Submitted 6 hours ago by Bluewing@lemmy.world to 3dprinting@lemmy.world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYdobpjTypg
Get it while it’s hot! New goodies to use and an improved UI for users.
coming from a company that used solidworks, i’ve always found trying to use freecad infuriating, even moreso after onshape came out and i saw what could be done even in a web browser. but seeing as it’s foss, i’ll keep trying it every release.
It’s improving faster. It’s still a frustrating, crashy experience, but it’s getting better quickly, hopefully it reached critical mass and will do Blender.
I’m at about 130 models in FC 1.0 and have yet to see a crash. There are things TinkerCAD can do that Fusion 360 cannot, like import and edit a large STL.
Reading this I can’t tell if you are talking about solidworks or freeCAD. JK but man solidworks is still one of the buggiest programs. If you use solidworks though the Solidworks error report screen is just part of the experience. Still I believe the gold standard for design software out there over NX, AutoCAD, and CATIA.
I’ve never had professional experience with CAD software and tried both onshape and freecad at the same time just before fc1.0 release, onshape for some reason was like using iphone or something like that while freecad was just ok. There are frustrating limitations and some things are broken and require workarounds true.
I’ve both used CAD software professionally and worked on CAD software as a developer, and I also find FreeCAD weirdly frustrating. It’s not the crashes; it’s something about the workflow.
Yes, I would like to use freecad. And for reference I love blender and use it almost daily. The freecad interface and work flow just kind of bounce me off them so far. I can sculpt, model, paint, rig and edit video in blender. Right now getting started making a basic part in freecad seems like black magic.
Maybe your brain just isn’t wired to use it(yet), my experience with blender and other 3d modeling software was like black magic, and cad software was at least transparent.
This is great! I was impressed with 1.0 but there were a lot of quality of life improvements needed to get it to match the big CAD guys. Looking through this it looks like they’ve got most of the baseline functions and easy of use accomplished.
It even does Finite Element Analysis and a separate mode for architecture.
I really struggled to try to get into FreeCAD, but I don’t totally blame FreeCAD because I’ve also struggled with “real” CAD programs, my brain just doesn’t really seem to work that way.
OpenSCAD and other programmatic CAD on the other hand makes me feel like a goddamn wizard magically combining shapes in the ether to create the most absurd objects.
I explained this to my engineer brother and he laughed and said he had already thought about OpenSCAD being right up my alley and wasn’t surprised, but he finds it extremely difficult and counterintuitive for him. It’s funny how we must have totally different mental models of working with 3d shapes I guess.
Wow this looks good
Yay! 👍
LycanGalen@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
I’ve been learning CAD for printing. I really want to use FreeCAD, but every time I try to do anything, I sink 2 hours into reading wiki’s and watching videos. When I apply what I’ve learned, I end up with a cube (sometimes a cylinder!) and a wall of errors. Then I hop into tinkerCAD/fusion360 and create what I need in 15 minutes.
I’m looking forward to the day that FreeCAD is intuitive enough for me to hop in and do what I need in 15 mins without feeling like I’m manually programming a lunar landing. It’s not there yet, but I’m happy to see the update.
prenatal_confusion@feddit.org 2 hours ago
I absolutely get you since that was my experience also.
It’s a concept thing for me. Do everything in sketches and make something with it using the Partdesign workbench. But knowing that you can’t just draw a cube and extend part of one face like you can in fusion helped me to understand the take freecad has in cad.
There are some very basic beginner friendly tutorials out there on YouTube. That’s what did it in the end for me.
esc@piefed.social 2 hours ago
But it’s one of those really complex programs that require some knowledge of the problem field and familiarity with UI how can it be made intuitive? Never used fusion, but tinkercad isn’t intuitive or simple.
KyuubiNoKitsune@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 hours ago
Fusion is okayish, but definitely not something you can just jump into without going through some explainer tutorials. Especially when it comes to the time line.
I taught myself Autocad and even with that knowledge, fusion was kinda unintuative when starting out. It didn’t take long to get into it though