Review of FreeCAD

Have some feature requests, feedback, cool stuff to share, or want to know where FreeCAD is going? This is the place.
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racemaniac
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Re: FreeCAD on the web

Post by racemaniac »

thomas-neemann wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 5:47 pm
racemaniac wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 5:44 pm ...
Is your workflow documented somewhere....
no, but there are many youtube videos about it. nothing needs to be changed on freecad for this
I'd disagree with nothing needing to be changed on FreeCAD. If there's a powerful & reliable way to use it, it should help the user discover that way, and make that way as obvious as possible. It indeed requires no technical changes to FreeCAD, but a UI that makes the user automatically use your workflow could be very valuable :).
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thomas-neemann
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Re: FreeCAD on the web

Post by thomas-neemann »

racemaniac wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 5:50 pm ...
you can do that yourself very easily. here is a guide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjgrI8UG4ME

phpBB [video]
Gruß Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Thomas Neemann

https://www.youtube.com/@thomasneemann5 ... ry=freecad
racemaniac
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Re: FreeCAD on the web

Post by racemaniac »

thomas-neemann wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 5:54 pm
racemaniac wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 5:50 pm ...
you can do that yourself very easily. here is a guide
So you find it normal that the first thing you do with a new piece of software you get is find an obscure german youtube video that tells you what to enable & disable in order for it to work properly.

You in no way think that if your changes make FreeCAD a lot more usable, it should come that way when you download it?
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thomas-neemann
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Re: FreeCAD on the web

Post by thomas-neemann »

racemaniac wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 5:57 pm ...
I can offer something like this for free download (for linux) from my google drive if someone wants it
Gruß Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Thomas Neemann

https://www.youtube.com/@thomasneemann5 ... ry=freecad
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easyw-fc
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Re: FreeCAD on the web

Post by easyw-fc »

racemaniac wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 5:50 pm If there's a powerful & reliable way to use it, it should help the user discover that way, and make that way as obvious as possible.
FreeCAD is a lot of things and so there are a lot of different ways to use the sw.
Then a simple query at the forum would have solved the designing specific problem of the user.
Each CAD sw has its own workflow as well as strengths and weaknesses.
racemaniac
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Re: FreeCAD on the web

Post by racemaniac »

easyw-fc wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:07 pm
racemaniac wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 5:50 pm If there's a powerful & reliable way to use it, it should help the user discover that way, and make that way as obvious as possible.
FreeCAD is a lot of things and so there are a lot of different ways to use the sw.
Then a simple query at the forum would have solved the designing specific problem of the user.
Each CAD sw has its own workflow as well as strengths and weaknesses.
I know, it's just that FreeCAD has a lot more weaknesses. And that's ok, it's just that we should be aware of that and not try to sweep it under the rug. I use FreeCAD a lot, in part since i want to support open source software, and i try to help people with it when i can. But pretending as if Thomas' remarks aren't valid just doesn't sit right with me.

A simple example i gave in the FreeCAD subreddit: i've got some nieces & nephews interested in STEM. i would love if i could show them FreeCAD and teach them how to make stuff. But it's simply too temperamental, buggy, hard to use, ... I once gave one of them very detailed instructions on how to make a simple thing in FreeCAD, and even then they needed a lot of help, and it wasn't my instructions being unclear, nor them being stupid, it's just FreeCAD screwing with you every chance it gets, and being very unclear while doing so.

And that's what this video is on about. Despite being happy that FreeCAD exists, and being happy that i can use it, he has a point, its usability is still very low, and you can only recommend it to pretty technical people who are willing to live with all the issues it has, and it has many.

Just look at the rest of the discussion i had so far. Those defending freecad so far defended having functionality that sometimes work, because apparently having things that sometimes work is better than not having them. And the other is someone making youtube tutorials and linked his video on what to enable & disable in FreeCAD to make it usable according to him.

Now, i must admit i have little experience with other CAD programs (learned some tinkerCAD so i could actually have something that my nephews & nieces could work with), but i can't really imagine the commercial packages to be this hard to use.
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thomas-neemann
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Re: FreeCAD on the web

Post by thomas-neemann »

racemaniac wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:19 pm ...
i know many commercial cad systems and have heard a lot about them. i rejected all 3d cad systems up until freecad because they didn't seem intuitive to me. in my opinion freecad (draft, part) is very intuitive, stable and fast
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adrianinsaval
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Re: FreeCAD on the web

Post by adrianinsaval »

racemaniac wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:19 pm because apparently having things that sometimes work is better than not having them.
isn't that obvious? fillets fail many times (and yes due to occt limitations, and yes commercial kernels work better for this) but I will riot if someone tried to remove that from the software.
keithsloan52
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Re: FreeCAD on the web

Post by keithsloan52 »

Re what we need in relation to OCCT is better way of
  • * Capturing OCCT problems
    * Being able to create simple test case to recreate the problem
    * Good interface with OCCT developers
Back in the day around 2013 when we were developing the OpenSCAD importer we were finding a lot of OCCT problems.
In some ways diverse but as the problems occurred when parsing csg files and making FC requests, things were quite repeatable.
Where as sometime problems with OCCT occur and people and people are not sure how or what they did and hence how to recreate.
shoogen ( Sebastian Hoogen ) wrote a utility i.e a program that at the time was able to perform what was required to recreate a OCCT problem. Doubt that is still around or up to date. The alternative would be to get OCCT development to accept recreating OCCT problems by FreeCAD, as opposed to an equivalent C++ request to OCCT.

Just me two penneth worth.
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iplayfast
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Re: FreeCAD on the web

Post by iplayfast »

1. Could someone tell me what occt is?
2. I was very excited when I saw that there was an openscad workbench but have found it to be useless. Also the openscad only works on the simplest o fo models.
3. I've been using freecad for a few years, (and openscad before that) and I agree it's not an easy system to learn. I tend to watch videos and sometimes even then things don't make sense. (a Cloned object is changed if the parent is changed? That should be called a link. You wouldn't expect a cloned sheep to turn blue if the the original one was painted would you).


That said, I really like using freecad. If find it almost like meditating, when I'm working on some design.
So my review is: it's hard to learn but worth it.
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