I'm a recently retired Chartered Engineer, and am using FreeCAD 0.17 to do some real design work. I have had some 25 years in Product Design consultancy, working alongside people using NX/Ideas, SolidWorks, Creo, and Ansys and Abacus FEA.
I am finding 0.17 is now almost bug-free, and very much better to work with than 0.16. With 0.16 you often ended up fighting the CAD, and there were many things that you just could not do. With 0.17 you can sit down with some confidence that you will complete the task. (But the parts I am working on are not very complicated). I am using the FEM package too, and getting good results.
Thank you very much for FreeCAD, on behalf of myself, and engineers everywhere. Please keep up the good work!!!
There is a problem I have encountered which is preventing me from using the Polar Pattern tool. I have created a Plate (see image below), and then used the Pocket tool to make a line depression graduation (0.1 wide x 0.1 deep) on the Plate which indicates a zero degree angular position. I am then using the Polar Pattern tool to create other degree graduations (0...360 degrees) on the Plate at 10 degree intervals. I have created an Axis Datum for the Polar Pattern. This Axis Datum does NOT intersect the Plate.
I have used the Polar Pattern Tool, and it does everything that I wanted it to do. It gives me all of the graduation lines that there should be on the plate. Good!! Now I want to proceed to do the shorter 5 degree and then do the 1 degree graduations......
But FreeCAD will not allow me to proceed. It tells me that the Transformation has failed! The reason that FreeCAD thinks the Transformation has failed is because one (or more) of the transformed shapes (lines) did not intersect the Plate.
But I know they don't all intersect, I did not expect them to intersect, and I don't care that they don't intersect. I just want it to perform the Pocket function where it can, not to worry about the others, and allow me to carry on.
I think this is not a Transformation failure. If it is flagged up to the operator at all, it should only be as a Warning. But I think that even a warning may not be necessary. On the screen, you can see the lines in red that the Pocket would form, if the Plate were there.
I am using 0.17 11455 (Git) under Windows 10 64 Bit.
Regards,
David.
- FreeCAD Transformation.png (229.56 KiB) Viewed 4125 times
