FreeCAD: Your own 3D parametric modeler
www.freecad.org
FreeCAD, the open source 3D parametric modeler
  • FizzyOrange@programming.dev
    0·
    2 months ago

    I tried FreeCAD years ago and it sucked balls. The best FOSS CAD software that I currently know of is SolveSpace.

    However it has been a few years. Maybe they discovered UX… I will give it another try and report back!

    • FizzyOrange@programming.dev
      2·
      2 months ago

      Ok first impressions:

      1. Rotate is Shift-Right-Click?? Very weird default choice. Most programs use middle-click.
      2. I created a simple sketch with a couple of slots. Surprisingly smooth! Vastly improved from when I last tried it. Still not quite as good as SolveSpace for sketch creation, but to be fair SolveSpace was originally created to demo of a state of the art sketch solver… I couldn’t find the Dimension tool, but guessed the shortcut was D, which was correct.
      3. Extrude is misnamed as “Pad”. Why?
      4. Clone icon is a sheep :-D - actually the icons are all pretty great.
      5. Cut is called “Pocket”?? Actually the icon for this is not great. Minor issue though.

      I only made a very simple part, but I am impressed. This is significantly better than when I last tried it, when it basically didn’t work at all. I haven’t tried assemblies or anything complex (e.g. extruding up to a non-flat surface, degenerate geometry etc.), but definitely for simple tasks you could use it.