Apparently Ondsel recently announced they’re shutting down, partially due to this release. A lot of what Ondsel added to the FreeCAD experience is just merged into FreeCAD now. Sad to see it but at least all their work wasn’t for nothing.
this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2024
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Really sad to hear this, I just found out about Ondsel recently. Glad to hear FreeCAD is getting their merges, but I really would have liked to see Ondsel find a market all its own.
I have tried freecad a number of times to replace solidworks as a critical piece of closed source software in hardware development toolchains. I have always struggled. Yesterday someone spent an hour with me at a makespace saying... "FreeCAD has a different way of doing this/try realthunder branch/use symmetry condition/delete all conditions that coincide" ... it has been worth years of trying alone. When I started solidworks the reseller gave me a week of training - this is often why complex FOSS software gets a reputation for being clunky, because alone you will spend ages hunting a GUI button in a complex interface.
TLDR: Go outside, go to makespace or a FREECAD conference - meet other people who use open source software - its much easier to use/learn from others than alone.
When I started using SOLIDWORKS I had 0 training, still managed to make it work. FreeCAD is still frustrating after a lot of effort. But I keep trying, because it's the only real open source option
Interesting, when I started using FreeCAD I had 0 training, and I have managed to make it work just fine. Was mostly frustrated by the topological naming problem, but that is fixed now.
You can do quite complex things with it.
You just have to put in a bit of effort and think in an additive sketch-extrude workflow. But yeah, not easy to transition from solidworks.
Well or use the forums. They have a wonderfully helpful community
The best thing about 1.0 is that it has ported most fo the topalogical fixes from realthunder!
freecad is actually getting fucking good for the price
I kinda want to try it out just as a hobby, is it decent or should I look elsewhere?
Is it decent ? Yes
Should I look elsewhere? Also yes.
CAD is difficult to understand on a good day, and FreeCAD is a beginner unfriendly implementation of it.
I personally love it and it’s an excellent tool if you already know what you are doing. If you don’t, it’s a mess of screens and spaces with no rhyme or reason.
My two cents. Learn CAD first, Google Sketchup or Fusion 360 are good and beginner friendly with lots of tutorials. Then move to FreeCAD to learn the differences.
That said if you want to just try FreeCAD, this release is the best I’ve used from them.
I'm familiar with sketchup, I'll give it a shot this weekend!
Does it still have that weird problem where you're not allowed to modify surfaces because of the way you created them? Last time I tried using it, I couldn't create a mirror copy of a shape and then edit the mirror. I could only edit the source, which then applied the changes to all the parts.
The whole point of the 1.0 release is about mitigating the topological naming issue, (TNP). All 3cad program have problems with it. It can't ever be fixed, only mitigated. You can break Fusion or SolidWorks just like FreeCad, (I've done it). At best the software can only fail a gracefully as possible.
I didn't know that! From the other comment, sounds like it's basically fixed.
They still have somethings to cleanup and tweak to make the guessing better and more reliable. But it's on it's way for sure.
It does but from my testing only on impossible shapes. Like two triangles mirrored at the tip with a width of 0.
It has other issues still, but the app is stable.
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No. The people who struggle with FreeCAD struggle because they leaned something else first. Its the same reason Photoshop trained users complain about GIMP while people who learned GIMP first dont complain.
Learn FreeCAD first, and you won't be handicapped
They struggle with FeeCAD for the same reason they struggle with ANY little change in software-- they simply don't want to be bothered to learn something new. It's called being lazy.
I went Inventor -> SOLIDWORKS -> Fusion -> SOLIDWORKS with maybe 3% of the issues I've had with FreeCAD.
You can't easily create models based on other models, or place things around as easily,, it's always a mess of shape binders and fixed coordinates, it really limits the capabilities of the software.
I'm always checking forums, discords, YouTube for the simplest things.... I'm trying and I keep trying, but it's very obtuse to just dismiss the issues as "people don't want to learn", 'cause I'm putting more time into FreeCAD than any other CAD, and getting shit results.
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Ooh! Time to give it another look.
tbh... I like it more than OnShape, but I also just use it as a hobby for 3dprinting.
It's still... Difficult if you're used to commercial CAD suites, but it's leagues better than it used to be
I just treid it a bit. And I have to say its quite incredible how good it got! Still a bit rough but I would say its 30% better than a year ago. But maybe ondsel just got me into the mindset of this program.
Its sad to see ondsel go because I doubt we would be here without them.
I hope the freecad team sees all the incredible feedback and the next few versions will be similar improvements for usabilty!
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Does it support 3D mice?
In a past career, I was a mechanical design engineer; I've probably spent 10,000 hours of my life in SolidWorks. Not once did I feel like a 3d mouse would speed me up or otherwise solve my problems. I trialed a spacepilot for several months and just couldn't be arsed after awhile. What do others get out of them?
For some people it simply does not help with the workflow. For me it is a significant upgrade as it allows me to never use the normal mouse to move around in 3D, and allows me to quickly move the view to where I want it to be. Without it, moving in 3D just feels clunky to me.
But as I said, it is a preference.
I don't have as many hours in SolidWorks but for me, trying to navigate without a 3d mouse feels like riding a bike with square tires. I could manage to do it but why. At the end of the day though it's a preference. Likewise I have to murder the x and y axis on it for things to click in my head, which is another preference. I suppose growing up as a gamer may have something to do with that. I don't want to move/rotate the object, I want to move/rotate the camera..
I also prefer to move the camera, which a mouse is more intuitive for. A 3d mouse is like holding/rotating the object. A middle mouse button is so freaking simple and fast I just don't understand the problem. Moving the view around is like 2% of my workflow.
And scroll up has to be zoom in. The fact that many defaults are the opposite is literally insane.
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Since I work with AutoCAD daily I feel like Ive been hearing about FreeCAD for what feels like a decade or two. I cant believe it has been pre 1.0 all this time.
I loved the idea of FreeCAD but having no experience in CAD software at all I always struggled with fundamental basics that were not covered in the tutorials I watched. The huge amount of work benches (some of them 3rd party) did not help since most forum posts or tutorials were based on different or outdated versions.
Having a go with build123d now, trying to model stuff using python. At least the number of available API functions is manageable and everything else is just programming (which I already know).
If you want the best tutorials on FreeCAD, check out mangojelly on youtube. He has a current 1.0 beginner series that starts right from the very beginning. And he goes slow enough to easily follow along.
Ignore the huge number of workbenches. You can even go to the Settings and turn the ones you don't need off so you never see them again. You are only going to use 2 workbenches 90% of the time-- Part Design and Sketcher. And as you get more experience, you might add another couple of workbenches as you go. Most of the third party workbenches are specialty things. For example, I sometimes need to design and make gears or do small sheetmetal work. So I have the Gear and sheetmetal workbenchs installed. You probably would never need it.
Learning CAD, no matter what flavor, does require effort. It's as much about learning how to think as it is about learning how to do.
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I find the opposite. There's so many videos on FreeCAD its wonderful. And if you're stuck, ive posted to the forums and within a week someone literally took my file and made a video showing how to do what I couldn't figure out.
Such a fantastic community.
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when is it getting a new UI? hopefully the blender 2.8 moment will come soon for FreeCAD.
There is already OpenTheme, which you can install via the AdonManager... looks waaaay better than the default
I've tried it for a few hours, but basic stuff seems incredibly needlessly difficult. After thousands of hours in Solidworks it's just too painful.
Oddly, despite the 1,000's of hours of SW myself, I had little difficulty in picking up FreeCAD. Or Fusion or OnShape, (even taught OnShape to high school students), or SolidEdge. Once you understand the design process of CAD, it's not all that hard. I do have preferences in UI's and workflows, but that doesn't mean I can't use something different.
All the others you listed are very similar to solidworks and no problem. FreeCAD decided sketching should be completely different. I can barely even draw a line and I don't understand how that's possible.
Why does it surprise you much that FreeCAD isn't like SW? And why do you think it should be?
Because solidworks is the gold standard in the space and is intuitive for millennials that grew up on computers. It mirrors other software that came before in terms of super basic stuff like how to draw a damn line. If you're going to do a big swing and change the paradigm with a fundamentally better way, it better be really good for a really good reason.
You just want to be angry and complain about something don't you. Either get over it and learn to use FreeCAD or don't. But whinging is unproductive and useless.
would you mind giving some examples?
1.0? So which one have I been using?
0.8, 0.9, etc...
0.9.final.revised.25BAK.lastbest.final
I have, 26bak. Must've been a nightly update
I'm just surprised that it's so new
new is a different concept from first api stable release. it's been in development since 2002. 0.21 was the most recent release, and the software has been pretty much usable since 2010 at least. but this 1.0 release is a big deal because it basically means any features you currently know and like can be expected to be there for forever. it's more of a promise than a time-based release measure
Ah thanks for the explanation. That makes a lot of sense. Because using Freecad it certainly doesn't feel new. Looks late 90s or early 2000s
I guess Ill give it another look. Onshapes licensing is not compatible with my 3d printing side-gig, and Fusion360, although it has a very fairly priced startup license, requires me to run a Windows VM
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