6 ms·

How does this differ from freecad.org which appears to be much more mature and also uses OpenCascade under the hood?

Pearse 3y ago
He answers that question in the git hub read me: "While FreeCAD technically does everything I need, the way it's implemented isn't quite to my liking. My biggest pain points with it are the modal sketcher that only works in 2D, no constraints in 3D for extrusions and the perils of referencing things in the design. Solvespace on the other hand gets the workflow part right, but falls short by not importing STEP and the geometry kernel not supporting chamfers and fillets."
- rurban 3y ago
  That are exactly my concerns also. Great that someone new (Lukas K. from Horizon EDA) stepped up!
- eternityforest 3y ago
  3D constraints are really interesting. I can see a lot of potential. But also, 2D Sketching is a nice easy "Stay in your comfort zone" model that keeps as much work as possible in 2D where it's easier to think about, and encourages 2.5D stuff that's easy to understand. For basic functional items it's nice. For other stuff... 3D constraints seem pretty interesting.
sschueller 3y ago
FreeCAD is an intuitive UI nightmare. There are always 2-3 different tools that do the same but each with its own limitations. The error messages even in the error console are too cryptic. I have tried over and over to switch to FreeCAD from fusion but I have wasted too much time spending hours trying to figure stupid crap. Other tools like KiCAD are so much better. Even Blender which can be very complex just works.
- eternityforest 3y ago
  RealThunder's fork fixes so much. I almost wish they'd just scrap everything, clone his work, and start again from there.
  - XorNot 3y ago
    Gonna go check this out ASAP, thanks.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - eternityforest 3y ago
      It's really amazing. I'm a little worried that it's not going to last forever though, I'm not sure what the plan upstream is and how much is going to get merged, and it's literally just one person maintaining it as far as I can tell.
      - app4soft 3y ago
        JFTR, FCStd-files produced by RealThunder's LinkStage[0] (fork of FreeCAD) is not fully backward compatible with an official FreeCAD app, and wise versa. So, if you are planning to use LinkStage app for some large project, be ready to use only one app for the whole project and be ready to lost in whole or in part compatibility with the users of an official FreeCAD. [0] https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD
- khimaros 3y ago
  after building and playing with this for a bit i have to say, at least in its current state, it is far less intuitive than FreeCAD.
blopp99 3y ago
There doesnt seem to be another Open Source Paramectric CAD that has good UI. Not Freecad or Open SCAD.
- AlbertoGP 3y ago
  There is DSLCAD (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34740463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34740463) which: > DSLCAD is a programming language & interpreter for building 3D models. > Inspired by OpenSCAD, it has a language and 3D viewer to simplify the modeling experience. https://github.com/DSchroer/dslcad https://github.com/DSchroer/dslcad
- dTal 3y ago
  SALOME is an OpenCascade frontend that nobody seems to know about, perhaps because it's pitched for CFD meshing. But it's basically a more focused and stable FreeCAD.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - kwk1 3y ago
    Unfortunately, SALOME uses CORBA.
    - dTal 3y ago
      Why is that bad?
- Qwertious 3y ago
  Honestly, OpenSCAD has a great UI - it's everything else that sucks about it. OpenSCAD's core advantage is that if you can code, then it is so damn simple; cube sphere cylinder variables modules rotate translate (and if you want to be really fancy: hull union intersect difference), that's all you need for 99% of projects and it fights onto a half-page cheatsheet. The problem with OpenSCAD is that it's fundamentally really dumb; it doesn't have constraints, you usually just create shapes additively but then you have awful Z-fighting because the engine sucks, and the solution is "just barf epsilons everywhere lol" (which is pure cope - that's not a solution, that's an awkward workaround that requires a bunch of pointless busywork (and more importantly, forces you to figure out stuff about your model that you legitimately don't care about) because the engine is incapable). I would love to see a successor to OpenSCAD that keeps its IDE-style interface (and no, that doesn't mean using pycharm - the beauty of OpenSCAD is that you have a minimal functional DSL and the GUI is built around the DSL and its use-case) but finds an elegant method of integrating constraints, basically anything to do with curves, that sort of stuff.

He answers that question in the git hub read me: "While FreeCAD technically does everything I need, the way it's implemented isn't quite to my liking. My biggest pain points with it are the modal sketcher that only works in 2D, no constraints in 3D for extrusions and the perils of referencing things in the design. Solvespace on the other hand gets the workflow part right, but falls short by not importing STEP and the geometry kernel not supporting chamfers and fillets."

rurban 3y ago
That are exactly my concerns also. Great that someone new (Lukas K. from Horizon EDA) stepped up!
eternityforest 3y ago
3D constraints are really interesting. I can see a lot of potential. But also, 2D Sketching is a nice easy "Stay in your comfort zone" model that keeps as much work as possible in 2D where it's easier to think about, and encourages 2.5D stuff that's easy to understand. For basic functional items it's nice. For other stuff... 3D constraints seem pretty interesting.

sschueller 3y ago

FreeCAD is an intuitive UI nightmare. There are always 2-3 different tools that do the same but each with its own limitations. The error messages even in the error console are too cryptic. I have tried over and over to switch to FreeCAD from fusion but I have wasted too much time spending hours trying to figure stupid crap. Other tools like KiCAD are so much better. Even Blender which can be very complex just works.

eternityforest 3y ago
RealThunder's fork fixes so much. I almost wish they'd just scrap everything, clone his work, and start again from there.
- XorNot 3y ago
  Gonna go check this out ASAP, thanks.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - eternityforest 3y ago
    It's really amazing. I'm a little worried that it's not going to last forever though, I'm not sure what the plan upstream is and how much is going to get merged, and it's literally just one person maintaining it as far as I can tell.
    - app4soft 3y ago
      JFTR, FCStd-files produced by RealThunder's LinkStage[0] (fork of FreeCAD) is not fully backward compatible with an official FreeCAD app, and wise versa. So, if you are planning to use LinkStage app for some large project, be ready to use only one app for the whole project and be ready to lost in whole or in part compatibility with the users of an official FreeCAD. [0] https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD
khimaros 3y ago
after building and playing with this for a bit i have to say, at least in its current state, it is far less intuitive than FreeCAD.

blopp99 3y ago

There doesnt seem to be another Open Source Paramectric CAD that has good UI. Not Freecad or Open SCAD.

AlbertoGP 3y ago
There is DSLCAD (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34740463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34740463) which: > DSLCAD is a programming language & interpreter for building 3D models. > Inspired by OpenSCAD, it has a language and 3D viewer to simplify the modeling experience. https://github.com/DSchroer/dslcad https://github.com/DSchroer/dslcad
dTal 3y ago
SALOME is an OpenCascade frontend that nobody seems to know about, perhaps because it's pitched for CFD meshing. But it's basically a more focused and stable FreeCAD.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- kwk1 3y ago
  Unfortunately, SALOME uses CORBA.
  - dTal 3y ago
    Why is that bad?
Qwertious 3y ago
Honestly, OpenSCAD has a great UI - it's everything else that sucks about it. OpenSCAD's core advantage is that if you can code, then it is so damn simple; cube sphere cylinder variables modules rotate translate (and if you want to be really fancy: hull union intersect difference), that's all you need for 99% of projects and it fights onto a half-page cheatsheet. The problem with OpenSCAD is that it's fundamentally really dumb; it doesn't have constraints, you usually just create shapes additively but then you have awful Z-fighting because the engine sucks, and the solution is "just barf epsilons everywhere lol" (which is pure cope - that's not a solution, that's an awkward workaround that requires a bunch of pointless busywork (and more importantly, forces you to figure out stuff about your model that you legitimately don't care about) because the engine is incapable). I would love to see a successor to OpenSCAD that keeps its IDE-style interface (and no, that doesn't mean using pycharm - the beauty of OpenSCAD is that you have a minimal functional DSL and the GUI is built around the DSL and its use-case) but finds an elegant method of integrating constraints, basically anything to do with curves, that sort of stuff.