steps you mentioned are the same everywhere. FreeCAD makes #1 hard, but it's a very very important tool to exist. I'm looking forward to the day where I switch to it.
      - bambax 6y ago
        FreeCAD can import OpenSCAD. But you can design in FreeCAD with the same approach / workflow as in OpenSCAD: make elementary shapes, extrude them then join or cut them. This can be done in the "Part" menu. Just click on the yellow shapes on the left of the toolbar to create them, then go to their properties to rotate/extrude them, and select two or more to join or cut. This is the same brain process as in OpenSCAD.
        StavrosK 6y ago
        I'm not talking about OpenSCAD though. Try OnShape/Fusion360/Solidworks, FreeCAD is much less usable and featureful than those.
        bambax 6y ago
        Do you actually use any of those? Solidworks is the standard, but the price is crazy (from $5k to $10k per user per year). The online tools I tried I found to be much less usable than FreeCAD. But I only design simple pieces, so my needs are easy to meet. It's possible that for complex parts FreeCAD is too limited.
        dcminter 6y ago
        For simple parts for someone willing to use online tools TinkerCad has a much easier learning curve and is far less buggy. Unless you need parametric design, want a GUI, and won't use closed source, FreeCAD is not a good choice.
        bambax 6y ago
    - imtringued 6y ago
      What? The part design workbench is the best of all.
    - numpad0 6y ago
      1. draw the entirety of fucking owl 2. take picture of it 3. import to Photoshop 4. hit "auto correct" 5. open Twitter app and send it
    - jstanley 6y ago
      Why do you say to avoid Part Design? I think the advice to use Part instead of Part Design is what makes people think FreeCAD sucks. Did you mean to say the other way around?
- incanus77 6y ago
  I just replied this elsewhere today (the thread about Fusion 360), but this tutorial was extremely eye-opening to me and got me started a year or so ago for part design, which is probably what most folks are looking to do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geSQlBczsWY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geSQlBczsWY After that and a couple weeks of playing, I upped my skills with a "household thing a day" monthlong challenge: https://twitter.com/hashtag/30DayCADChallenge?f=live https://twitter.com/hashtag/30DayCADChallenge?f=live From there, you can export to STL for printing. I've recently gotten into Blender for taking STL exports and adding lighting, materials, and animations. I started with it with this bonkers good free (for email) video series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3UWN2F2M2C8-zUjbFlbgtWPQa0NXBsp0 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3UWN2F2M2C8-zUjbFlbg... There is an incredible amount of outstanding stuff out there, often for free. My advice is to find something that resonates with you and run with it.
- imtringued 6y ago
  For learning purposes you can just follow along this video series and reproduce the 3d models step by step. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czj1RYx8LyI&list=PLKu--JcOZKTPE13UyWyrS8Hp5-kgnTifN https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czj1RYx8LyI&list=PLKu--JcOZK...
varbhat 6y ago
I think that it is good overall to support this project. CAD software that runs on most Operating Systems unlike AutoCAD. But, Training Users to use FreeCAD also matters. Also,it would be nice if FreeCAD can read/write AutoCAD files.
samcheng 6y ago
My favorite part of FreeCAD is that it is scriptable. It's very satisfying to define shapes via some math (or I/O) in python, then turn them into a solid in FreeCAD, then export for 3D printing. As an engineering tool, though, it still feels rudimentary (and sometimes buggy) compared to e.g. Solidworks. Keep going, guys!
- ehnto 6y ago
  I need a simple, low brain space but open source solution for 3D printing. Would you recommend FreeCAD? I am a software dev for a living so what I mean by low brain space is I don't really want to be messing about with config files, setup and complicated UIs. I already have far too much brain space dedicated to Blender, but I just can't seem to get it to work well for precise measurements and CAD style work.
  - highmastdon 6y ago
    How about SketchUp?
    - regularfry 6y ago
      It's not open source.
    - ehnto 6y ago
      I have tried the free version, while a bit limited it is the kind of simple interface I want. Unfortunately not open source and you need accounts and to be online to use it. I may end up using it anyway though.
    - LegitShady 6y ago
      they're doing the web app thing now, so the last native version is the last native version ever. Personally I stopped using it then.
    - mauvehaus 6y ago
      They're slowly crippling it. Make 2017 was (I believe) the last semi full featured gratis desktop version. They've been pushing the web version pretty hard for a while now. Also (opinion) it kind of sucks. At least the gratis version doesn't support any sort of parametric modeling. I've been using it because it's gratis, but I've been looking to switch for a while. Now that F360 is off the table, I suppose the decision space has gotten smaller.
quyleanh 6y ago
Is there any free and open source tool for chip design? I mean the alternative for Cadence Virtuoso, Synopsys.
- mch82 6y ago
  http://www.geda-project.org/ http://www.geda-project.org/
klunger 6y ago
I tried both this and Sketchup for a home modelling project. I ended up paying for Sketchup because it was so much easier to use. I did not need the degree of control you can get with FreeCAD, so it was just wasted time and energy.
RogueScientist 6y ago
FreeCAD is awesome, and here is why: 1) Open CASCDE geometry kernel, this is the heart of the cad system, for example Solidworks uses the Parasolid geometry kernel; which is owned by Siemens. 2. A powerful data structure; the feature tree that FreeCAD has is object oriented, and capable of adapting to complex tasks. 3. GUI written in QT, with a Python interface to instantiate the GUI. This allows you to load FreeCAD while in Blender and vice versa load Blender from within FreeCAD; this facilitate the sharing of geometry data, meshes, the OpenGL geometry pipeline, etc. 4. Support for Jupyter notebooks, this is important when you are doing analysis or something complicated and you wish to share and publish that data. Using SciPy , NumPy, and Octave its like running Matlab + CAD, its so powerful that you can drive simulations this way directly effecting the FreeCAD GUI. 5. BREP Internal data structure, in fact when you save a .fcad file extension, that is essentially a BREP file format, which is essentially a STEP file(a type of BREP). This is essentially what the professional CAD packages do, they are BREP with custom data structures. 6. BREP + STEP allows for extremely precise importing of model geometry. This allows you to download parts from McMaster, Berg, Pic Design, SDP, etc and use them in your design and generate a BOM from the precise part bing inserted. 7. Support for different mesh tessellation methods, this is important since working with manifold topology that is held internally by Open CASCADE or STEP can be non trivial mathematically to interpret. 8. Runs on Linux, OS X, and Windows natively. 9. Open source, so you are in control of your own destiny. While FreeCAD has some rough spots around its edges currently, where it will he in the future if we invest our collective brainpower and knowhow into will far surpass any offering from Autodesk, Solidworks, as the rate of evolution of OpenSource compared to closed for profit systems is much more limited. We can as a community experiment with edgy things and push into new frontiers with our creativity and imagination and disrupt an entire paradigm the CAD industry uses today. Blender already has advanced support of GPU real time ray tracing supported on the most recent GPU offerings, and is able to harness massively parallel compute for rendering and ray tracing. We can harness those same capabilities for an open source CAD platform, and use the GPU compute for the FEA capabilities.
- taneq 6y ago
  I 100% agree with this. However, FreeCAD is also NOT awesome because it lacks the 'timeline' approach that Fusion 360 uses and so you end up with a million random intermediate objects cluttering up your project. FreeCAD has all the parts to be awesome, it just needs to also work on the user interface, and especially the novice experience. This is a universal feature of open source, where unless an individual contributor has an individual bee in their bonnet about beginner UI, any given user interface is just slightly less bad than is unusable and would force someone to fix it. Any 'rough edges for beginners' are ignored because by the time anyone cares enough to fix the rough edge, they're already an expert and have found the workaround.
y04nn 6y ago
I tried to use FreeCAD, I'm new to CAD, and I found it very frustrating, I was able do to some complex parts but it took me time, it crashed multiples times and the drawing was not as parametric as I expected it to be (again I'm not an export). Now I'm using Solvespace, and I'm very pleased, almost never crashed, sleek interface, there is a keyboard shortcut for every function, I can easily go back to a previous sketch to update quotes, it has a short and helpful documentation, the more you use it the faster you can do things (specially when you know keyboard shortcuts). It has some drawbacks, it lacks some nice functionalities you can have with FreeCAD plugins like threads, easy chamfer and fillet. Also sometimes while drawing a sketch it goes in 3D constrains mode and I can't extrude, very frustrating.
- TacticalTable 6y ago
  This mirrors my experience, FreeCAD is practically new user hostile and horrifically buggy. I'm very inexperienced and had really only used Autodesk Inventor and Fusion360 previously, but FreeCAD was like moving from modern Photoshop to an early version of Gimp
jventura 6y ago
Anyone knows if it's possible to export a house plan in FreeCAD to use on AutoCAD? I need to draw the 2D floors of my house and send to a professional architect who is using AutoCAD..
- mch82 6y ago
  https://wiki.freecadweb.org/DXF#Saving_DXF https://wiki.freecadweb.org/DXF#Saving_DXF
kuon 6y ago
I like FreeCAD but it has one major issue (compared to something like OnShape which I use now), it doesn't have a smart naming topology. For example, you create a cube, you make a hole in it (not fully through), and then you chamfer one side of the original cube. If you go back in the parametric history and change the depth of the hole for it to go through the whole cube it will change the name of the faces/edges in the history and the chamfer will then be applied to another face. This is a very hard problem to solve, and that's where some commercial packages shines. https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Topological_naming_problem https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Topological_naming_problem I wish onshape was open source, but I guess it will never happen because it uses siemens parasolid under the hood (at least I think it does). I don't know if FreeCAD can come close to something like onshape with the current gerometry kernel opencascade.
- Joker_vD 6y ago
  Huh. Let me try with a programming analogue: so you have that statement earlier in the program where a bunch of named variables are introduced (with values assigned to them). You change this statement, so it now computes differently named variables. Of course, all the later statements keep using the names they're using, and things become weird. Is this roughly correct? If so, then, uh, that's the problem of renaming the bound variables, it's an annoying one, but it has been around since the inception of λ-calculus and has several well-known solutions.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    I'm also not sure if I understand the problem description correctly, but based on my little experience with 3DSMax, Blender and SolveSpace, I'd use this programming analogy: You have a code that creates an array A, and then later on code that does something to elements A[2], A[3] and A[5] - elements which you semantically understand as "frobnicators of A", and whose number and indices depend on the contents of the array. You then apply changes to the first part of the code, and now the correct frobnicators of A to modify are A[6] and A[14]. But the tool used to auto-update the array accessing part has no obvious way to know that by mentioning A[2], A[3] and A[5] you meant the frobnicators of A, and not say the barbulators of A. So it cannot auto-infer that you now want elements A[6] and A[14]. Or back to 3D land, what I assume is happening is that when you cut a hole through a solid, what you mean is to cut a hole (in a particular spatial relation to the solid's origin), and what happens is properties of some faces of that solid get modified. Then you apply further modification to these (and other) faces. After that, when you start reparametrizing the hole you cut in the past, the latter modification has no clue what your intent was, and blindly applies itself to the same faces it used before. I imagine the problem is not theoretically solvable without extra "intent-related data", and existing solutions are just a bunch of heuristics guessing what the person doing the modelling meant by any given step. Topology being one thing you can use to inform these heuristics.
Buttons840 6y ago
How does this compare to OpenSCAD?
- regularfry 6y ago
  Different UI paradigm. FreeCAD has a UI but is scriptable, whereas OpenSCAD is entirely scripted. Also, FreeCAD interfaces to other tools, whereas OpenSCAD is very standalone.
- atoav 6y ago
  In OpenSCAD you write scripts to create shapes, in FreeCAD you will find a more traditional graphical approach. In fact FreeCAD has OpenSCAD support built in. If you don't like the OpenSCAD Syntax, I found solidpython quite ok
- threatripper 6y ago
  OpenSCAD: * You write a script that calls the functions to build the geometry. (Similar to LaTeX vs. Wordprocessor) * The geometry is defined as a mesh. (Similar to Blender 3D for modeling.) FreeCAD: * While it can also handle meshes, the geometry it actually uses a geometric modeling kernel that knows spheres, cylinders, bent surfaces. For 3D printing you would convert it to a mesh when exporting to an STL. (This is a bit like vector vs. pixel graphics.) * While you can do everything with a script (and sometimes that's more easy) it provides a classical CAD interface where you point and click with your mouse. * There's a ton of additional functionality via plugins available such as FEM simulation, Architecture, CAM, ...
mnemnc 6y ago
Coming from Sketchup and being a Software Engineer, parametric design in FreeCAD is a game changer for me. For example being able to define a cabinet side length as the outdoor dimension minus twice the side panel thickness allows you to decide wood thicknesses after finishing the design without redoing everything. However, FreeCAD seems to be highly unstable on macOS and Retina screens are not supported very well.
- mch82 6y ago
  You’re correct that parametric is cool & FreeCAD adds that flexibility. One note about Sketchup is it encourages choosing standard sized items from the parts library. Choosing from the library (for example, choosing a standard 2x4 board or a standard door) means you’ll find real-world equivalents at Home Depot & avoid a lot of cost.
qz2 6y ago
I really want to like FreeCAD but it’s very very easy to screw up things irreparably in the parts designer. For example if you want to cut several faces and then realise you have made a mistake on one of the earlier sketches or need to adjust something, the whole model can fall apart. It just disappears. You have to unpick everything you did back to the point you did the original sketch and do it again. This is a shame because the constraint modelling is actually better than F360.
- bambax 6y ago
  "disappears": there's a kind of weird bug that may be a feature (not sure) where when you undo something, objects don't display anymore. But they're still there. Just select them in the model window and press spacebar and voilà, they're back. In fact the whole tree of your operations is preserved at all times, and you can do modifications at the very beginning of the chain without redoing everything.
  - polack 6y ago
    As a total amateur I've run into states where I've been "spacebaring" everything I can but it still wont work. I believe you when you say it's possible to fix it, but for people like me that use FreeCAD to do some 3D models to print once a while it's near impossible to change anything and end up in a working state. If I print a simple electronics case and realize I have to move a hole 1mm in some direction I usually have to rebuild the entire box from the start. When talking to friends they all have the same problem. I want to love FreeCAD, but I usually end up hating it.
    - RogueScientist 6y ago
      In the part design workbench you can create a sketch, you draw a rectangle and you can extrude your box to its precise dimensions with a precise wall thickness. Then you can create a sketch with your features on the surfaces of the part, the sketch features such as holes(circles) connector cut outs can be placed based on a dimensional constraint. Extrude and cut your features. Now you have a 3D box with your holes where you placed them; now need to move a hole change the size of the hole, its as simple as editing the dimension the hole is defined in the sketch, all the other features will update as needed, and you can layer the dependencies forming a feature tree dependency graph. Should take about 10 min to create a pretty complex case enclosure.
grufkork 6y ago
Haven’t tried FreeCAD, but it kind of sounds like OpenSCAD (openscad.org). There you only use scripts to generate models which is nice, but a bit too clunky and slow to iterate. The lack of direct visual feedback makes for a less intuitive interface. FreeCAD seems a lot better in that aspect, and in difference to say Fusion360 you can use your models for commercial purposes!
- jstanley 6y ago
  Why do you say it sounds like OpenSCAD? It's not very much like OpenSCAD.
  - grufkork 6y ago
    Ah, right, I was under the impression that scripting was an integral part of the workflow, but with more graphical options for manipulating shapes after basic generation. But I might very much be mistaken, I haven’t had the chance to try it yet :) I will definitely soon though, I am working on making a parametric trumpet mouthpiece model for 3D printing, which what I have gathered so far FreeCAD seems great for. The most difficult part is really finding accurate measurements for sizes and curves, most tables and info only uses relative sizes like “large” or “thin”. But I can just trace some splines from cross-sectional sketches. I have made a model in Fusion which is pretty nice once you get the concept of constraints. But then there is the massive price tag, the free tier does as mentioned not allow commercial use. Nobody has to know though...
- dekhn 6y ago
  No, OpenSCAD and FreeCAD aren't similar. OpenSCAD is functional CSG, FreeCAD includes a module to do that (with a interactive GUI), and more importantly, FreeCAD includes OpenSCAD as a workbench- write an openscad program, get the geometry output and then use it FreeCAD for further steps.
Kosirich 6y ago
I love the idea of FreeCAD and how much value it provides if you don't need 'advanced' stuff. That being said, it often leaves me with impression that UI, UX could and should be so much better in order to become a go to solution for hobbyist and licensing cost mindful people. p.s-Anyone here into StepNC format?
- rjsw 6y ago
  What is your interest in StepNC ?
  - Kosirich 6y ago
    I kind of stumbled on it since I work with CAM (recently more so). I was surprised that I haven't heard of it before since from what I've seen the framework is mature and the API's seem quite complete (?). The official channels of ISO standard and especially company steptools.com provide a lot of info on the framework, but what I'm missing is some more success stories on implementation in companies (besides the ones that were part of development). Do you work with it?
    - rjsw 6y ago
      The founders of steptools.com are the project leader and editor of StepNC. Another source of information is the AP238 website [1]. I work on the underlying libraries and tools. [1] https://www.ap238.org/ https://www.ap238.org/
      - Kosirich 6y ago
        Yes, forgot about that one (!) ups Thanks for reply, great to get an answer from someone so close to it :)
andi999 6y ago
I tried it a while ago, i had 2 problems: -how do you make assemblies out of parts (sugar on top explosion function) - derive a technical drawing from the 3D model I could sent to the milling shop Point 2 is a dealbraker. I couldnt do it. Maybe it is me. Maybe I didnt find the right documentation, maybe I didnt understand what I am looking for. Using TurboCad now, not saying I am happy (docs are lacking, but it seems you can buy training)
- jstanley 6y ago
  For point 2, you probably want to use the Drawing workbench: https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Drawing_Module https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Drawing_Module
  - leoedin 6y ago
    You'd be better off using the TechDraw workbench - it's basically replaced the drawing workbench. https://wiki.freecadweb.org/TechDraw_Module https://wiki.freecadweb.org/TechDraw_Module
    - andi999 6y ago
      This looks better. Can you mark the center of a bore and are there like surface roughness etc symbols?
    - jstanley 6y ago
      Thanks! Did not know this.
  - andi999 6y ago
    Yes, looks as if this is adressing the problem space. The tutorial seems to be lacking. E.g. is there fubctionality to put in the surface roughness symbol with number? How would one do it? It leaves a bit if question. (I didnt use version 16 at that time)
    - jstanley 6y ago
pjmlp 6y ago
Looking forward to those promoting FreeCAD given the recent Autodesk Fusion 360 news to actually sponsor FreeCAD developers. Or is yet another set of free beer posts?
jeromenerf 6y ago
I do a lot of woodworking, from timber framing to small furniture and I have yet to find a convenient software to design projects. Woodworking may not require the same set of features, the same level of precision ... For me, doing one shot projects, it is all about "test fitting" the design, the joints, the cut list, etc. I find 3D modeling and CAD tools usually complex, time consuming, expensive with stupid plans and they also take the life breath out of creative projects. Were I a professional, I may rationalize the time spent and their value if I had to repeat the same jobs. I get most of what I need from paper / iPad sketching app (I recommend concepts app). I had to learn to draw and sketch, but it feels more related to building than modeling. Freecad is definitely complex to use (I spend hours learning by designing dovetailed drawers). Openscad was a better fit for me. I could even integrate it in org mode :)
- marianov 6y ago
  I'm also interested in the "quick sketch" approach. Is there a tool for rough things like a shed, a cabinet, welding something out of angle iron or woodworking? It would take me more time to design shelves in Freecad than to weld them.
sugarkjube 6y ago
Freecad is, imho, a terrific project filling a huge void: there are very few free/open source solutions that are a substitute for the extremely expensive commercial CAD solutions. Freecad lags compared to commercial, but gets you a long way if you're prepared to invest a little effort, and tolerate a few bugs. I'm not affiliated with freecad in any way, but just want to remark if there are any students around (or anyone with a little time availabe) reading this with interest in both engineering and software development, contributing to freecad could be a very rewarding experience, and probably good basis for a project or thesis.
- threatripper 6y ago
  Even more important than FreeCAD itself is the geometric modeling kernel. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_modeling_kernel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_modeling_kernel) FreeCAD like some other CAD software uses Open CASCADE. As far as I can see, this kernel is the best available but still a bit rough and unstable in many areas. (Operations like chamfering often lead to a segfault when it doesn't like your geometry.) The main problem seems to be a lack of manpower since development of such a software is a massive effort and takes decades of work of highly skilled mathematicians/engineers/programmers. So far, FreeCAD has made a lot of functionality easily accessible but often it is also held back by bugs in the modeling kernel that can't be fixed any time soon. If we could boost the development of high quality geometric modeling kernels, we could provide an essential building block to many software projects that currently are just not happening because there is no feasible way to get them started.
  - phkahler 6y ago
    SolveSpace has it's own geometric kernel that is dramatically smaller than Open Cascade. It's also lacking some features, but IMHO better to build on something small and digestible that try to find bugs in a monolith. There are some bugs in there too, but I think they're solvable.
    - avhon1 6y ago
      Antimony [0] and libfive [1] also use custom geometry kernels. [0] http://www.mattkeeter.com/projects/antimony/3/ http://www.mattkeeter.com/projects/antimony/3/ [1] https://libfive.com/ https://libfive.com/
turpialito 6y ago
I work with AutoCAD, ACAD Architecture and VectorWorks. I think and hope in the not-so-long-run FreeCAD will be serious competition for traditio9nal mainstream/enterprise CAD. That being said, I do agree with some on the fact that the UI needs a little work, and improved tutorials.
- jventura 6y ago
  Do you know if it's possible to export a house plan in FreeCAD to use on AutoCAD? I need to draw the 2D floors of my house and send to an architect who is using AutoCAD..
fireattack 6y ago
No Windows binary for 0.19_pre provided despite the description says so? https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases/tag/0.19_pre https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases/tag/0.19_pre Bug trakcer [1] says you can only report bugs for 0.19 version, so using an older version isn't an option. [1] https://tracker.freecadweb.org/my_view_page.php https://tracker.freecadweb.org/my_view_page.php
- dekhn 6y ago
  The download is here: https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases/tag/0.19_pre https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases/tag/0.19_pre look for FreeCAD_0.19.22411-Win-Conda_vc14.x-x86_64.7z
  - fireattack 6y ago
    Thanks, they added it after I asked in the forum. It wasn't there.
dmos62 6y ago
If interested in free parametric 3D CAD, checkout SolveSpace: http://solvespace.com/index.pl http://solvespace.com/index.pl It's very functional (as in functional programming) in its approach. Weighs in at only a few megs. It's my go to tool for sketching things out when woodworking.
serf 6y ago
I hate what Autodesk did with Fusion, but the problems i've ran into while searching for an alternative are: 1) Most packages don't have any included standards libraries; this makes modeling a standardized drilled borehole a much more involved affair. It makes hardware provisioning a more involved affair. Much nicer to have included libraries for things like, for example, a #6-32 UNC bolt. No need to go find a bolt and bust out the calipers to verify things like shoulder width and so-on, it's just there. The F360 and Solidworks parts libraries are both great. Nearly non-existent on the free/cheaper alternatives. 2) Most CAD/CAM software I have ran into deals with high poly models terribly. Sure, the solution is to simplify the models, but it's just not a feasible goal when dealing with very complex assemblies. Fusion/Solidworks deal with high polygon stuff as gracefully as possible. Onshape becomes nearly unusable. Freecad gets unstable. I can't comment on complexity with openscad, but it dealt with modeled parametric bolts and nuts just fine in my case; a case which lags most clients due to the high poly count on bolt threads. 3) THREADED HOLES. F360 and Solidworks can deal with standardized threads with ease. Onshape requires a buggy community-written add-on where most standards must be defined rather than found in a look-up table. OpenSCAD has lots of do-able thread solutions. Freecad sucks at threads, as far as i've learned thus far. So, still, the search continues. If I had all the resources in the world i'd buy a Solidworks license. I just like it the best, the simulation packages are nice, the libraries are nice, the UX is nice -- it just feels like quality. Too bad I can't afford it. They were nice enough to let me have a trial license for awhile, but after expiration I was driven to F360 -- which due to recent decisions they've made I totally regret. I wish SW had a free/low cost option, but I recognize that if they did it'd probably compromise the product to the point where i'd no longer be interested, as much as I hope otherwise.
- johnwalkr 6y ago
  Do you qualify for this program? https://www.solidworks.com/solution/organization-type/entrepreneurs-startups https://www.solidworks.com/solution/organization-type/entrep... I use Solidworks professionally and prefer it but the above program isn't in my region. I'm starting a side project and need CAD. Solidworks starts at like, $5000 plus $2000 per year and if you don't renew the license, you either have to backpay all renewal fees you missed, or buy it again. Actually it's double the price in my region. Their reseller program is awful too. After checking all the options you've mentioned and more, I decided to use solidedge. It has a monthly option starting from about $100, direct from Siemens, that can be stopped and restarted without penalty. And I feel really good about supporting this licensing scheme as all the others out there are just awful. For FEM I think I will use a Siemens FEMAP/NASTRAN. It's $700 a month, with the same good license terms. I could batch my work that requires it to 1-2 months per year. There's even cheaper ways to use it in a cloud service too. I would maybe try onshape but I don't like the idea that I'd have to pay forever if I wanted to maintain parametric files, or live with exported solids whenever I stop the service.
osamagirl69 6y ago
Frecad has come a LONG way since I started using it in 2016, and I encourage those who had a hard time with it a few years back to give it another try. Also - make sure you are getting a recent version, some distros have a tendency to ship a horendously outdated version. The current stable version is 18.4, there should be 19.0 release soon with a ton of improvements, but it is not quite there yet.
- encom 6y ago
  Is it still a nightmare to compile? It's not in the Gentoo tree, because aparently, getting FreeCAD to compile cleanly, ~~requires human sacrifice to The Ancient Ones~~ is quite difficult. I was forced to use Solidworks last year, as part of a training course, and I didn't like it at all. I have some Autocad and 3dsmax experience from admittedly long ago, but the way things are done in Solid felt weird and alien to me. Not to mention I had to use a Windows machine for it, and after removing it, it had still left its DRM tentacles deep in the system. Had to pave the machine to make sure it was all gone.
  - boyadjian 6y ago
    At least on Windows, it is easy to compile, now that there is CMake.
  - osamagirl69 6y ago
    I have never tried to build it, but I imagine it is still a nightmare to compile. Where I am in life these days I leave that to the package maintainers. Solidworks is terrible and chock full of antipatterns. I haven't used autodesk in a good long while--my last memory with it was pretty bad. I was on a team that won a design contest from Autodesk--the prize for which was a laptop pre-loaded with the autodesk suite. The kicker was their software crashed regularly on that machine even under light use...
NamTaf 6y ago
FreeCAD is truly impressive and wonderful software, but yeh compared to commercial solutions it's lacking the same degree of polish (and that's not a criticsm, considering the price-points!). Both Dad and I use it at home for our 3D printing modelling, however at work I get to use SolidWorks and previously have used NX. Compared to them, I think the most common pinch point for me is how segmented sketches vs extrusions are. In Solidworks, you literally click a surface (plane, surface face of parametric solid, etc.) and just draw. Then you grab it and pull it out. It automagically does all the line constraints, etc. and there's not quite the same degree of separation as FreeCAD requires, where I have to make a dedicated sketch in one area, then switch to the other area to do the extrusion of it. Indeed, this sort of UI polish seems to be where most of my issues lie, rather than specific features missing. I get the suspicion that the people working on FreeCAD are probably the ones who really enjoy writing an elegant parametric modelling program, so they're all about the engine and the UX becomes a little bit of an afterthought. That's not to criticise them, but rather highlight that a commerical entity is able to pay money to get all of those 'less sexy' jobs completed to a high quality. It's a timely reminder to me that there's a requirement for all types in a community project, including people who aren't the flashy wunderkind producing the sexy engineered solutions - you just as much need the person who puts in the hard and thankless work making all the documentation neat, logical and consistent. Nevertheless, I don't think I'll be paying for a SolidWorks licence at home anytime soon, so I'm really appreciative of everything that the FreeCAD team has done. edit: To be clear, if you're wanting to learn CAD then FreeCAD is an admirable choice and will teach you well. Indeed, some of the extra steps it requires is probably good from a learning perspective, because it makes you think through the process more completely and logically. In that sense, the handholding and coddling of some of the more sophisticated commercial packages can be detrimental, because you don't really learn how every part goes together specifically as you're developing your model. I definitely don't mean any of my post to come across as criticism meant to deter anyone from trying FreeCAD. I was more trying to draw out the broader point that all too often, volunteer projects suffer from someone not doing 'the boring job', because using FreeCAD vs. commerical packages reminded me of that insight.
- ajuc 6y ago
  I'm fine with the UI. I never used another CAD software and Free Cad is intuitive enough for me to learn the basics in one day from a youtube video. Draw in 2d, pad, click on a face, create sketch, draw in 2d, pocket/pad, repeat. Simple. The problem is that if I want to change anything in a sketch that is higher up the dependency chain - it breaks all the sketches/objects depending on it and you have to fix it by lots of manual steps. This makes the workflow feel bad because you're afraid to change stuff earlier in the chain so you add stuff later instead of just fixing it properly.
MarcScott 6y ago
If anyone is interested in a few tutorials to get started using FreeCAD, we have a few on the Raspberry Pi Projects site https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects?software%5B%5D=freecad https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects?software%5B%5D=...
- lsllc 6y ago
  Thanks for posting this, it looks interesting. However, I don't seem to be able to get FreeCAD to even do things like pan in the sketch view on a Mac using the trackpad (googling doesn't find any answers either).
  - MarcScott 6y ago
    Could you raise an issue on github.com/raspberrypilearning The repo name will be the project's URL slug. The weekend has started now, and I know I'll forget this by Monday.
alias_neo 6y ago
I started using FreeCAD recently after getting a 3D printer, because I wanted something open source and runs on Linux which I could learn, and would become my CAD tool. I have no CAD experience outside of what I learned in university over a decade ago, so it has been a challenge. I have generally found it quite hard to achieve some simple designs, it's not always easy to understand what a tool does from its name, and it's not always easy to find a video online to help. Sometimes you know what you need to do, but can't find the tool for it because you have no idea what it's called in CAD land. The bugs which cause parts to just disappear when you run certain operations are an issue, and there is little help to explain the cause, I've gotten a few designs into the broken state others have mentioned where you need to undo a bunch of work to recover, which is unfortunate. On the other hand, I found creating drill holes, countersunk or counterbored incredibly easy and powerful. I hope to find an up to date video series I can follow to learn more as I'm sure it'll become a lot easier to use once I understand the tools better.
- bloodm 6y ago
  "On the other hand, I found creating drill holes, countersunk or counterbored incredibly easy and powerful." This company provides Linux based software for front panel designs. I have their EU branch made several panels for me. The software was pleasant to use. File export seems to be only a proprietary format. https://www.frontpanelexpress.com/front-panel-designer/# https://www.frontpanelexpress.com/front-panel-designer/#
- app4soft 6y ago
  As I'm working with CAD for a long time, I would recommend to install next three FLOSS apps (keep them all side-by-side on your PC): 1. FreeCAD — main 3D CAD (CAx); 2. QCAD — main 2D CAD (CADD); 3. SolveSpace — helper 2D/3D parametric CAD & CAE for daily engineering, sketching & relax.[0,1,2,3] [0] https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace [1] https://github.com/Symbian9/SolveSpace-Daily-Engineering https://github.com/Symbian9/SolveSpace-Daily-Engineering [2] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL53gPqUkbj3JndwS2T410KTbBymaimbiD https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL53gPqUkbj3JndwS2T410... [3] https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1181705677984735232 https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1181705677984735232
langitbiru 6y ago
CAD software is so expensive. Rhino is $995. Fusion 360 is $297/year. Solid Works is $3995 with an annual maintenance fee of $1295. Let's compare them to photo editing software and the likes. Adobe cloud subscription is US$52.99/mo (all apps -> Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, etc). If you only need Photoshop, the price is US$20.99/mo. Affinity Photo is $49.99. Nah, we have good opensource photo editing softwares like Gimp and Krita, a good opensource vector editing software like Inkscape. References: https://www.rhino3d.com/sales https://www.rhino3d.com/sales https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/pricing https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/pricing https://www.engineeringclicks.com/solidworks-price-guide/ https://www.engineeringclicks.com/solidworks-price-guide/ https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html# https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html# https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/#buy https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/#buy
- andi999 6y ago
  Try to make an jetengine with a photo editing software.
  - arghwhat 6y ago
    Try to edit RAW photos with CAD software. Pretty pointless comparison.
    - andi999 6y ago
      Well the point I tried to make is that one software is used to build billion dollar products on which human life depends while the other one is just a CAD software (or was it the other way round :-) )
      - arghwhat 6y ago
        And both are simple products available in free variants serving non-overlapping purposes. Solidworks is just a random and insignificant piece of proprietary software. Its core component isn't even original, but relicensed Siemens tech. It's popular because it's popular, nothing else. (Plus, anyone can throw together a jet engine with a welding station from aliexpress and a few car spare parts. Now, if you had said space rocket, it would have meant something, but that's an insignificant percentage of CAD usage.)
DominikD 6y ago
FreeCAD saved me a lot of headaches when I bought a flat last year. My wife wasn't happy with me spending a lot of time drawing stuff by the entresol ended up exactly as we expected and since I modeled and positioned every piece of furniture in FreeCAD, only a single power outlet is in a wrong position (and that's because we got a different locker than we origianly intended). The bugs are there but you learn to work around them easily. And it's not like commercial software is bug free as probably anyone dealing with video editing can attest. ;)
throw0101a 6y ago
How does it compare to OpenSCAD, which now also has an a story on the front page: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24514978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24514978 There was a presentation at SCALE 18x earlier this year (pre-shutdown): * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G39tJdmLuAI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G39tJdmLuAI
thdrdt 6y ago
Joko Engineeringhelp (channel with a lot of FreeCAD tutorials) just posted a video answering questions like: should I learn FreeCAD, can it be used commercially, how does it compare to industry standard tools? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udIBhVIy5MI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udIBhVIy5MI
ktn00b 6y ago
I am trying to create a CAD driven design tool for a farming project. An equivalent from a different sector would be Helioscope (https://www.helioscope.com/ https://www.helioscope.com/) for Solar Plant planning. All I know is javascript based web development so am quite lost on where to start. Tring to google only brings up general purpose CAD tools. Any ideas on how to go about it?
loughnane 6y ago
I want to likes FreeCAD, but it’s just not there for reasons mentioned elsewhere in the thread. I’ve logged probably thousands of hours in each Solidworks, Pro|engineer (now creo) and onshape (current favorite), so I’m familiar with the productivity costs of switching to a new program. The inefficiencies of FreeCAD is way beyond any switching cost, probably 5x less efficient to design and iterate.
DanGPhoton 6y ago
Anyone here ever try ironCAD? I've thought about buying a personal license of a professional CAD package. Solidworks (my most familiar) is too expensive for personal use. OnShape I'd consider if I could sign up month-by-month and go dormant. But I'd like an old-school software package that I could keep indefinitely but knew it could do all my entry-level work.
sireat 6y ago
What would be a reasonable FOSS alternative to Sketchup? I know a number of architects who are dead set on using Sketchup versions circa 2014 - 2017 for most of the preliminary work. It seems to fit their workflow the best. They only go to AutoCAD when absolutely necessary. We are talking architects with 20 years of AutoCAD experience.
eggy 6y ago
I use FreeCAD and Solvespace mainly for personal use, but I use Fusion, Inventor, Solidworks, and Rhino at work with Inventor and Rhino being my two main CAD programs. We also have Revit and I had been using IDEAS back in 1997. I love FreeCAD for the Python API, and the now-integrated FEM workbench. I've done some fun CFD work with this. I like Fusion, but I do fear a web-based-only CAD. For this reason, I am looking at Alibre Atom for $199 for personal use. It seems really polished, easy to use, and it has been around for a while in different incantations. Solvespace is great for four-bar linkages and other geometrical work, but there is no way I could spend the time doing a three-hundred part assembly when I could do it in Fusion or Inventor in much less time, and it could be shared or worked on by others more readily. Solvespace is amazing for what it is, and I will continue to use and follow it.
tamber 6y ago
This is awesome! I should've looked into this kind of thing sooner, I've been meaning to start playing around with CAD for a while now.

619 points by marcobambini 6y ago

Also: https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3/releases https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3/releases

_def 6y ago

Does anyone know good learning resources when it comes to FreeCAD? (especially regarding 3d printing)

samcheng 6y ago
There are a few decent youtube videos, but I agree - it's a very steep learning curve.
- bambax 6y ago
  Is it? My workflow: 1. design in FreeCAD (I only ever use the "Part" menu -- NOT "Part Design") 2. export to "STL" format 3. import to Ultimaker Cura 4. export to gcode 5. load into printer and print If your computer is directly connected to the 3D printer you can skip steps 4 and 5 and print directly from within Cura. FreeCAD can export to gcode but Cura does a much better job of setting printer options such as infill, etc. I'm really no expert, I only print small items for prototyping, on a sub-$100 printer, but I don't find it hard. It may be way more difficult if you're trying to print "perfect" pieces for end use though.
  - okamiueru 6y ago
    It's only step 1 that is being discussed here though.
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    What's hard is #1 compared to other tools, the rest of the steps you mentioned are the same everywhere. FreeCAD makes #1 hard, but it's a very very important tool to exist. I'm looking forward to the day where I switch to it.
    - bambax 6y ago
      FreeCAD can import OpenSCAD. But you can design in FreeCAD with the same approach / workflow as in OpenSCAD: make elementary shapes, extrude them then join or cut them. This can be done in the "Part" menu. Just click on the yellow shapes on the left of the toolbar to create them, then go to their properties to rotate/extrude them, and select two or more to join or cut. This is the same brain process as in OpenSCAD.
      - StavrosK 6y ago
        I'm not talking about OpenSCAD though. Try OnShape/Fusion360/Solidworks, FreeCAD is much less usable and featureful than those.
        bambax 6y ago
        Do you actually use any of those? Solidworks is the standard, but the price is crazy (from $5k to $10k per user per year). The online tools I tried I found to be much less usable than FreeCAD. But I only design simple pieces, so my needs are easy to meet. It's possible that for complex parts FreeCAD is too limited.
        dcminter 6y ago
        For simple parts for someone willing to use online tools TinkerCad has a much easier learning curve and is far less buggy. Unless you need parametric design, want a GUI, and won't use closed source, FreeCAD is not a good choice.
        bambax 6y ago
  - imtringued 6y ago
    What? The part design workbench is the best of all.
  - numpad0 6y ago
    1. draw the entirety of fucking owl 2. take picture of it 3. import to Photoshop 4. hit "auto correct" 5. open Twitter app and send it
  - jstanley 6y ago
    Why do you say to avoid Part Design? I think the advice to use Part instead of Part Design is what makes people think FreeCAD sucks. Did you mean to say the other way around?
incanus77 6y ago
I just replied this elsewhere today (the thread about Fusion 360), but this tutorial was extremely eye-opening to me and got me started a year or so ago for part design, which is probably what most folks are looking to do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geSQlBczsWY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geSQlBczsWY After that and a couple weeks of playing, I upped my skills with a "household thing a day" monthlong challenge: https://twitter.com/hashtag/30DayCADChallenge?f=live https://twitter.com/hashtag/30DayCADChallenge?f=live From there, you can export to STL for printing. I've recently gotten into Blender for taking STL exports and adding lighting, materials, and animations. I started with it with this bonkers good free (for email) video series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3UWN2F2M2C8-zUjbFlbgtWPQa0NXBsp0 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3UWN2F2M2C8-zUjbFlbg... There is an incredible amount of outstanding stuff out there, often for free. My advice is to find something that resonates with you and run with it.
imtringued 6y ago
For learning purposes you can just follow along this video series and reproduce the 3d models step by step. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czj1RYx8LyI&list=PLKu--JcOZKTPE13UyWyrS8Hp5-kgnTifN https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czj1RYx8LyI&list=PLKu--JcOZK...

varbhat 6y ago

I think that it is good overall to support this project. CAD software that runs on most Operating Systems unlike AutoCAD. But, Training Users to use FreeCAD also matters. Also,it would be nice if FreeCAD can read/write AutoCAD files.

samcheng 6y ago

My favorite part of FreeCAD is that it is scriptable. It's very satisfying to define shapes via some math (or I/O) in python, then turn them into a solid in FreeCAD, then export for 3D printing. As an engineering tool, though, it still feels rudimentary (and sometimes buggy) compared to e.g. Solidworks. Keep going, guys!

ehnto 6y ago
I need a simple, low brain space but open source solution for 3D printing. Would you recommend FreeCAD? I am a software dev for a living so what I mean by low brain space is I don't really want to be messing about with config files, setup and complicated UIs. I already have far too much brain space dedicated to Blender, but I just can't seem to get it to work well for precise measurements and CAD style work.
- highmastdon 6y ago
  How about SketchUp?
  - regularfry 6y ago
    It's not open source.
  - ehnto 6y ago
    I have tried the free version, while a bit limited it is the kind of simple interface I want. Unfortunately not open source and you need accounts and to be online to use it. I may end up using it anyway though.
  - LegitShady 6y ago
    they're doing the web app thing now, so the last native version is the last native version ever. Personally I stopped using it then.
  - mauvehaus 6y ago
    They're slowly crippling it. Make 2017 was (I believe) the last semi full featured gratis desktop version. They've been pushing the web version pretty hard for a while now. Also (opinion) it kind of sucks. At least the gratis version doesn't support any sort of parametric modeling. I've been using it because it's gratis, but I've been looking to switch for a while. Now that F360 is off the table, I suppose the decision space has gotten smaller.

quyleanh 6y ago

Is there any free and open source tool for chip design? I mean the alternative for Cadence Virtuoso, Synopsys.

mch82 6y ago
http://www.geda-project.org/ http://www.geda-project.org/

klunger 6y ago

I tried both this and Sketchup for a home modelling project. I ended up paying for Sketchup because it was so much easier to use. I did not need the degree of control you can get with FreeCAD, so it was just wasted time and energy.

RogueScientist 6y ago

FreeCAD is awesome, and here is why: 1) Open CASCDE geometry kernel, this is the heart of the cad system, for example Solidworks uses the Parasolid geometry kernel; which is owned by Siemens. 2. A powerful data structure; the feature tree that FreeCAD has is object oriented, and capable of adapting to complex tasks. 3. GUI written in QT, with a Python interface to instantiate the GUI. This allows you to load FreeCAD while in Blender and vice versa load Blender from within FreeCAD; this facilitate the sharing of geometry data, meshes, the OpenGL geometry pipeline, etc. 4. Support for Jupyter notebooks, this is important when you are doing analysis or something complicated and you wish to share and publish that data. Using SciPy , NumPy, and Octave its like running Matlab + CAD, its so powerful that you can drive simulations this way directly effecting the FreeCAD GUI. 5. BREP Internal data structure, in fact when you save a .fcad file extension, that is essentially a BREP file format, which is essentially a STEP file(a type of BREP). This is essentially what the professional CAD packages do, they are BREP with custom data structures. 6. BREP + STEP allows for extremely precise importing of model geometry. This allows you to download parts from McMaster, Berg, Pic Design, SDP, etc and use them in your design and generate a BOM from the precise part bing inserted. 7. Support for different mesh tessellation methods, this is important since working with manifold topology that is held internally by Open CASCADE or STEP can be non trivial mathematically to interpret. 8. Runs on Linux, OS X, and Windows natively. 9. Open source, so you are in control of your own destiny. While FreeCAD has some rough spots around its edges currently, where it will he in the future if we invest our collective brainpower and knowhow into will far surpass any offering from Autodesk, Solidworks, as the rate of evolution of OpenSource compared to closed for profit systems is much more limited. We can as a community experiment with edgy things and push into new frontiers with our creativity and imagination and disrupt an entire paradigm the CAD industry uses today. Blender already has advanced support of GPU real time ray tracing supported on the most recent GPU offerings, and is able to harness massively parallel compute for rendering and ray tracing. We can harness those same capabilities for an open source CAD platform, and use the GPU compute for the FEA capabilities.

taneq 6y ago
I 100% agree with this. However, FreeCAD is also NOT awesome because it lacks the 'timeline' approach that Fusion 360 uses and so you end up with a million random intermediate objects cluttering up your project. FreeCAD has all the parts to be awesome, it just needs to also work on the user interface, and especially the novice experience. This is a universal feature of open source, where unless an individual contributor has an individual bee in their bonnet about beginner UI, any given user interface is just slightly less bad than is unusable and would force someone to fix it. Any 'rough edges for beginners' are ignored because by the time anyone cares enough to fix the rough edge, they're already an expert and have found the workaround.

y04nn 6y ago

I tried to use FreeCAD, I'm new to CAD, and I found it very frustrating, I was able do to some complex parts but it took me time, it crashed multiples times and the drawing was not as parametric as I expected it to be (again I'm not an export). Now I'm using Solvespace, and I'm very pleased, almost never crashed, sleek interface, there is a keyboard shortcut for every function, I can easily go back to a previous sketch to update quotes, it has a short and helpful documentation, the more you use it the faster you can do things (specially when you know keyboard shortcuts). It has some drawbacks, it lacks some nice functionalities you can have with FreeCAD plugins like threads, easy chamfer and fillet. Also sometimes while drawing a sketch it goes in 3D constrains mode and I can't extrude, very frustrating.

TacticalTable 6y ago
This mirrors my experience, FreeCAD is practically new user hostile and horrifically buggy. I'm very inexperienced and had really only used Autodesk Inventor and Fusion360 previously, but FreeCAD was like moving from modern Photoshop to an early version of Gimp

jventura 6y ago

Anyone knows if it's possible to export a house plan in FreeCAD to use on AutoCAD? I need to draw the 2D floors of my house and send to a professional architect who is using AutoCAD..

mch82 6y ago
https://wiki.freecadweb.org/DXF#Saving_DXF https://wiki.freecadweb.org/DXF#Saving_DXF

kuon 6y ago

I like FreeCAD but it has one major issue (compared to something like OnShape which I use now), it doesn't have a smart naming topology. For example, you create a cube, you make a hole in it (not fully through), and then you chamfer one side of the original cube. If you go back in the parametric history and change the depth of the hole for it to go through the whole cube it will change the name of the faces/edges in the history and the chamfer will then be applied to another face. This is a very hard problem to solve, and that's where some commercial packages shines. https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Topological_naming_problem https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Topological_naming_problem I wish onshape was open source, but I guess it will never happen because it uses siemens parasolid under the hood (at least I think it does). I don't know if FreeCAD can come close to something like onshape with the current gerometry kernel opencascade.

Joker_vD 6y ago
Huh. Let me try with a programming analogue: so you have that statement earlier in the program where a bunch of named variables are introduced (with values assigned to them). You change this statement, so it now computes differently named variables. Of course, all the later statements keep using the names they're using, and things become weird. Is this roughly correct? If so, then, uh, that's the problem of renaming the bound variables, it's an annoying one, but it has been around since the inception of λ-calculus and has several well-known solutions.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  I'm also not sure if I understand the problem description correctly, but based on my little experience with 3DSMax, Blender and SolveSpace, I'd use this programming analogy: You have a code that creates an array A, and then later on code that does something to elements A[2], A[3] and A[5] - elements which you semantically understand as "frobnicators of A", and whose number and indices depend on the contents of the array. You then apply changes to the first part of the code, and now the correct frobnicators of A to modify are A[6] and A[14]. But the tool used to auto-update the array accessing part has no obvious way to know that by mentioning A[2], A[3] and A[5] you meant the frobnicators of A, and not say the barbulators of A. So it cannot auto-infer that you now want elements A[6] and A[14]. Or back to 3D land, what I assume is happening is that when you cut a hole through a solid, what you mean is to cut a hole (in a particular spatial relation to the solid's origin), and what happens is properties of some faces of that solid get modified. Then you apply further modification to these (and other) faces. After that, when you start reparametrizing the hole you cut in the past, the latter modification has no clue what your intent was, and blindly applies itself to the same faces it used before. I imagine the problem is not theoretically solvable without extra "intent-related data", and existing solutions are just a bunch of heuristics guessing what the person doing the modelling meant by any given step. Topology being one thing you can use to inform these heuristics.

Buttons840 6y ago

How does this compare to OpenSCAD?

regularfry 6y ago
Different UI paradigm. FreeCAD has a UI but is scriptable, whereas OpenSCAD is entirely scripted. Also, FreeCAD interfaces to other tools, whereas OpenSCAD is very standalone.
atoav 6y ago
In OpenSCAD you write scripts to create shapes, in FreeCAD you will find a more traditional graphical approach. In fact FreeCAD has OpenSCAD support built in. If you don't like the OpenSCAD Syntax, I found solidpython quite ok
threatripper 6y ago
OpenSCAD: * You write a script that calls the functions to build the geometry. (Similar to LaTeX vs. Wordprocessor) * The geometry is defined as a mesh. (Similar to Blender 3D for modeling.) FreeCAD: * While it can also handle meshes, the geometry it actually uses a geometric modeling kernel that knows spheres, cylinders, bent surfaces. For 3D printing you would convert it to a mesh when exporting to an STL. (This is a bit like vector vs. pixel graphics.) * While you can do everything with a script (and sometimes that's more easy) it provides a classical CAD interface where you point and click with your mouse. * There's a ton of additional functionality via plugins available such as FEM simulation, Architecture, CAM, ...

mnemnc 6y ago

Coming from Sketchup and being a Software Engineer, parametric design in FreeCAD is a game changer for me. For example being able to define a cabinet side length as the outdoor dimension minus twice the side panel thickness allows you to decide wood thicknesses after finishing the design without redoing everything. However, FreeCAD seems to be highly unstable on macOS and Retina screens are not supported very well.

mch82 6y ago
You’re correct that parametric is cool & FreeCAD adds that flexibility. One note about Sketchup is it encourages choosing standard sized items from the parts library. Choosing from the library (for example, choosing a standard 2x4 board or a standard door) means you’ll find real-world equivalents at Home Depot & avoid a lot of cost.

qz2 6y ago

I really want to like FreeCAD but it’s very very easy to screw up things irreparably in the parts designer. For example if you want to cut several faces and then realise you have made a mistake on one of the earlier sketches or need to adjust something, the whole model can fall apart. It just disappears. You have to unpick everything you did back to the point you did the original sketch and do it again. This is a shame because the constraint modelling is actually better than F360.

bambax 6y ago
"disappears": there's a kind of weird bug that may be a feature (not sure) where when you undo something, objects don't display anymore. But they're still there. Just select them in the model window and press spacebar and voilà, they're back. In fact the whole tree of your operations is preserved at all times, and you can do modifications at the very beginning of the chain without redoing everything.
- polack 6y ago
  As a total amateur I've run into states where I've been "spacebaring" everything I can but it still wont work. I believe you when you say it's possible to fix it, but for people like me that use FreeCAD to do some 3D models to print once a while it's near impossible to change anything and end up in a working state. If I print a simple electronics case and realize I have to move a hole 1mm in some direction I usually have to rebuild the entire box from the start. When talking to friends they all have the same problem. I want to love FreeCAD, but I usually end up hating it.
  - RogueScientist 6y ago
    In the part design workbench you can create a sketch, you draw a rectangle and you can extrude your box to its precise dimensions with a precise wall thickness. Then you can create a sketch with your features on the surfaces of the part, the sketch features such as holes(circles) connector cut outs can be placed based on a dimensional constraint. Extrude and cut your features. Now you have a 3D box with your holes where you placed them; now need to move a hole change the size of the hole, its as simple as editing the dimension the hole is defined in the sketch, all the other features will update as needed, and you can layer the dependencies forming a feature tree dependency graph. Should take about 10 min to create a pretty complex case enclosure.

grufkork 6y ago

Haven’t tried FreeCAD, but it kind of sounds like OpenSCAD (openscad.org). There you only use scripts to generate models which is nice, but a bit too clunky and slow to iterate. The lack of direct visual feedback makes for a less intuitive interface. FreeCAD seems a lot better in that aspect, and in difference to say Fusion360 you can use your models for commercial purposes!

jstanley 6y ago
Why do you say it sounds like OpenSCAD? It's not very much like OpenSCAD.
- grufkork 6y ago
  Ah, right, I was under the impression that scripting was an integral part of the workflow, but with more graphical options for manipulating shapes after basic generation. But I might very much be mistaken, I haven’t had the chance to try it yet :) I will definitely soon though, I am working on making a parametric trumpet mouthpiece model for 3D printing, which what I have gathered so far FreeCAD seems great for. The most difficult part is really finding accurate measurements for sizes and curves, most tables and info only uses relative sizes like “large” or “thin”. But I can just trace some splines from cross-sectional sketches. I have made a model in Fusion which is pretty nice once you get the concept of constraints. But then there is the massive price tag, the free tier does as mentioned not allow commercial use. Nobody has to know though...
dekhn 6y ago
No, OpenSCAD and FreeCAD aren't similar. OpenSCAD is functional CSG, FreeCAD includes a module to do that (with a interactive GUI), and more importantly, FreeCAD includes OpenSCAD as a workbench- write an openscad program, get the geometry output and then use it FreeCAD for further steps.

Kosirich 6y ago

I love the idea of FreeCAD and how much value it provides if you don't need 'advanced' stuff. That being said, it often leaves me with impression that UI, UX could and should be so much better in order to become a go to solution for hobbyist and licensing cost mindful people. p.s-Anyone here into StepNC format?

rjsw 6y ago
What is your interest in StepNC ?
- Kosirich 6y ago
  I kind of stumbled on it since I work with CAM (recently more so). I was surprised that I haven't heard of it before since from what I've seen the framework is mature and the API's seem quite complete (?). The official channels of ISO standard and especially company steptools.com provide a lot of info on the framework, but what I'm missing is some more success stories on implementation in companies (besides the ones that were part of development). Do you work with it?
  - rjsw 6y ago
    The founders of steptools.com are the project leader and editor of StepNC. Another source of information is the AP238 website [1]. I work on the underlying libraries and tools. [1] https://www.ap238.org/ https://www.ap238.org/
    - Kosirich 6y ago
      Yes, forgot about that one (!) ups Thanks for reply, great to get an answer from someone so close to it :)

andi999 6y ago

I tried it a while ago, i had 2 problems: -how do you make assemblies out of parts (sugar on top explosion function) - derive a technical drawing from the 3D model I could sent to the milling shop Point 2 is a dealbraker. I couldnt do it. Maybe it is me. Maybe I didnt find the right documentation, maybe I didnt understand what I am looking for. Using TurboCad now, not saying I am happy (docs are lacking, but it seems you can buy training)

jstanley 6y ago
For point 2, you probably want to use the Drawing workbench: https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Drawing_Module https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Drawing_Module
- leoedin 6y ago
  You'd be better off using the TechDraw workbench - it's basically replaced the drawing workbench. https://wiki.freecadweb.org/TechDraw_Module https://wiki.freecadweb.org/TechDraw_Module
  - andi999 6y ago
    This looks better. Can you mark the center of a bore and are there like surface roughness etc symbols?
  - jstanley 6y ago
    Thanks! Did not know this.
- andi999 6y ago
  Yes, looks as if this is adressing the problem space. The tutorial seems to be lacking. E.g. is there fubctionality to put in the surface roughness symbol with number? How would one do it? It leaves a bit if question. (I didnt use version 16 at that time)
  - jstanley 6y ago

pjmlp 6y ago

Looking forward to those promoting FreeCAD given the recent Autodesk Fusion 360 news to actually sponsor FreeCAD developers. Or is yet another set of free beer posts?

jeromenerf 6y ago

I do a lot of woodworking, from timber framing to small furniture and I have yet to find a convenient software to design projects. Woodworking may not require the same set of features, the same level of precision ... For me, doing one shot projects, it is all about "test fitting" the design, the joints, the cut list, etc. I find 3D modeling and CAD tools usually complex, time consuming, expensive with stupid plans and they also take the life breath out of creative projects. Were I a professional, I may rationalize the time spent and their value if I had to repeat the same jobs. I get most of what I need from paper / iPad sketching app (I recommend concepts app). I had to learn to draw and sketch, but it feels more related to building than modeling. Freecad is definitely complex to use (I spend hours learning by designing dovetailed drawers). Openscad was a better fit for me. I could even integrate it in org mode :)

marianov 6y ago
I'm also interested in the "quick sketch" approach. Is there a tool for rough things like a shed, a cabinet, welding something out of angle iron or woodworking? It would take me more time to design shelves in Freecad than to weld them.

sugarkjube 6y ago

Freecad is, imho, a terrific project filling a huge void: there are very few free/open source solutions that are a substitute for the extremely expensive commercial CAD solutions. Freecad lags compared to commercial, but gets you a long way if you're prepared to invest a little effort, and tolerate a few bugs. I'm not affiliated with freecad in any way, but just want to remark if there are any students around (or anyone with a little time availabe) reading this with interest in both engineering and software development, contributing to freecad could be a very rewarding experience, and probably good basis for a project or thesis.

threatripper 6y ago
Even more important than FreeCAD itself is the geometric modeling kernel. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_modeling_kernel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_modeling_kernel) FreeCAD like some other CAD software uses Open CASCADE. As far as I can see, this kernel is the best available but still a bit rough and unstable in many areas. (Operations like chamfering often lead to a segfault when it doesn't like your geometry.) The main problem seems to be a lack of manpower since development of such a software is a massive effort and takes decades of work of highly skilled mathematicians/engineers/programmers. So far, FreeCAD has made a lot of functionality easily accessible but often it is also held back by bugs in the modeling kernel that can't be fixed any time soon. If we could boost the development of high quality geometric modeling kernels, we could provide an essential building block to many software projects that currently are just not happening because there is no feasible way to get them started.
- phkahler 6y ago
  SolveSpace has it's own geometric kernel that is dramatically smaller than Open Cascade. It's also lacking some features, but IMHO better to build on something small and digestible that try to find bugs in a monolith. There are some bugs in there too, but I think they're solvable.
  - avhon1 6y ago
    Antimony [0] and libfive [1] also use custom geometry kernels. [0] http://www.mattkeeter.com/projects/antimony/3/ http://www.mattkeeter.com/projects/antimony/3/ [1] https://libfive.com/ https://libfive.com/

turpialito 6y ago

I work with AutoCAD, ACAD Architecture and VectorWorks. I think and hope in the not-so-long-run FreeCAD will be serious competition for traditio9nal mainstream/enterprise CAD. That being said, I do agree with some on the fact that the UI needs a little work, and improved tutorials.

jventura 6y ago
Do you know if it's possible to export a house plan in FreeCAD to use on AutoCAD? I need to draw the 2D floors of my house and send to an architect who is using AutoCAD..

fireattack 6y ago

No Windows binary for 0.19_pre provided despite the description says so? https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases/tag/0.19_pre https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases/tag/0.19_pre Bug trakcer [1] says you can only report bugs for 0.19 version, so using an older version isn't an option. [1] https://tracker.freecadweb.org/my_view_page.php https://tracker.freecadweb.org/my_view_page.php

dekhn 6y ago
The download is here: https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases/tag/0.19_pre https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases/tag/0.19_pre look for FreeCAD_0.19.22411-Win-Conda_vc14.x-x86_64.7z
- fireattack 6y ago
  Thanks, they added it after I asked in the forum. It wasn't there.

dmos62 6y ago

If interested in free parametric 3D CAD, checkout SolveSpace: http://solvespace.com/index.pl http://solvespace.com/index.pl It's very functional (as in functional programming) in its approach. Weighs in at only a few megs. It's my go to tool for sketching things out when woodworking.

serf 6y ago

I hate what Autodesk did with Fusion, but the problems i've ran into while searching for an alternative are: 1) Most packages don't have any included standards libraries; this makes modeling a standardized drilled borehole a much more involved affair. It makes hardware provisioning a more involved affair. Much nicer to have included libraries for things like, for example, a #6-32 UNC bolt. No need to go find a bolt and bust out the calipers to verify things like shoulder width and so-on, it's just there. The F360 and Solidworks parts libraries are both great. Nearly non-existent on the free/cheaper alternatives. 2) Most CAD/CAM software I have ran into deals with high poly models terribly. Sure, the solution is to simplify the models, but it's just not a feasible goal when dealing with very complex assemblies. Fusion/Solidworks deal with high polygon stuff as gracefully as possible. Onshape becomes nearly unusable. Freecad gets unstable. I can't comment on complexity with openscad, but it dealt with modeled parametric bolts and nuts just fine in my case; a case which lags most clients due to the high poly count on bolt threads. 3) THREADED HOLES. F360 and Solidworks can deal with standardized threads with ease. Onshape requires a buggy community-written add-on where most standards must be defined rather than found in a look-up table. OpenSCAD has lots of do-able thread solutions. Freecad sucks at threads, as far as i've learned thus far. So, still, the search continues. If I had all the resources in the world i'd buy a Solidworks license. I just like it the best, the simulation packages are nice, the libraries are nice, the UX is nice -- it just feels like quality. Too bad I can't afford it. They were nice enough to let me have a trial license for awhile, but after expiration I was driven to F360 -- which due to recent decisions they've made I totally regret. I wish SW had a free/low cost option, but I recognize that if they did it'd probably compromise the product to the point where i'd no longer be interested, as much as I hope otherwise.

johnwalkr 6y ago
Do you qualify for this program? https://www.solidworks.com/solution/organization-type/entrepreneurs-startups https://www.solidworks.com/solution/organization-type/entrep... I use Solidworks professionally and prefer it but the above program isn't in my region. I'm starting a side project and need CAD. Solidworks starts at like, $5000 plus $2000 per year and if you don't renew the license, you either have to backpay all renewal fees you missed, or buy it again. Actually it's double the price in my region. Their reseller program is awful too. After checking all the options you've mentioned and more, I decided to use solidedge. It has a monthly option starting from about $100, direct from Siemens, that can be stopped and restarted without penalty. And I feel really good about supporting this licensing scheme as all the others out there are just awful. For FEM I think I will use a Siemens FEMAP/NASTRAN. It's $700 a month, with the same good license terms. I could batch my work that requires it to 1-2 months per year. There's even cheaper ways to use it in a cloud service too. I would maybe try onshape but I don't like the idea that I'd have to pay forever if I wanted to maintain parametric files, or live with exported solids whenever I stop the service.

osamagirl69 6y ago

Frecad has come a LONG way since I started using it in 2016, and I encourage those who had a hard time with it a few years back to give it another try. Also - make sure you are getting a recent version, some distros have a tendency to ship a horendously outdated version. The current stable version is 18.4, there should be 19.0 release soon with a ton of improvements, but it is not quite there yet.

encom 6y ago
Is it still a nightmare to compile? It's not in the Gentoo tree, because aparently, getting FreeCAD to compile cleanly, ~~requires human sacrifice to The Ancient Ones~~ is quite difficult. I was forced to use Solidworks last year, as part of a training course, and I didn't like it at all. I have some Autocad and 3dsmax experience from admittedly long ago, but the way things are done in Solid felt weird and alien to me. Not to mention I had to use a Windows machine for it, and after removing it, it had still left its DRM tentacles deep in the system. Had to pave the machine to make sure it was all gone.
- boyadjian 6y ago
  At least on Windows, it is easy to compile, now that there is CMake.
- osamagirl69 6y ago
  I have never tried to build it, but I imagine it is still a nightmare to compile. Where I am in life these days I leave that to the package maintainers. Solidworks is terrible and chock full of antipatterns. I haven't used autodesk in a good long while--my last memory with it was pretty bad. I was on a team that won a design contest from Autodesk--the prize for which was a laptop pre-loaded with the autodesk suite. The kicker was their software crashed regularly on that machine even under light use...

NamTaf 6y ago

FreeCAD is truly impressive and wonderful software, but yeh compared to commercial solutions it's lacking the same degree of polish (and that's not a criticsm, considering the price-points!). Both Dad and I use it at home for our 3D printing modelling, however at work I get to use SolidWorks and previously have used NX. Compared to them, I think the most common pinch point for me is how segmented sketches vs extrusions are. In Solidworks, you literally click a surface (plane, surface face of parametric solid, etc.) and just draw. Then you grab it and pull it out. It automagically does all the line constraints, etc. and there's not quite the same degree of separation as FreeCAD requires, where I have to make a dedicated sketch in one area, then switch to the other area to do the extrusion of it. Indeed, this sort of UI polish seems to be where most of my issues lie, rather than specific features missing. I get the suspicion that the people working on FreeCAD are probably the ones who really enjoy writing an elegant parametric modelling program, so they're all about the engine and the UX becomes a little bit of an afterthought. That's not to criticise them, but rather highlight that a commerical entity is able to pay money to get all of those 'less sexy' jobs completed to a high quality. It's a timely reminder to me that there's a requirement for all types in a community project, including people who aren't the flashy wunderkind producing the sexy engineered solutions - you just as much need the person who puts in the hard and thankless work making all the documentation neat, logical and consistent. Nevertheless, I don't think I'll be paying for a SolidWorks licence at home anytime soon, so I'm really appreciative of everything that the FreeCAD team has done. edit: To be clear, if you're wanting to learn CAD then FreeCAD is an admirable choice and will teach you well. Indeed, some of the extra steps it requires is probably good from a learning perspective, because it makes you think through the process more completely and logically. In that sense, the handholding and coddling of some of the more sophisticated commercial packages can be detrimental, because you don't really learn how every part goes together specifically as you're developing your model. I definitely don't mean any of my post to come across as criticism meant to deter anyone from trying FreeCAD. I was more trying to draw out the broader point that all too often, volunteer projects suffer from someone not doing 'the boring job', because using FreeCAD vs. commerical packages reminded me of that insight.

ajuc 6y ago
I'm fine with the UI. I never used another CAD software and Free Cad is intuitive enough for me to learn the basics in one day from a youtube video. Draw in 2d, pad, click on a face, create sketch, draw in 2d, pocket/pad, repeat. Simple. The problem is that if I want to change anything in a sketch that is higher up the dependency chain - it breaks all the sketches/objects depending on it and you have to fix it by lots of manual steps. This makes the workflow feel bad because you're afraid to change stuff earlier in the chain so you add stuff later instead of just fixing it properly.

MarcScott 6y ago

If anyone is interested in a few tutorials to get started using FreeCAD, we have a few on the Raspberry Pi Projects site https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects?software%5B%5D=freecad https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects?software%5B%5D=...

lsllc 6y ago
Thanks for posting this, it looks interesting. However, I don't seem to be able to get FreeCAD to even do things like pan in the sketch view on a Mac using the trackpad (googling doesn't find any answers either).
- MarcScott 6y ago
  Could you raise an issue on github.com/raspberrypilearning The repo name will be the project's URL slug. The weekend has started now, and I know I'll forget this by Monday.

alias_neo 6y ago

I started using FreeCAD recently after getting a 3D printer, because I wanted something open source and runs on Linux which I could learn, and would become my CAD tool. I have no CAD experience outside of what I learned in university over a decade ago, so it has been a challenge. I have generally found it quite hard to achieve some simple designs, it's not always easy to understand what a tool does from its name, and it's not always easy to find a video online to help. Sometimes you know what you need to do, but can't find the tool for it because you have no idea what it's called in CAD land. The bugs which cause parts to just disappear when you run certain operations are an issue, and there is little help to explain the cause, I've gotten a few designs into the broken state others have mentioned where you need to undo a bunch of work to recover, which is unfortunate. On the other hand, I found creating drill holes, countersunk or counterbored incredibly easy and powerful. I hope to find an up to date video series I can follow to learn more as I'm sure it'll become a lot easier to use once I understand the tools better.

bloodm 6y ago
"On the other hand, I found creating drill holes, countersunk or counterbored incredibly easy and powerful." This company provides Linux based software for front panel designs. I have their EU branch made several panels for me. The software was pleasant to use. File export seems to be only a proprietary format. https://www.frontpanelexpress.com/front-panel-designer/# https://www.frontpanelexpress.com/front-panel-designer/#
app4soft 6y ago
As I'm working with CAD for a long time, I would recommend to install next three FLOSS apps (keep them all side-by-side on your PC): 1. FreeCAD — main 3D CAD (CAx); 2. QCAD — main 2D CAD (CADD); 3. SolveSpace — helper 2D/3D parametric CAD & CAE for daily engineering, sketching & relax.[0,1,2,3] [0] https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace [1] https://github.com/Symbian9/SolveSpace-Daily-Engineering https://github.com/Symbian9/SolveSpace-Daily-Engineering [2] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL53gPqUkbj3JndwS2T410KTbBymaimbiD https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL53gPqUkbj3JndwS2T410... [3] https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1181705677984735232 https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1181705677984735232

langitbiru 6y ago

CAD software is so expensive. Rhino is $995. Fusion 360 is $297/year. Solid Works is $3995 with an annual maintenance fee of $1295. Let's compare them to photo editing software and the likes. Adobe cloud subscription is US$52.99/mo (all apps -> Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, etc). If you only need Photoshop, the price is US$20.99/mo. Affinity Photo is $49.99. Nah, we have good opensource photo editing softwares like Gimp and Krita, a good opensource vector editing software like Inkscape. References: https://www.rhino3d.com/sales https://www.rhino3d.com/sales https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/pricing https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/pricing https://www.engineeringclicks.com/solidworks-price-guide/ https://www.engineeringclicks.com/solidworks-price-guide/ https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html# https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html# https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/#buy https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/#buy

andi999 6y ago
Try to make an jetengine with a photo editing software.
- arghwhat 6y ago
  Try to edit RAW photos with CAD software. Pretty pointless comparison.
  - andi999 6y ago
    Well the point I tried to make is that one software is used to build billion dollar products on which human life depends while the other one is just a CAD software (or was it the other way round :-) )
    - arghwhat 6y ago
      And both are simple products available in free variants serving non-overlapping purposes. Solidworks is just a random and insignificant piece of proprietary software. Its core component isn't even original, but relicensed Siemens tech. It's popular because it's popular, nothing else. (Plus, anyone can throw together a jet engine with a welding station from aliexpress and a few car spare parts. Now, if you had said space rocket, it would have meant something, but that's an insignificant percentage of CAD usage.)

DominikD 6y ago

FreeCAD saved me a lot of headaches when I bought a flat last year. My wife wasn't happy with me spending a lot of time drawing stuff by the entresol ended up exactly as we expected and since I modeled and positioned every piece of furniture in FreeCAD, only a single power outlet is in a wrong position (and that's because we got a different locker than we origianly intended). The bugs are there but you learn to work around them easily. And it's not like commercial software is bug free as probably anyone dealing with video editing can attest. ;)

throw0101a 6y ago

How does it compare to OpenSCAD, which now also has an a story on the front page: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24514978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24514978 There was a presentation at SCALE 18x earlier this year (pre-shutdown): * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G39tJdmLuAI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G39tJdmLuAI

thdrdt 6y ago

Joko Engineeringhelp (channel with a lot of FreeCAD tutorials) just posted a video answering questions like: should I learn FreeCAD, can it be used commercially, how does it compare to industry standard tools? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udIBhVIy5MI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udIBhVIy5MI

ktn00b 6y ago

I am trying to create a CAD driven design tool for a farming project. An equivalent from a different sector would be Helioscope (https://www.helioscope.com/ https://www.helioscope.com/) for Solar Plant planning. All I know is javascript based web development so am quite lost on where to start. Tring to google only brings up general purpose CAD tools. Any ideas on how to go about it?

loughnane 6y ago

I want to likes FreeCAD, but it’s just not there for reasons mentioned elsewhere in the thread. I’ve logged probably thousands of hours in each Solidworks, Pro|engineer (now creo) and onshape (current favorite), so I’m familiar with the productivity costs of switching to a new program. The inefficiencies of FreeCAD is way beyond any switching cost, probably 5x less efficient to design and iterate.

DanGPhoton 6y ago

Anyone here ever try ironCAD? I've thought about buying a personal license of a professional CAD package. Solidworks (my most familiar) is too expensive for personal use. OnShape I'd consider if I could sign up month-by-month and go dormant. But I'd like an old-school software package that I could keep indefinitely but knew it could do all my entry-level work.

sireat 6y ago

What would be a reasonable FOSS alternative to Sketchup? I know a number of architects who are dead set on using Sketchup versions circa 2014 - 2017 for most of the preliminary work. It seems to fit their workflow the best. They only go to AutoCAD when absolutely necessary. We are talking architects with 20 years of AutoCAD experience.

eggy 6y ago

I use FreeCAD and Solvespace mainly for personal use, but I use Fusion, Inventor, Solidworks, and Rhino at work with Inventor and Rhino being my two main CAD programs. We also have Revit and I had been using IDEAS back in 1997. I love FreeCAD for the Python API, and the now-integrated FEM workbench. I've done some fun CFD work with this. I like Fusion, but I do fear a web-based-only CAD. For this reason, I am looking at Alibre Atom for $199 for personal use. It seems really polished, easy to use, and it has been around for a while in different incantations. Solvespace is great for four-bar linkages and other geometrical work, but there is no way I could spend the time doing a three-hundred part assembly when I could do it in Fusion or Inventor in much less time, and it could be shared or worked on by others more readily. Solvespace is amazing for what it is, and I will continue to use and follow it.

tamber 6y ago

This is awesome! I should've looked into this kind of thing sooner, I've been meaning to start playing around with CAD for a while now.