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My complaint is that it is extremely modal and as a result not very friendly, not intuitive even to a relatively experienced CAD user. I’ve used a variety of C

My complaint is that it is extremely modal and as a result not very friendly, not intuitive even to a relatively experienced CAD user. I’ve used a variety of CAD and it just really didn’t click. I know it’s open source, so not going to be as UX oriented, but still. I would love to be proved wrong. If there’s something I’m missing please share.

haberman 5y ago
I've experienced that user unfriendliness too. I'm not at all an expert in this, I'm a FreeCAD newbie that has been trying to decide whether to invest in learning FreeCAD or not. I keep wishing that FreeCAD had the UI polish of Blender, and ask myself if Blender can do enough of the CAD workflows that it makes sense to learn Blender instead of FreeCAD. I keep reading that technically speaking, mesh-based modelers are woefully insufficient for CAD tasks. But then I see videos like this, which suggest that Blender can handle most modeling tasks, with the main exception of bevels and chamfers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5SehCbhxFs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5SehCbhxFs
- jackyinger 5y ago
  Mesh modeling in blender has similar downfalls to OpenSCAD. When you’re designing a bit of precision equipment (or what have you) you don’t want your circles turned into high degree polygons. Can a lathe turn a polygon? Can a drill drill a polygonal hole? Maybe you can machine a polygon on a fancy CNC lathe, but you certainly wouldn’t do so for a turbine shaft. Also for less precise things, say construction, you care about dimensions. Select an arc to get it’s radius for instance. This is why design for traditional construction techniques best done in boundary representations: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_representation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_representation I will concede that one can easily create nasty insoluble problems with boundary representations if not familiar with the limitations of splines, but this only really is a problem with curvy things like ship’s hulls and aircraft.
- eindiran 5y ago
  There is no downside in my opinion to learning a bit of OpenSCAD, FreeCAD, and Blender and reaching for the right tool when you need it. Personally, I have found the UI/UX of FreeCAD painful to use, but it is sufficient for most of my CAD needs. And after Fusion 360 crippled their hobbyist licensing, I don't really want to get in bed with any of the non-free CAD tools.
phoenix3200 5y ago
I found OpenSCAD to be very friendly for parametric designs, but after a while I switched to the SolidPython wrapper as it was more flexible. However, I'm hunting for a better way to create 3d models via code (Blender Python?) because 'extrude_along_path'->SolidPython->OpenSCAD->stl export simply could not handle my model.
- jackyinger 5y ago
  OpenSCAD is great in some ways, but the fact that everything gets boils straight to triangles drives me nuts. If there were an OpenSCAD equivalent to work with boundary representation models I’d have found my CAD nirvana.
  - dTal 5y ago
    ZenCad? https://mirmik.github.io/zencad/en/index.html https://mirmik.github.io/zencad/en/index.html
  - eggsome 5y ago
    Would this fit the bill? https://solvespace.com/index.pl https://solvespace.com/index.pl
- floatboth 5y ago
  CadQuery should be better as it is using the OpenCASCADE cad kernel (same as FreeCAD) instead of a simplistic ad-hoc thingy.
  - jackyinger 5y ago
    Thanks for pointing this out! Looks pretty useful, will give it a shot.
  - adhesive_wombat 5y ago
    I honestly think CadQuery has more promise as a way to get open source 3D components and modules to the mainstream, because it's fundamentally code, and can be reasoned about as such (diffed, merged, blamed, parameterised, modularised, reused and tested). Putting SolidWorks or FreeCad file into source control is a very different thing. Also, as it's natively Python, you have all sorts of library support, up to and including things like numpy.
jbay808 5y ago
Did you find the Part Design workflow? It took a while for Freecad to click for me but it ends up being fairly similar to other CAD programs in terms of workflow.

haberman 5y ago

I've experienced that user unfriendliness too. I'm not at all an expert in this, I'm a FreeCAD newbie that has been trying to decide whether to invest in learning FreeCAD or not. I keep wishing that FreeCAD had the UI polish of Blender, and ask myself if Blender can do enough of the CAD workflows that it makes sense to learn Blender instead of FreeCAD. I keep reading that technically speaking, mesh-based modelers are woefully insufficient for CAD tasks. But then I see videos like this, which suggest that Blender can handle most modeling tasks, with the main exception of bevels and chamfers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5SehCbhxFs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5SehCbhxFs

jackyinger 5y ago
Mesh modeling in blender has similar downfalls to OpenSCAD. When you’re designing a bit of precision equipment (or what have you) you don’t want your circles turned into high degree polygons. Can a lathe turn a polygon? Can a drill drill a polygonal hole? Maybe you can machine a polygon on a fancy CNC lathe, but you certainly wouldn’t do so for a turbine shaft. Also for less precise things, say construction, you care about dimensions. Select an arc to get it’s radius for instance. This is why design for traditional construction techniques best done in boundary representations: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_representation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_representation I will concede that one can easily create nasty insoluble problems with boundary representations if not familiar with the limitations of splines, but this only really is a problem with curvy things like ship’s hulls and aircraft.
eindiran 5y ago
There is no downside in my opinion to learning a bit of OpenSCAD, FreeCAD, and Blender and reaching for the right tool when you need it. Personally, I have found the UI/UX of FreeCAD painful to use, but it is sufficient for most of my CAD needs. And after Fusion 360 crippled their hobbyist licensing, I don't really want to get in bed with any of the non-free CAD tools.

phoenix3200 5y ago

I found OpenSCAD to be very friendly for parametric designs, but after a while I switched to the SolidPython wrapper as it was more flexible. However, I'm hunting for a better way to create 3d models via code (Blender Python?) because 'extrude_along_path'->SolidPython->OpenSCAD->stl export simply could not handle my model.

jackyinger 5y ago
OpenSCAD is great in some ways, but the fact that everything gets boils straight to triangles drives me nuts. If there were an OpenSCAD equivalent to work with boundary representation models I’d have found my CAD nirvana.
- dTal 5y ago
  ZenCad? https://mirmik.github.io/zencad/en/index.html https://mirmik.github.io/zencad/en/index.html
- eggsome 5y ago
  Would this fit the bill? https://solvespace.com/index.pl https://solvespace.com/index.pl
floatboth 5y ago
CadQuery should be better as it is using the OpenCASCADE cad kernel (same as FreeCAD) instead of a simplistic ad-hoc thingy.
- jackyinger 5y ago
  Thanks for pointing this out! Looks pretty useful, will give it a shot.
- adhesive_wombat 5y ago
  I honestly think CadQuery has more promise as a way to get open source 3D components and modules to the mainstream, because it's fundamentally code, and can be reasoned about as such (diffed, merged, blamed, parameterised, modularised, reused and tested). Putting SolidWorks or FreeCad file into source control is a very different thing. Also, as it's natively Python, you have all sorts of library support, up to and including things like numpy.

jbay808 5y ago

Did you find the Part Design workflow? It took a while for Freecad to click for me but it ends up being fairly similar to other CAD programs in terms of workflow.