I started using FreeCAD recently after getting a 3D printer, because I wanted something open source and runs on Linux which I could learn, and would become my CAD tool.
I have no CAD experience outside of what I learned in university over a decade ago, so it has been a challenge.
I have generally found it quite hard to achieve some simple designs, it's not always easy to understand what a tool does from its name, and it's not always easy to find a video online to help. Sometimes you know what you need to do, but can't find the tool for it because you have no idea what it's called in CAD land.
The bugs which cause parts to just disappear when you run certain operations are an issue, and there is little help to explain the cause, I've gotten a few designs into the broken state others have mentioned where you need to undo a bunch of work to recover, which is unfortunate.
On the other hand, I found creating drill holes, countersunk or counterbored incredibly easy and powerful.
I hope to find an up to date video series I can follow to learn more as I'm sure it'll become a lot easier to use once I understand the tools better.
> As I'm working with CAD for a long time, I would recommend to install next three FLOSS apps (keep them all side-by-side on your PC):
Do any of these easily let you build a map from only the distances between two landmarks? I've been wanting to make an accurate map of the trees in my yard. That should be pretty easy to turn into a map using basic trig, but I don't want to do it by hand.
> Do any of these easily let you build a map from only the distances between two landmarks? I've been wanting to make an accurate map of the trees in my yard.
Use QGIS[0] or OpenOrienteering Mapper[1] (simpler than QGIS) app for any GIS/cartography/mapping tasks.
JFTR, GIS apps are "CAD for cartography"; FreeCAD/QCAD/SolveSpace are "CAD for civil engineering", but could be used for some GIS tasks.
Anyway, OpenOrienteering Mapper & QGIS are CAD apps You are looking for!
They're not really the same thing. I haven't found GIS apps to have the _parametric_ abilities that would allow the GP to perform the sort of constraint-based modelling they desire.
Get an older Garmin Etrex with a digital compass. These models have a sight line on the housing. You use this to project waypoints along a heading. If you traverse a base line and make two projections beyond the tree you will have four waypoints. The target will be at the intersection.
May I ask a stupid question, can you explain how rotation works in any of those? All three axes...
I was using lightwave a lot and it was obvious, depending on view it rotated the object. For CAD software it is some sort of black magic where one axis never works.
Currently playing with bricscad but I think that my disconnect with any of CAD systems comes from same root.
I think of rotation about any axis as if I inserted into the object a skewer along that axis, and rotated the skewer. For example, rotating an object laying on the desk is achieved by rotating about the Z axis, since the "skewer" is pointing up along Z axis.
This works well in OpenSCAD and I just saw that Slic3r displays a handy arrow in the 3D preview when you focus the text box that controls the rotation
Just turning the object on zx or zy axis (for freecad or bricscad - same issue - probably some bad ux copied from autocad). Rotation, as simple as that, center axis or any selected point. Lightwave modeler with its 4 views was understandable (always rotating on xy axis for current view) but freecad (and bricscad) is making me problems understanding how this actually functions in same manner as initial orientation of set object, i just cant figure out the logic.
(Doing 3d printed speaker stand for 3d and I am workarounding this "issue" in sweat and tears ;) )
There are no such type of axis, because "XY", "ZX", "ZY" — are planes formed by two crossed axis combination ("XY" plane formed by crossed "X" and "Y" axis, etc.).
> Doing 3d printed speaker stand for 3d and I am workarounding this "issue" in sweat and tears
If you mean that you need just rotate solid object from horizontal to vertical (for 3D printing) — there are few ways.
Well sorry cant explain it better (i lack the terminology, just started playing with) but looks like UCS is involved... Thank you anyway will try to figure it out on my own.
SolveSpace is quite fantastic as a technical achievement, but it's rather limited in terms of CAD. It's great for simple designs or just messing around, though, I'm very impressed.
SolveSpace has NO "limits in terms of CAD" (as SolveSpace 3.0 actually in active development, heavy rework & list of implemented features growing each week) — the only limits it has is that for creating _too_complex_ solids & assembly it just requires to use more tricks & more powerful PC ;)
I just took a look. It's really good. But, yeah. Has limits right now. The plan is to obviously make more possible, and a whole lot is possible right now. I know I could do a ton in that software and didn't know about it. Cool!
When people say "CAD" they are talking about any number of technical things.
Say you want to insure a free form surface is a minimum radius connecting all other surfaces. Depending on the scenario, one may be able to do that in the software today, but doing it may require well above average math and geometry skills.
In "CAD", the skill requirement is much reduced, leaving the user more focused on requirements and overall design intent, not implementation details.
Yeah. This is the a similar problem with alternatives to 2D AutoCAD replacements. 2D CAD application can pretty much all do the same things. However, most of the really useful productivity features such as dynamic blocks, sheet sets, constraints etc. are absent from the cheaper or free alternatives.
I'm a hobbyist, so I don't care if things like finite element analysis simulations are missing, but I do want basic things like constraints, some of which I think SolveSpace is missing.
One big "quality of life" thing that even OnShape is missing that Fusion has is the ability to dimension a line from another line, i.e. you can specify a dimension as "line_23 / 2", which allows you to do math with the other element as a variable. It's a pretty small feature, but extremely useful.
Thanks! I had similar issues trying to jump into freecad to design a piece of sheet metal the other weekend for a classic car project. SolveSpace looks perfect.
FreeCAD is a traditional CAD tool based on sketches, pads, and pockets. CAD designers I’ve spoken with who use that style tool think out their designs outside the CAD tool. They know how to translate concepts into the parametric CAD language.
MagicaVoxel — https://ephtracy.github.io/ — will work with your 3D printer & is closer to building sandcastles. It’s a simpler way to get started.
Once you go back to FreeCAD, open the Python console. You’ll see the code that goes with each step in the GUI!
The sketches/pads/pockets are just one of the workbenches in FreeCAD (Sketch/Part Design). There is also Part, which is CSG on geometric primitive. And a bunch of others that almost nobody uses, like Ship Design.
Installed it multiple times on multiple machines over the last few years and it"s always worked absolutely perfectly via Wine (and I'm always surprised every time I fire it up and everything works, not sure why!)
I started with OpenSCAD but:
a) found the language to be clunky
b) had a hard time doing chamfered unions between objects (needed for sand casting patterns).
So - I wrote my own tool/library in Go and it's essentially replaced my OpenSCAD usage.
SDF = signed distance function. A function mapping a 2d/3d coordinate onto a scalar. The scalar is the shortest distance from that point to the surface of the object. (+ve outside, -ve inside)
CSG = constructive solid geometry: Take primitive 3d shapes and do unions, differences, intersections on them to build more complex shapes.
Fairly obviously the union of 2 sdf functions is going to be the minimum of those values. That pretty simple.
Intersections and differences are not much more complex....
"On the other hand, I found creating drill holes, countersunk or counterbored incredibly easy and powerful."
This company provides Linux based software for front panel designs. I had their EU branch made several panels for me. The software was pleasant to use. File export seems to be only a proprietary format. Obviously 2D only.
I was in the same place you are, brushing up on CAD w/ a 3D printer. OnShape is a web based CAD service from some of the original technical creators Solidworks. I found that going through their tutorials helped a lot in understanding how the tools think.
Not open source like the other options discussed here, but free for hobbyists.
The assembly system is very nice. Once I learned you could enter variables and equations into most of the operations & constraint fields in OnShape, my ability to model in it became much better. It's great for placing multiple symmetric attachment points onto parts to construct assemblies for example.
Good to know. I also encountered this same frustration recently as someone with very little CAD experience. I could not get some simple shapes drawn with precise sizing in FreeCAD. It would not lock to grid properly nor let me manually enter dimensions. I tried the same with Fusion360 and it was painless, almost easy.
I'm in the exact same boat as you are. Right now, I'm doing my best to work with FreeCAD, but Blender3D has an interesting precision-modelling plugin that makes for a somewhat complicated but reliable alternative. You're going to need to watch a few Youtube tutorials, but it may be worth it.
I have no CAD experience outside of what I learned in university over a decade ago, so it has been a challenge.
I have generally found it quite hard to achieve some simple designs, it's not always easy to understand what a tool does from its name, and it's not always easy to find a video online to help. Sometimes you know what you need to do, but can't find the tool for it because you have no idea what it's called in CAD land.
The bugs which cause parts to just disappear when you run certain operations are an issue, and there is little help to explain the cause, I've gotten a few designs into the broken state others have mentioned where you need to undo a bunch of work to recover, which is unfortunate.
On the other hand, I found creating drill holes, countersunk or counterbored incredibly easy and powerful.
I hope to find an up to date video series I can follow to learn more as I'm sure it'll become a lot easier to use once I understand the tools better.