[HN Gopher] The first release candidate of FreeCAD 1.0 is out
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The first release candidate of FreeCAD 1.0 is out
Author : jstanley
Score : 92 points
Date : 2024-09-11 20:29 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.freecad.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.freecad.org)
| taeric wrote:
| Oh wow, super excited to see this posted. Will be on the lookout
| for updated tutorials. If anyone has good suggestions there, I'm
| game to check them out.
| cristoperb wrote:
| I recently found this youtuber. He has a playlist for 0.22
| (which is the dev version for what will be 1.0):
|
| https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWuyJLVUNtc3UYXXfSglV...
| Palomides wrote:
| prelininary release notes:
| https://wiki.freecad.org/Release_notes_1.0
|
| the headliner is definitely topological naming improvements
| throwgfgfd25 wrote:
| I would say the most significant things for most hobby CAD
| users are:
|
| * topological naming issue mitigations -- this is mostly solved
| enough that you can rely on it, though there are definitely
| still times when it makes more sense to use sketches offset
| from the base planes
|
| * the new integrated Assembly workbench (and solver) though
| I've not dabbled with this myself
|
| * really significant improvements in the sketcher (easier
| dimensioning, curved slots, polar arrays and improvements to
| the array tools controls, offset/scale, automatic midpoint
| constraints)
|
| * support for bodies with multiple non-overlapping solids in
| Part Design
|
| * useful subtle improvements to Part Design array tools
|
| * some support for operations (pads/revolves/pockets) on only
| selected shapes from a sketch in Part Design
|
| * I don't do CNC yet but I think there are improvements in the
| CNC workbench that would benefit hobbyists.
|
| I would put the UI improvements somewhere lower down the list,
| frankly, than they do, because I find them often confusing and
| regularly frustrating on laptop screens, but:
|
| * the new dark theme is really nice
|
| * OpenTheme's dark theme works well
|
| * quick transparency toggling is helpful
|
| * and the optional tab bar for workbench switching helps make
| various disparate workbench tools just that much quicker to get
| to, somehow, making it all feel a little closer-knit
| 9cb14c1ec0 wrote:
| Polar arrays will bring me running back to FreeCAD. There are
| some geometries that are really hard to sketch if you can't
| use polar arrays.
| eig wrote:
| Super excited about this! I hope more people will pick it up in
| the hobbyist space now that Fusion costs money.
|
| I'm not sure what the popularity of these different CAD softwares
| are. I've seen quite a few hobbyists use OnShape recently, and a
| few people use OpenScad. I don't think I've seen another FreeCad
| user in real life though.
| luckydata wrote:
| Hope that the new changes make freecad a little more
| accessible. Coming from Fusion I really tried to make it work
| for me but the UI is so awkward and abstruse I quickly gave up.
| qwerpy wrote:
| > now that Fusion costs money
|
| I know they've been obnoxiously chipping away at the features
| available in their Personal edition and introducing artificial
| limitations. But my free installation still works and I haven't
| seen any indications that it's going away.
| joshvm wrote:
| Fusion as a CAD engine is great. I've not used the CAM side,
| and while I used to use Eagle a lot I've tried to invest more
| energy into Kicad. The online limitations are frustrating
| though. Randomly and inconsistently not being able to export
| STLs because of a "translation service error" (when it could
| 2 minutes ago), or the inability to make drawings with the
| free edition. I mostly use it because there isn't anything
| else half as good for OS X that works offline.
| throwgfgfd25 wrote:
| OpenSCAD is definitely very popular in the
| maker/microcontroller/electronics world, which is both a good
| and bad thing, because it is accessible but also
| limited/frustrating. It enables some good stuff on Thingiverse
| but it becomes extremely mathematics-focussed quite quickly.
|
| I do wish more of the code-CAD people would look at Replicad,
| Build123D and CadQuery.
|
| I personally like FreeCAD a lot, but I won't push people onto
| it; if they like TinkerCad that's fine.
| aeonik wrote:
| I just looked at those other code CAD programs, and I don't
| see the appeal over OpenSCAD.
|
| I have no interest in browser based CAD programs because as
| models become complex, that platform is too limited in
| performance.
|
| Python and stateful CAD drawings sound like a nightmare to
| me.
|
| OpenSCAD has limitations for sure, but I think a better tool
| will look different.
|
| I do wish OpenSCAD used a more general purpose programming
| manager.
| hugs wrote:
| If OpenSCAD had STEP file support, I could do all my design
| work in it. But it can't, so I can't.
| throwgfgfd25 wrote:
| Replicad is quicker to render complex things than OpenSCAD
| -- significantly quicker. It uses an emscripten port of
| OCC.
|
| It's also embeddable as a library, which means being able
| to make web-based object customisers: client-side, script-
| driven tools that don't require CAD knowledge for the user.
| Like the Thingiverse customiser but on steroids. It's a
| fascinating project.
|
| And I think it's not the _statefulness_ that is the
| significant thing about CadQuery and Build123D. It 's the
| access to a bRep kernel, so you can do operations with
| faces and vertices, you can reflect (analyse, measure) the
| model, etc.
|
| Being able to do operations on a generated face or edge
| means not needing to know (or recalculate) the location of
| that face in 3D space; it saves you so much in the way of
| maths.
|
| If you have very simple (or very mathematical!) models,
| OpenSCAD can help. But once things get complex you just
| have file after file of variable definitions.
|
| Functional flows on vertexes, edges and faces created by
| previous operations is much closer to a code equivalent of
| GUI CAD.
| hugs wrote:
| I got into making all kinds of stuff because of OpenSCAD.
| It's just enough for 3D printing functional mechanical parts.
| It's still my first go-to for designs. The downside is
| OpenSCAD doesn't support import or export of STEP files... So
| I've also added FreeCAD to my toolbox. But I really wish
| OpenSCAD would/could do whatever refactor it needed to
| support STEP.
| throwgfgfd25 wrote:
| Yes -- the STEP thing was a big part of why I wanted to
| switch.
|
| I actually switched via CadQuery: a few minutes with that
| made it clear that the bits I didn't understand (edges,
| faces, planes, all that stuff that freaked me out) were
| simple and logical and had a sort of common sense
| integrity, and that I might as well try to learn them in
| the context of FreeCAD.
|
| Had Build123D existed at that point, or Replicad, maybe I'd
| have pushed on for longer. Build123D is my "fallback
| toolbox" at this point.
|
| I don't think OpenSCAD can _produce_ STEP, ever. Importing
| it is another matter; that 's a one-way meshing operation.
| But creating it means having a kernel that understands more
| than CSG operations -- a bRep kernel like OpenCASCADE, that
| FreeCAD/Replicad/CadQuery/Build123D etc. use.
|
| You can of course run your OpenSCAD in FreeCAD, but certain
| operations (hulls, Minkowski I think?) end up as meshes,
| because there is no easy equivalent. Still, that's better
| than every operation ending up a mesh.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| I like the idea of OpenSCAD but the language is too
| functional/immutable for my taste. It's interesting but
| having to rethink even algorithms with simple loops gets very
| tiring over time.
|
| A debugger would be very helpful to be able to step through
| the code.
| filcuk wrote:
| The rendering is also very slow, even on powerful machines.
| jasonjayr wrote:
| JSCAD is a thing:
|
| https://openjscad.xyz/
|
| But I really only fight with it because I know JS
| moderately well.
| stn8188 wrote:
| I'm also happy for this. I'm an EE with limited MCAD
| experience, so I usually hop onto Onshape when I need a custom
| trinket to 3D print. I did use FreeCAD for a small fixture for
| my day job earlier this year and I was pleasantly surprised.
| For someone with no experience, it worked very well and when I
| lose access to Onshape I'll definitely pick up more with
| FreeCAD.
| daghamm wrote:
| I've always felt freecad being superior to most other free CAD
| tools.
|
| But I can almost never get it to work for me. Every time there is
| a new major release I try it only to rage quit two hours later.
| Really hope they get someone to help them with stability and UX
| improvements like Blender did.
| throwgfgfd25 wrote:
| UX work is ongoing.
|
| Stability is good in the latest dev builds on the Mac, though
| 0.21.2 is the least crashy I've seen it.
|
| But if you mean stability in terms of model
| stability/robustness when changing things, that's improved a
| lot with the topological naming mitigations.
|
| It's still not perfect, and I still think FreeCAD is a
| lifestyle choice. But I enjoy working in it a lot more.
|
| The Mango Jelly Solutions videos on Youtube are very, very
| worth a watch if you feel inclined to have another go; they
| have been the best thing for getting my mind into how FreeCAD
| works as a package (in the sense that it is a "package" at all
| -- it's really still a collection of overlapping, macro-
| programmable toolsets gathered around a kernel).
| dbcurtis wrote:
| Yeah. I have tried and quit a number times. Poor stability has
| always made it unusable for me. Hopefully this time is better.
| Still, once I can successfully make a drawing, then what? What
| exists for CAM posts?
| shadowpho wrote:
| It's usable now. I've been playing with it on and off and it's
| night and day to what it was before
| observationist wrote:
| Definitely want to get a link back to the main site in your blog
| header - right now you have to edit the URL.
|
| Great work! Happy to see this, open and free tools make the world
| a better place.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| FreeCAD reminds me a little of the GIMP. Super powerful but
| somehow the UI is just hard to deal with.
| tylerflick wrote:
| The workflows are so much harder to remember than Gimp's
| though. I find myself running back to OpenSCAD every time I
| give it a shot.
| leros wrote:
| From what I hear of FreeCAD, it sounds like it's going to be
| awesome and widely used, but not for 5-10 years. Anyone have
| enough experience to back that up?
|
| I'm personally using Fusion 360 and OpenSCAD.
| LtWorf wrote:
| It works, I 3d print my board games with it.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| I can't believe people aren't mentioning solvespace. Basically my
| cad journey started with openscad. Which I quickly discarded for
| cadquery. Which I used for a bit. And now I use solvespace. Imo
| they all suck. Solvespace has serious issues with anything round.
| It's basically a no go to design anything that is round in it. I
| wanted to design a simple pen like structure with a slot, turned
| out to be impossible. Perhaps I'll get so annoyed I go back to
| cadquery...
| syntaxing wrote:
| Super stoked for this, used to a mechanical engineer and I mainly
| use solidworks maker or fusion 360 to scratch my itch when I
| design stuff around the household. As "old school" as the UI is,
| it has a lot of parallel with catia v5. It's kinda like
| vim/emacs, you don't get it until you do.
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