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Tried openscad and then cadquery for some geometry iteration projects and found them clunky. It wasn't just that I was missing a UI; the functions, constraints

Tried openscad and then cadquery for some geometry iteration projects and found them clunky. It wasn't just that I was missing a UI; the functions, constraints and geometry kernel weren't as powerful as onshape, which I've used a bit, and presumably light years behind fusion 360, which I haven't used. Even freecad, a UI-based oss cad, is not quite ergonomic for a beginner-to-intermediate user, though it has come a long way in the past few years. I'm excited for there to eventually be a good open source cad option, whether language-only or language-plus-GUI, but am also increasingly on team 'tools matter for your productivity'.

WillAdams 11mo ago
The great thing about OpenSCAD is that it makes it easy to programmatically model objects using cubes, cylinders, cones, and spheres by placing, stretching, and rotating them. The awful thing about OpenSCAD is that one's ability to model in it is strongly bounded by one's fluency with mathematics and ability to use math to programmatically model objects using cubes, cylinders, cones, and spheres by placing, stretching, and rotating them. The one tool I'm aware of which is looking at a new geometry kernel which I can recall is: https://fornjot.app/ https://fornjot.app/
nicman23 11mo ago
freecad with the new ui + its openscad integration is pretty good. openscad in general is quite easy if you can functionally program
- exasperaited 11mo ago
  AFAIK FreeCAD's core OpenSCAD replacement is being suggested for replacement with an alternative so things may further improve. OpenSCAD in a FreeCAD context does address many of the limitations of OpenSCAD, but it's not perfectly compatible.
  - WillAdams 11mo ago
    That's a shame. If I could use FreeCAD by programming in OpenSCAD, I'd be far more inclined to use it.
    - exasperaited 11mo ago
      There is another workbench — indeed I think this is possibly a candidate to replace the core one: https://github.com/KeithSloan/OpenSCAD_Alt_Import https://github.com/KeithSloan/OpenSCAD_Alt_Import There's also a CadQuery 2 workbench now: https://github.com/CadQuery/cadquery-freecad-workbench/ https://github.com/CadQuery/cadquery-freecad-workbench/
      - WillAdams 11mo ago
        Thanks! It's especially nice that CadQuery has come full circle (having started as a workbench).
- jandrese 11mo ago
  I find OpenSCAD to be decent, if somewhat tedious, when making mechanical parts but extremely limiting if you want to work with organic shapes. Even mechanical shapes that just avoid sharp edges require a fair bit of effort. One thing I do like about it is how it encourages users to parameterize their models just by the nature of the language. Pretty much everything I make in OpenSCAD has a list of named parameters at the top I can later tweak if I need to shrink or enlarge some aspect of it.
imtringued 11mo ago
As someone who has been using FreeCAD starting in 2020, I can't tell any major differences. The problems are the same they have ever been. It's only the renderer that got a little bit more "sexy", but that is just looks.
- arcanemachiner 11mo ago
  This is my understanding as well.
  - exasperaited 11mo ago
    It's incorrect, then! Lots changed since 2020 in the current 1.0.2 release, including TNP mitigations and the core assembly workbench. The 1.1 developer release (which is stable and useful and getting quite close to final release) contains further TNP mitigations; further improvements to the core assembly workbench; radically better lighting; datums have moved into the core; there's a way of enabling the advanced attachment mode in Part Design; compound body support in Part Design by default; significant comfort improvements in Sketcher, transparent previews, dragger gadgets and improved pattern tools in Part Design; support for external intersection geometry, Qt6 GUI improvements; lots of improvements to the Preferences panels, and that's before looking at FEM, BIM and CAM. Oh and the Ondsel stuff — the web sharing service, its plugin and its headless worker support — is also under the control of the FreeCAD project, free of its AWS dependencies and being actively maintained. It's still idiosyncratic but it goes way, way beyond looks. There was a big hump to get over between 0.21 and 1.0, re-engineering RealThunder's TNP mitigations to be more practical and adding the core Assembly workbench, but there's been enormous progress since. HN's negativity around FreeCAD no longer astonishes me because I think HNers in general have a rather misbegotten sense of what GUI CAD even is, what its strengths are instead of just its weaknesses, and how much of a challenge something with FreeCAD's scope really is. I mean Dune3D is interesting but frustrating still, SALOME is interesting but has huge money behind it; FreeCAD is the sort of hard-won, low-governance, pure-open-source-no-corporate-bullshit project HNers should prefer. Is it the equal of commercial CAD packages? No it's not. It's a different beast and an absolute social good.
juliangmp 11mo ago
If you want a classical GUI based cad tool for 3D modelling, I'd suggest taking a look at solve space and dune3d
- awinter-py 11mo ago
  thanks for recs, will check them out
  - WillAdams 11mo ago
    Dune 3D in particular is the only traditional 3D CAD program I've ever tried where I actually made it through the tutorial without a showstopper (still need to find time to try Moment of Inspiration 3D).
augunrik 11mo ago
You can try out AstoCAD, a reskin of FreeCAD. The author also fixes a lot of FreeCAD bugs.

WillAdams 11mo ago

The great thing about OpenSCAD is that it makes it easy to programmatically model objects using cubes, cylinders, cones, and spheres by placing, stretching, and rotating them. The awful thing about OpenSCAD is that one's ability to model in it is strongly bounded by one's fluency with mathematics and ability to use math to programmatically model objects using cubes, cylinders, cones, and spheres by placing, stretching, and rotating them. The one tool I'm aware of which is looking at a new geometry kernel which I can recall is: https://fornjot.app/ https://fornjot.app/

nicman23 11mo ago

freecad with the new ui + its openscad integration is pretty good. openscad in general is quite easy if you can functionally program

exasperaited 11mo ago
AFAIK FreeCAD's core OpenSCAD replacement is being suggested for replacement with an alternative so things may further improve. OpenSCAD in a FreeCAD context does address many of the limitations of OpenSCAD, but it's not perfectly compatible.
- WillAdams 11mo ago
  That's a shame. If I could use FreeCAD by programming in OpenSCAD, I'd be far more inclined to use it.
  - exasperaited 11mo ago
    There is another workbench — indeed I think this is possibly a candidate to replace the core one: https://github.com/KeithSloan/OpenSCAD_Alt_Import https://github.com/KeithSloan/OpenSCAD_Alt_Import There's also a CadQuery 2 workbench now: https://github.com/CadQuery/cadquery-freecad-workbench/ https://github.com/CadQuery/cadquery-freecad-workbench/
    - WillAdams 11mo ago
      Thanks! It's especially nice that CadQuery has come full circle (having started as a workbench).
jandrese 11mo ago
I find OpenSCAD to be decent, if somewhat tedious, when making mechanical parts but extremely limiting if you want to work with organic shapes. Even mechanical shapes that just avoid sharp edges require a fair bit of effort. One thing I do like about it is how it encourages users to parameterize their models just by the nature of the language. Pretty much everything I make in OpenSCAD has a list of named parameters at the top I can later tweak if I need to shrink or enlarge some aspect of it.

imtringued 11mo ago

As someone who has been using FreeCAD starting in 2020, I can't tell any major differences. The problems are the same they have ever been. It's only the renderer that got a little bit more "sexy", but that is just looks.

arcanemachiner 11mo ago
This is my understanding as well.
- exasperaited 11mo ago
  It's incorrect, then! Lots changed since 2020 in the current 1.0.2 release, including TNP mitigations and the core assembly workbench. The 1.1 developer release (which is stable and useful and getting quite close to final release) contains further TNP mitigations; further improvements to the core assembly workbench; radically better lighting; datums have moved into the core; there's a way of enabling the advanced attachment mode in Part Design; compound body support in Part Design by default; significant comfort improvements in Sketcher, transparent previews, dragger gadgets and improved pattern tools in Part Design; support for external intersection geometry, Qt6 GUI improvements; lots of improvements to the Preferences panels, and that's before looking at FEM, BIM and CAM. Oh and the Ondsel stuff — the web sharing service, its plugin and its headless worker support — is also under the control of the FreeCAD project, free of its AWS dependencies and being actively maintained. It's still idiosyncratic but it goes way, way beyond looks. There was a big hump to get over between 0.21 and 1.0, re-engineering RealThunder's TNP mitigations to be more practical and adding the core Assembly workbench, but there's been enormous progress since. HN's negativity around FreeCAD no longer astonishes me because I think HNers in general have a rather misbegotten sense of what GUI CAD even is, what its strengths are instead of just its weaknesses, and how much of a challenge something with FreeCAD's scope really is. I mean Dune3D is interesting but frustrating still, SALOME is interesting but has huge money behind it; FreeCAD is the sort of hard-won, low-governance, pure-open-source-no-corporate-bullshit project HNers should prefer. Is it the equal of commercial CAD packages? No it's not. It's a different beast and an absolute social good.

juliangmp 11mo ago

If you want a classical GUI based cad tool for 3D modelling, I'd suggest taking a look at solve space and dune3d

awinter-py 11mo ago
thanks for recs, will check them out
- WillAdams 11mo ago
  Dune 3D in particular is the only traditional 3D CAD program I've ever tried where I actually made it through the tutorial without a showstopper (still need to find time to try Moment of Inspiration 3D).

augunrik 11mo ago

You can try out AstoCAD, a reskin of FreeCAD. The author also fixes a lot of FreeCAD bugs.