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100 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
I started out with Autodesk Maya before using FreeCAD which I used for the earlier versions of the brick clips, but recently (for the router plane) I've moved to Autodesk Fusion360 because it's free for students, and it has been great to use I have a lot of fun with exporting technical drawings based off my models.
FreeCAD dev here, just wanted to chime in and say that development has really been accelerating lately and to make sure to get at least version 0.17 when you download it! When I first found the project around 2012 it was extremely rough around the edges, but things have been getting significantly better.
(We also just redesigned our homepage for anyone interested: https://www.freecadweb.org/)
(Oh, and just a quick plug for the subreddit: /r/FreeCAD)
CAD, openscad and freecad are available in the opensource space.
Siemens nx is available for heavier lifting.
What i still miss is an amd gui (for rocm, graphics drivers, overclocking/undervolting and such)
More than 2500 commits. More than 100 contributors. More than 11 months in the making: https://www.freecadweb.org/downloads.php
0.18 is not a big change in terms of features but very important for the core. FreeCAD now supports Python 3 and QT5. Still, some important changes and convenience functions have been added in the user space as well: https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Release_notes_0.18
I recommend FreeCAD (https://www.freecadweb.org). If you're in a makerspace environment, there is significant development going on in the Path workbench which can be used to generate gcode for tooling machines. The development version 0.17 is getting prepared for a new release in early 2018 and it's something like 6000-7000 commits further along from the current stable release 0.16.
This is your reminder that FreeCAD is free, open source, GPL compliant, undergoing rapid and continued development, and has become extremely powerful in recent years.
It runs on my raspberry pi 3, and it can do extremely complex surfacing, assemblies, animations, and simulations. It is fully scriptable in python, and is more customizable than anything I've seen or used before.
If it can't do something out of the box, there's probably modules, add-ons, workbenches, or macros that can do what you need it to, all made by the passionate and exploding community.
These corporate schmucks have pushed you around long enough. Get yourself some software that respects you.
Try FreeCAD. It's free.
What you're describing is called the topological naming problem. There's a Google Summer of Code project open for this: https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Topological_Naming_Project and you can also find a lot of information by searching https://forum.freecadweb.org for "topological naming".
Essentially, when you make a sketch depend on a topological name, it's a very brittle dependency. If you have a cube, say, with faces Face1 through Face6, and you attach a sketch to a face, any operation which causes that face to change, e.g. filleting one of its edges, will break that dependency. Also, the ordering of faces can change, so that what was once your correct attachment to Face1 now points at a different actual face on the object.
Besides the topological naming project, this is also being addressed in 0.17 by allowing for things like datum planes, which can parametrically defined. So for example if you have a sketch on the XY plane and you then pad it to Pad.Length, you can make a datum plane which is parallel to XY plane at a Z-position of Z=Pad.Length. Thus this plane parametrically represents a sort of "top".
For now, your best bet involves trying to minimize the number of sketches attached to geometry.
There are basically two types of 3D modeling: Parametric and Direct modeling. You can google a little bit to learn about each of them and know which method suits you better.
Regarding free software I would recommend FreeCAD (https://www.freecadweb.org) for parametric modeling and Blender (https://www.blender.org) for direct modeling. Both of them are open source.
You can find lots of tutorials on YouTube for any of them.
> There's dozens of CAD programs that probably work well enough for even complex professional use, but Autodesk owns like 4-5 of them and they're the industry standard.
...in the US. Bentley and Nemetschek have significant marketshare elsewhere, though.
Still, in the long run the best choice is always Free Software, such as FreeCAD.
Although Windows 10 Pro can be acquired, an individual subscription license for AutoCAD alone is staggering, nearly costs as much as the workstations above. Hence programs like FreeCAD.
So I guess I am one of the few people who really, really likes open source. I like to advice freeCad for that reason link . It is not perfect but there are tons of tutorials on the web. It is relatively simple and quite powerful.
I have tried blender, and it works really good if you don't want things to be very accuarte because booleans might not work then. So that sucks, but if you want to model artistically rather than mechanically it might be a good tool.
On the same thought my 2cents for CAD programs: FUCK THE CLOUD. really, the ONLY advantage it gives for the user is simple sharing if more people use the same project or if you work on the same project with more than one computer. FUCK.THE.CLOUD. No i don't need the cloud calculating power for every project. Oh whats that, an Internet outage? Well i guess I'm fucked. I don't get it. Memory is pretty cheap, so what reason could they have to shove everything into the cloud, even without an opt-out function? I think i will NEVER use a program that stores things in the cloud only if I will ever be forced by an employer, which seems unlikely. Aaaand it became a rant about cloud services. Sorry about that but i guess it has become a thing to be aware of.
Blender is cool, but I think it is way overkill (as in: general purpose etc.) for this (disclaimer: I never really used Blender). Apparently, you can use FreeCad with an Arch(itecture)/BIM module.
I don't know which programming language was used to make solidworks, but have a look at https://www.freecadweb.org/ . It has similar features to sw and it's opensource, you can look at the code, even browse it.
You likely will need to use at least 2 different CAD packages for this project due to the 2 main tasks involved. The enclosure and subassemblies will need to be created in a 3D CAD software, and the PCB itself will need to be created in a PCB CAD software. There isn't any single software that I am aware of that can do both jobs satisfactorily.
Free or open source options that I have used and can recommend:
PCB: KiCad
Paid software is better and if your school has a student license I would recommend SolidWorks and Mentor Graphics or Altium Designer. These tools are arguably more attractive to an employer since they are used in industry by any company doing serious CAD work.
I get that you are going to do minimal CAD work, but that is definitely the most intense application that you want to use this machine for. Are you thinking 2D or 3D CAD? Which application(s) would you be looking at running?
The reason I ask this is it's the one application that may be difficult to run on integrated graphics, which is what most Mini PC's have (Intel UHD / Iris graphics, or AMD Vega graphics).
If you are looking at running something like FreeCAD I could install it here and give you an idea of it runs okay on my system.
Everything else should be okay on many Mini PC's. Honestly, at that point, I would think more about what you would want to spend on a Mini PC to find something that would offer the best price / performance ratio.
I'm a total noob to the technical drawing space but I've been learning https://www.freecadweb.org/. Apparently it has quite a learning curve compared to the commercial offerings but it seems to do the job.
If the trapezoid should change its size:
- Make two sketches on either side and use this tool. Make the hole and the cutout afterwards.
If it should has the same size over its whole length:
- Just extrude the trapezoid from the side and make the hole and cutout afterwards or
- Cut the outsides of the trapezoid beginning from the side.
freeCAD is a good open-source CAD modeling package.
Fusion360 is free for students, personal use, startups and small businesses under $100k revenue.
You might be interested in /r/FreeCAD (https://www.freecadweb.org) which has a C++ core and Python scripting with an interpreter built-in. It also has integration with other FOSS engineering tools to enable advanced applications like finite element analysis & computational fluid dynamics.
We (I'm a dev/admin for the project) also participate in Google Summer of Code so if you're a university student you can get paid to work on it, although it's too late for this year.
It's a very active project.
22 out of the 48 code contributors this year have more than 10 commits.
In the last few years it has become much more stable.
It has a lot of rough edges but is slowly improving. There is also a growing number of video tutorials on Youtube and the community is very helpful.
Here's the donation page for those interested
> It would be cool if there was some sort of initiative where universities could contribute to the development of FOSS tools, like FreeCAD, which is despite being pretty good is not as feature complete as Catia or Solidworks.
FreeCAD participates in Google Summer of Code which pays pretty well for university students who want to spend their summer working on the code, but the codebase & dependency ecosystem can be intimidating because of how complex the software is.
I am an engineering student and former FreeCAD GSoC participant, and I think it has amazing potential for engineering education, but it needs a lot more contributors, as the dev part of the project is only a portion of the whole.
BACK-UP YOUR 0.16.67.xx FILE BEFORE OPENING IN 0.17.xxxxx! MIGRATION TO 0.17.xxxxx MAY CAUSE PROBLEMS.
Release notes: https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/index.php?title=Release_notes_0.17
Use the Part, not Part-Design module to Loft. There is an icon for lofts there. It's a little square lofting to a large square.
OpenSCAD is pretty cool imo
LibreCAD isn't too bad either for free
However, if you like the idea of more parametric design, it doesn't get any 'free-er' or easier than Tinkercad.
I don't like spreading this information around ;) but MatterControl is an awesome program as well that has a free version. I really really like that one.
Last but not least, is FreeCAD https://www.freecadweb.org/index.php
Which is sort of The Best of both worlds between something like OpenSCAD and TinkerCad. It offers parametric design but also a pretty powerful scripting element as well as more traditional 2D design.
I will say , that it is the most complicated in my opinion. Now others will disagree and they are absolutely right to do so, but I just never got the hang of FreeCAD. It's just a bit clunky in my opinion, but there are lots and lots and lots of free add-ons that do help in this regard.
https://www.freecadweb.org/ is probably the most popular and works across platforms if I remember. Autodesk fusion 360 might work and although it is free for the hobbyist, you are the product for sure haha it is a smooth experience though, especially if you do any machining.
I have exactly this problem. I am on Windows 7, and have been using FreeCAD for a couple of weeks. It has been good until today (always on the the latest stable version, 0.19-24291 downloaded from https://www.freecadweb.org/downloads.php).
I disabled my security software. I tried opening and exporting old files from before the problem. I moved everything in AppData\Roaming\FreeCAD to a new directory. I tried with security off and the FreeCAD configuration files restored. All I have accomplished is that now instead of not being able to export a file, I can't even past opening the file chooser. Before I can select a FreeCAD file to open it closes and FreeCAD crashes.
About:
OS: Windows 7 Version 6.1 (Build 7601: SP 1)
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.19.24291 (Git)
Build type: Release
Branch: releases/FreeCAD-0-19
Hash: 7b5e18a0759de778b74d3a5c17eba9cb815035ac
Python version: 3.8.6+
Qt version: 5.15.2
Coin version: 4.0.1
OCC version: 7.5.0
Locale: English/United States (en_US)
I have not tried the AppImage version. Is there some reason to do so, then the main site takes me to an "exe" type installer?
After reinstalling from a fresh download of the file, the symptoms are slightly different. I can open the file selection dialog, but as soon as I double-click a file FreeCAD crashes.
I'll try a development release, just to see if it helps. I just hope this doesn't go on all night. I had finally learned FreeCAD well enough to get some useful things done, even though I'm still a beginner.
Wow, a lot of taking the hard path here. https://www.freecadweb.org/ * Python is integrated in if you must take a programming approach * Reads all kinds of meshes, including STL * Has a CAM output module * Does Constructive Solid Geometry operations like subtraction
It'll take a little messing around to set up what you want, but you can script anything you can do in the UI
Consider FreeCAD. A lot of people will highlight that it has rough edges and, while that's not entirely false, so do most other packages too. The upside with FreeCAD is that not only is it free, but since it's open-source, you are guaranteed continued access to your content- no trusting Autodesk to keep your tool available and/or your data accessible.
There's certainly no downside in at least downloading it and giving it a go- check it out here: https://www.freecadweb.org/
FreeCAD is generally considered the most established open-source SolidWorks alternative (https://www.freecadweb.org/). A quick google will bring up lists of other open source or cheap alternatives. Naturally, it's going to be less polished than SolidWorks and you may need to dig through extensions if you want specific functionality, but such is life in open-source world. I can't speak to neuroengineering specifically because it really depends on what sort of technology you plan to work with.
You should at least learn and become efficient in 3D. 3D allows for more natural development of elements and you can create whatever 2D views, sections, and details, from the 3D model. I think AutoCAD has come a long way in 3D recently, but you may want to start with an application that was developed with parametric 3D in mind. FreeCAD and TinkerCAD are good basic starters, as well as OpenSCAD.
> I want to make a mock-up of a no textured/gaurade shaded laptop in 3D.
If the point is to create a computer model, not a physical model like for 3D printing but a visual representation, use Blender, a first-rate, free, open-source program.
> Oh, I'd also like the option to have a 3d grid system with rulers, because I like stuff to be size accurate.
Okay, that's different -- use Fusion 360, which is free for non-commercial projects. You have to sign up and the program is free as long as you're doing personal non-commercial projects.
You could also look at FreeCAD, which is more accessible than Fusion 360 but is much harder to use and has some unresolved bugs and nonintuitive traits.
I'm using 0.17 here. When I create the angle constraint, it opens a dialog box called "Insert angle" and it has two text boxes - Angle, and Name. On the right end of the Angle text box, to the left of the up/down arrows, is the f(x) circle.
There's some documentation on it here. Per that article, you can also pull it up by typing "=" into the Angle box.
As a totally biased FreeCAD developer it sounds like FC might suit OP's needs. The 0.17 version brought big improvements to technical drawing with the TechDraw workbench, and the Arch workbench is under active development by one of FC's core developers who is also an architect.
I would recommend OP give FreeCAD an evaluation and reach out to the community on the forums to see if it will sufficient--even if it's not quite there for some things, those features might be easily added either by interested volunteers or by paid/contracted development.
FreeCAD dev here. Just wanted to say I think FreeCAD's future in this regard is bright. Besides the Calculix integration you already mentioned, we have a CFD Workbench in development which integrates with OpenFOAM, as well as experimental integrations with Elmer and FEniCS.
We've just finished a rewrite of the parametric part design stuff and are doing the same for real assembly support, so once that is done (as well as finishing the transition to Qt 5 & Python 3) it will be possible to focus on usability improvements that would tie everything together very nicely.
I'm also working on improving the state of packaging in the Debian Science Team so Debian/Ubuntu as a platform will become much better for doing engineering.
(BTW we just redesigned our homepage for anyone interested in FreeCAD!)
- Beyond me, lol.
- I have an RX 480 and it works with the open-source (default) drivers. Hopefully the RX 580 is similarly supported.
- Yes, Cura runs perfectly on Linux. I still have to boot back into Windows occasionally for Autodesk Inventor, though. FreeCAD is a good alternative to Inventor/Fusion but you'll need lots of configuration/documentation/plugins first, so I just don't bother. If you're willing to switch how you model things, OpenSCAD is a parametric program where you write code to create models.
- Which VPN protocol are you using? If it's OpenVPN or PPTP, just go to Settings → Hardware → Network and click the + button at the bottom left to connect.
- It seems like other comments have already covered WINE :)
As others have said, it depends on what you want to build.
I'm learning Fusion360 now and it looks great. Before I discovered that, I was using FreeCAD which is really handy.
I first found FreeCAD which is really easy to learn but a little clunky. I can knock together basic parts pretty easily after a few weeks of playing around.
Now I'm learning Fusion360 which is free for hobbyists. I found an excellent YouTube series called "Learn Fusion360 or die trying" which has been amazing. The presenter Paul McWorter breaks it down into very simple steps and his teaching style is great.
As others have said, if you want to use FreeCAD for this, you'll be using the FEM workbench, which defaults to using Calculix to do the calculations (with some other solvers available/in progress).
There are two main ways to model buckling in FEA: eigenmode (aka linear) and nonlinear. Eigenmode buckling is good for getting working solutions, but it's limited to a fully linear model (no contacts, no plasticity). I don't think FreeCAD exposes eigenmode buckling in the GUI, but I'm pretty sure it can be done directly with Calculix. Nonlinear buckling is much more flexible, but requires a lot more work to stabilize the model and get a converged solution (particularly as the geometry "snaps" into its buckled shape). You just need to enable nonlinear geometry in your model to start experimenting with nonlinear buckling; I'm pretty sure FreeCAD gives that option somewhere, but I don't recall where. I've only just started playing with the FEM workbench myself.
Buckling simulation is an interest of mine, so feel free to ask for help.
what do you want to print? If it's mostly small parts, look at the Creality Ender 2, it's around $200. I highly recommend buying from Tiny Machines becauwse they unbox each machine, assemble it and send you a report of the test results. The "budget" printers are kinda notorious for defects and problems. Let someone else weed those out for you!
I use FreeCAD to model quick and easy stuff but I'm also learning Fusion 360 which is free for hobbyists. It's a lot more powerful, and more popular.
For Blender often STL imports are often way off center and scale. This is because other programs make their meshes in weird ways and blender blindly imports without modifying them. Generally what you want to do is center and then scale them. After that you can set the scene units correctly and use the measure it plugin to scale it to the correct size.
For Freecad you need to convert the mesh to a solid and then you can modify it.
Hope this helps! Blender is usually what I use to mess with other people's meshes or make organic/artistic shapes. I tend to use Freecad to design my own mechanical stuff.
Quote from the article:
> In this work, MBDyn 1.6.1 (a free, open source multi body dynamics simulation software developed at Politecnico di Milano University, Italy; (see: https://www.mbdyn.org/)) in combination with FreeCAD 0.16 (a free and open source CAD modeler developed by a non for profit Free Software community (see: https://www.freecadweb.org/ )) are used.
Fusion 360 is not free software. There may be no cost to use Fusion 360, but that does not mean you get all the rights and benefits that come with free software. Blender is free and open source. But for a free software CAD package, I prefer FreeCAD.
Yes, it has a large breadth of uses (CAD, BIM, FEA, CFD, etc.) but because the scope of the program is so big it has a long way to go still. The project needs contributors, so shill mode engaged: https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Help_FreeCAD if anyone is interested.
If you're just trying to visualize an STL, you can try FreeCAD.
As the name implies, it is free. I haven't used it much but I just tried importing a .stl file and it worked without issue.
Alternatively, this is a stretch, but if you have access to Solidworks, the macro API supports VBA. That would be relatively simple to import an STL programmatically.
Shouldn't take long to find out. On Debian 9.0:
% apt-cache show freecad | grep Version Version: 0.16+dfsg2-3
According to FreeCAD's available versions, 0.16 is approximately current. The version in Debian's repos has clearly had a couple of revisions by Debian's Free Software Group, and several point releases of the latest revision. Hopefully those fixes got filed upstream if applicable.
FreeCAD for 3d work (https://www.freecadweb.org/)
LibreCAD for 2d work (http://librecad.org/cms/home.html)
My local 3d printing and CNC workshop uses both (as well as Blender) for most of their work, so I think it's fair to say they can be used professionally.
Hey now, Warhammer is fun! But then again, I'm a boy with boy tastes, so...
Check out Thingiverse, where people upload models the made themselves, which you can then download and print. But there is nothing quite like holding in your hand something you designed yourself. It's magical.
You probably want to use something good at creating organic models, stuff with a lot of complex curves such as plants or the human body, but that doesn't need exact dimensions. This is best created with what is called Direct Modeling software. Blender is a pretty popular (and free) direct modeling. I can't speak to its quality myself, but it's probably where you want to start.
Alternatively, you could use a program that is better at designing more geometric models, such as gears or a bracket. For that you want Parametric Modeling software. I use FreeCAD, and I quite like it. As the name suggests, it is also free. Anything that brands itself as CAD software will be parametric, so look around.
Both are excellent tools, but picking the wrong tool will make the job harder. So decide what you want to do, pick a modeling software you like, and jump in! There are a thousand youtube tutorials for any given software to help you get going. Good luck!
I just got suckered into what I thought was Solidworks through my Experimental Aircraft Assoc (EAA) membership. It turns out they only offer Dassault's 3DExperience version, which means you have to be online to use it and all files are stored in "the cloud". I'd prefer to be offline while I model, and Also keep my files locally. Also, the cost for this 3DExperience is $49.50 USD. That's above thee membership fee for EAA.
So, Another option for Cheap/Free CAD applications is FreeCAD. It looks very capable as Solidworks. I've seen some models and they are impressive. I just downloaded it, and plan to dive in later tonight.
That's what I've used. I've come across a few bugs, but they were only when I tried to do things that generated way to much geometry. I'll warn you: The learning curve is steep. This is true of all CAD software, but it's easy to forget how steep the learning curve was, when you've been using something for a while. My first serious CAD program was SolidWorks, which I learned over two college courses. Had I not had someone teaching me, it would have been really hard.
Also, FreeCAD is not as good as SolidWorks, but it is still reasonably good. (SolidWorks is impressively good. And I'm saying this as a software dev who understands what goes into coding something like that. Sadly, it's also extremely expensive, and it doesn't have a Linux version. In a quality to price comparison, I would still side with FreeCAD, though maybe if I was making a three figure income I would think differently...) I've used it to draft designs for milling, and aside from the time I tried to import an STL model with a huge number of vertices, it worked really well. I also drafted a silicone ring mold for 3D printing, using the parametric capabilities to make it easy to produce STL files for every ISO ring size, from the same model.
For 2D drafting though, I just use Inkscape. If I needed something parametric though, I would use FreeCAD. I just find Inkscape easier for simple designs I want to laser cut.
It might help to enlarge your art some. Illustrator isn’t super accurate like a CAD app would be. So if your drawing is in the small scale, it can help to temporarily enlarge it.
If you do need super high accuracy, you could try FreeCAD. It can export to a lot of different formats. https://www.freecadweb.org
Prijatelju, prestani koristiti zle vlasničke računalne programe i pridruži se našoj Linux (ili kako sam ga počeo nazivati GNU kosa crta Linux) zajednici koja koristi izričito slobodne (kao sloboda, ne kao besplatno pivo) i otvorene računalne programe.
FreeCAD is the only decent option to fulfill that requirement. I've been using it for quite some time, and the nightly build is a significant improvement over the stable channel. It's quite the capable CAD program, and it can easily do 90% of what you can do with a CAD program that costs thousands a year to use.
windows 10 enterprise
freecad version 0.19.3 from here : https://www.freecadweb.org/downloads.php
started having this issue on .2, reinstall didn't help, disabling firewall also did nothing.
Non je suis dans la recherche, en sciences pour l'ingénieur/physique. C'est vrai que c'est 50% de développement (C/C++ et python, essentiellement) mais le reste c'est du matériel.
>Les logiciels type Solidworks sont introuvables
Ici on n'a pas de gros besoin, et on ne bosse que sur du prototypage, donc freecad fait le taf. Mais oui, tu as raison, les logiciels métiers sont (encore) un problème.
>certains logiciels de dev électronique
tu parles de logiciels genre kicad ?
>pour les gens qui ont des besoins pro spécifiques
Oui, encore une fois, les logiciels métiers sont un problème, mais j'avais plutôt en tête l'utilisateur "moyen+", qui va toucher à des logiciels généraux mais aussi quelques logiciels un peu spécialisés, faire un peu de montage vidéo, écrire des documents en Tex/libreoffice en faisant des schémas sur inkscape, jouer sur steam, bricoler un arduino, gérer son imprimante 3D etc.
On doit déjà toucher la majorité des utilisateurs avec ça.
Dans ce cas, je conseille aux amis de rester sur les applis dispo dans la logithèque (donc .deb + flatpack sur Linux Mint) et ça se passe plutôt bien.
>mais tant qu'on a pas passé 100h [...] Et là, tristement, je parle d'expérience...
J'ai beaucoup plus que 100h sur Linux au boulot, vu que je l'utilise depuis 1999 au boulot. Mais j'ai peut etre du bol avec mes besoins alors que toi t'es tombé dans le problème du logiciel métier pas dispo (?)
Here you go sir!
You will probably want to pickup some tutorials (or just fuck around and find out—a perfectly acceptable and harmless way to learn).
But there is definitely money to be made if you learn 3D modelling. There is also just plenty of fun to be had if you like to craft stuff yourself, even if you only want to craft the model.
FreeCAD has gotten to the point that it rivals professional industry software. There is very little that can't be done for free.
CAD-related answer here :
I think Freecad is the best option since it’s free, well documented, supports parametric design (what you want) and lets you use your mouse to draw things.
Give it a go here : https://www.freecadweb.org
Don't forget the FOSS options. Check out FreeCAD... it's parametric, multiplatform, hackable, and has a good community.
OpenSCAD is another one of my favorite CAD programs. It's a little different. You use a scripting language to build the model, and OpenSCAD compiles it to a 3d model. The MOD9 files uses an OpenSCAD script to generate STLs with different features based on user input.
Sounds similar to my experience using Fusion360 and Kinetic-NC.
The GCode I generated from Fusion360 consistently had the same bad code at the start and end, causing similar issues to those you mention.
I suggest opening it up in notepad and lop off the offending lines, after which everything worked fine. I don't know enough about your setup to say it's the same issue but I would take a close look at the first and last ~10 lines. Mine sent the tool down into the the middle of the stock... not fun. Took me ages to figure it out but no problems since.
Good luck, and go FreeCAD! (I haven't actually done CNC with it yet but planning to switch because Autodesk and Fusion360 ethics are garbage.
A good alternative to paid CAD software is FreeCAD. It's open source and free, and it runs on Linux, MacOS, and Windows where the paid closed source stuff usually only works on Windows. I would definitely recommend checking it out
What version on FreeCAD you have? In the latest version, now current stable version downloadable at our main page : https://www.freecadweb.org/downloads.php
Above at the left corner you can find a green cube with an arrow clicking on it. Well. This is the function you search for select all the edges of an item without always click Ctrl+select on the edges of the solid. This item works in the "Part workbench". Or If this don't fit the answer at your question you can check the video who diamened show to you in the comment section below. Or write a help letter at the FreeCAD Forum at our main page. You can find it above the site by clicking "Community" . Have fun with FreeCAD ;) .
FreeCAD all the life. It's Free. Now on Autodesk has limited the features on the free version of Fusion 360 as 123D Design. FreeCAD is an open source project runs on volunteer. So it's always updated and commit to change in the future for improve the program. Now the current stable version is the 0.19.1. You can find at our main page : https://www.freecadweb.org/ . You also extend your user experience installing addons for FreeCAD using the Addon Manager, you can find this item above the toolbar in "tools". It's the last application. Have fun with FreeCAD. If you have any Issue please contact me in private or write a help letter in the FreeCAD Forum on our main site.
The number is dramatically lower within the last few years. I've heard CAD software is lacking on Linux (but is being worked on! ) but I can't think of anything else off the top of my head that isn't "I need very specific program for X".
I'm not involved with any open source software projects myself, but UX design is something that's sorely lacking in the world of open source software. If I had to name one project that shows a lot of promise but is severely hampered by it's UI design, it's FreeCAD. I really really want to like and use it, but I simply can't because of how clunky it is to use. I don't think it really has any people dedicated to UI design at this time. You could inquire with the project maintainers.
This is subjective, but I think the best free, open-source solution is FreeCAD. It isn't perfect, but it's very usable for hobbyists. Having said that, Autodesk's Fusion 360 is really excellent, and it's free for non-commercial use. You just have to sign up for a free license.
You download and install it (the free version isn't a separate install, it's all based on your user account license).
Once installed, you will create an account and it will ask you what you are using it for. When you answer personal/hobbyist/student use, it will give you a certain set of functionality for free. Some more advanced features are not available to the free license tier, but most of what you would get with any other free parametric modelling tool is available.
https://www.autodesk.ca/en/products/fusion-360/personal
There is also FreeCAD, which is supposed to be the truly free alternative to fusion 360 as far as parametric modelling software goes, but I haven't used that at all so can't speak to how good it might be or what is available for tutorials (YouTube etc) compared to fusion 360 which seems to be more popular. https://www.freecadweb.org/downloads.php
Not really into cad, so probably this is by far the best answer. But I have used some in the past. You should digg a little deeper to see what is best for you:
I use and love FreeCAD (https://www.freecadweb.org/). It does sometimes crash, but it's very powerful, and allows me to use it for commercial purposes and actually back up my work. Fusion360 may be nicer in some ways, but forces you to rent the software and you're always at the mercy of arbitrary decisions on Autodesk's part. No thanks.
You can build the models in FreeCAD, which works somewhat similarly to AutoCAD, and then export the objects to Blender and animate and render them there.
Alternatively, you can create the models directly in Blender, but it takes more practice as it's aimed at a different approach to 3D modeling than you're familiar with from AutoCAD and Sketchup.
STL files are not a good starting point for modelling, since they really need to be converted back into parametric models in order to adjust dimensions, and this is not easy. However, check out <strong>FreeCAD</strong>. It is free, open-source, and works off-line.
Also you can download AutoCAD or Draftsight and use it to do the drawings under the trial. If review goes outside of that you could use the other software to make modifications. Just make sure the programs are .dwg compatible with the version year.
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it. For what it's worth, the software I use in the video is FreeCAD. It's a little rough around the edges, but it's really powerful and fully open-source.
Also, if you like that kind of content, please consider subscribing to my channel- I have a bunch more stuff on the way, including a multi-part series on making a 1:18 scale pinball machine w/ working features. Here's a short preview of the play features: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIoPEsGcxtg
Fusion360 is a great tool, but there's no guarantee that Autodesk won't start charging for it. And given that you have to store your files on the cloud, you can't really trust that you'll be able to access your own content.
While it's not as nice and can be kinda crashy, I'm a huge fan of FreeCAD personally- between that, OpenSCAD, and Blender, I have a really robust set of tools, none of which will ever disappear or lock me out of my content.
EDIT: "crashy" (which FreeCAD sometimes is) got auto-corrected to "trashy" (which FreeCAD def isn't), so fixed it
Used a free program called freeCAD. My first time using it too. watched a couple youtube tutorials and was able to make this without too many complications.
Yes, of course, the internet is very plentiful with great free softwares; among them I can recommend you to utilize FreeCAD, it is sipmle, ergonomic, and fun to use !!!
You may find the Software's link below, have fun!
Autocad, especially 2D, is used by basically nobody. You need to learn 3D parametric CAD if you want anyone to care.
Licenses for professional 3D CAD programs can be staggeringly expensive (SolidWorks is, relatively speaking, fire sale pricing at "only" $5200, last I looked a few years ago), so it will be difficult to get experience with them if you're not employed or in school. If you're a student and can prove it, you can get a 1-year student license for SolidWorks for $99 but for a non-student it's likely impractical to get a license to a commonly-used professional program.
However, FreeCAD will let you learn the general principles of 3D parametric modeling without paying a cent. It's free software (GPL2 licensed). Obviously when you get hired you'll have to learn the intricacies of whatever program your employer has you use, but you can use FreeCAD to build the skills that will get you the interview.
Try giving FreeCAD a shot, if you haven't already. It's definitely kinda rough around the edges, and it's far crashier than I would like, but I've found that as long as I constantly save, I can get useful work done.
Is Fusion360 more stable, and is it easier to use? Sure. But for me, added convenience isn't worth the possibility of all of my work getting locked away one day.
I think people have made some really good points re: the possible downsides of open-source, but the major reason that keeps me using open-source tools is that I can actually *have* the software. Sure, Godot could evaporate tomorrow, or they could steadfastly refuse to accept pull requests for a feature I want, but I can still have the installer on my hard drive, and find it backed up a bunch of places around the web.
That might not have mattered as much before everything became subscription-based, but it's a huge plus nowadays. Granted, Unity isn't likely to go anywhere, but what's to stop them from changing their pricing? What happens if they remove a feature that your game depended on? You're completely at the mercy of Unity's business decisions.
In addition to game development, I also do a lot of 3d printing, and I'm very careful to only use open-source tools. FreeCAD is objectively not as good as Fusion360 in terms of features, but that's all trumped by the fact that I can't own Fusion360 or any of the projects I create- Autodesk could decide at any time to either stop the service or introduce a monthly subscription, and all of my work would be locked away (or hidden behind a paywall).
Open-source tools may not be quite as fully-featured as commercial software, but for me, as long as I'm capable of doing meaningful work with the tool, I will *always* choose a tool that I can own instead of one I have to rent. And pretty much all commercial software forces you to rent it.
Hi. You can use KiCAD to get a PCB design from Gerbers files.
Then, you can use FreeCAD to get a 3D model from the PCB generated with KiCAD.
But only PCB, no components.
Import Gerbers to KiCAD (gerber viewer -> pcbnew) is easy. Then you get a PCB file that you can use to get a 3D model, but if you want a detailed model... maybe this is not useful. This way you get a model of PCB only, with drills, but without components.
I've been using FreeCAD for a while now, and as with almost all freeware it does have its quirks, but once you get the hang of it you can use it to create anything from one specific screw to entire buildings. There are tons of written tutorials available as well as videos.
CAD work was done in FreeCAD (which is pretty darn good, especially for the price). As mentioned there's some odd things about the way I did the CAD work (still learning that too) that required some tweaks while building, but let me know if you want the CAD file to look at / use for whatever.
FreeCAD is free and open source. You start from a 2D stretch and then build 3D model from it or you can design from 3D primitive directly. It can design internal combustion, buildings, mechanical parts with animation. It certainly can do some simple computer cases. Please check out the FreeCAD forum from more.
There has been a dearth of open-source Mechanical CAD forever. FreeCAD has picked up some decent functionality and inertia in recent years, and LibreCAD (a fork of QCAD) is still around.
Electronics CAD has more worthwhile open-source options.
Free CAD, Open SCAD and Fusion 360 are all free for students and personal users. I would start with co-ordinate geometry and Free CAD, as they are the easiest to grasp. I would also provide students with a graph paper and ask them to design a flay layout design of the 3D model that they design. The reason I say this is because flat layout designs are the first steps to understanding engineering drawing views in the 4 quadrants. Industry standards typically use 1st and third angle projections but the concept is key. It makes designing much intuitive in 3D space. I hope it helps.
Sounds like you may need to pressure your vendor for proper packages for those proprietary packages?
And, for FreeCAD... https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Install_on_Unix#Ubuntu_and_Ubuntu-based_systems
Why are you having issues installing that in a Arch-based distro? Or Debian or RHEL based? Packages are already available.
I think using datum planes/points is the level up in workflow you're looking for: https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Sandbox:PartDesign_Bearingholder_Tutorial_I
If you installed from the Ubuntu 18.04 repository then you got FreeCAD 0.16 which is really out of date.
Read the instructions on https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Install_on_Unix carefully to add the freecad-stable PPA and install/update FreeCAD again. This will get you FreeCAD 0.18. It may or may not work better but at least you will have the current version.
Besides the parametric Sketcher Workbench as you mentioned there's also the more freeform Draft Workbench as well as the TechDraw Workbench you can use to produce technical drawings from your model.
ECAD is fairly well supported on Linux. MCAD has always been weak on Linux since those vendors left Unix, but there's Siemens NX and FreeCAD is making slow progress.
Yes, I think you’ll have to. A body is defined as a single contiguous solid. Your two parts aren’t connected.
Look here for info on that restriction: https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/PartDesign_Body .
You’ll need a shape binder to create the second sketch relative to the first. https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/PartDesign_ShapeBinder .