Comment on Is there no good inexpensive CAD software?
KingRandomGuy@lemmy.world 3 weeks agoI wouldn’t necessarily say it’s dogshit as I’ve been enjoying the beta releases. What I will say though is that the workflow feels different enough compared to every other commercial CAD program I’ve tried (solidworks, fusion, inventor) that it required me to effectively re-learn the software rather than jump right in. Pretty much every other CAD program didn’t have this problem, in part because they’re more forgiving when you violate best practices.
FreeCAD is much more rigid in comparison. If you follow its best practices, it works wonderfully, but when I came from another CAD program my previous experience kept making me run into issues.
scoobydoo27@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Yeah, maybe I was a bit harsh. I will admit, I have not tried FreeCAD recently but when I did use it I thought it was terrible. I use Creo for my job but personally like SolidWorks and Fusion for my personal use. FreeCAD just frustrated the hell out of me. I definitely commend the developers for creating a FOSS CAD software though.
KingRandomGuy@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yeah, it’s absolutely not at the level of beginner and user-friendliness that you’d expect out of a professional CAD package yet, so it’s understandable you had a rough experience. I think we’re all hoping that FreeCAD will eventually see a similar level of improvement that Blender and KiCAD got in this area. Both of them were originally much worse in terms of usability, but after enough effort (and investment from major players like CERN in the case of KiCAD and community members), they ended up being really competitive packages.