FreeCAD For Inventors Book Published

[NormandC]

Congrats on the new book!

There's nothing in this book that I didn't learn from people WAY smarter than me. Normand,

In my case, smarts has nothing to do with it, just plain old experience. I use CAD in my line of work, up to 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I learned a few different CAD programs along the way. What also helps is that I've been here since 2010, when most of FreeCAD's functionality wasn't even programmed yet! So I've had years to digest the tools. Discussing with other users and with FreeCAD developers has given me insight about CAD inner workings that nobody teaches to end users anywhere else. I think this close relationship between end users and developers that we have here is unrivalled in the CAD world.

[sgrogan]

Congrats on the new book!

sliptonic wrote: ↑
Sat Sep 15, 2018 7:51 pm
There's nothing in this book that I didn't learn from people WAY smarter than me.

I think the community is "smarter". It's amazing, the amount of group knowledge in these forums.

I read the Introduction on Kobo, it's inspiring!

[triplus]

Such projects can take a lot of effort and time. Therefore congratulations!

[shiftee]

Congratulations on the release of this quality resource, and thank you for your FreeCAD UX efforts also.

As a novice user I am going through it and noticed a few typos, do you want them?

[sliptonic]

Congratulations on the release of this quality resource, and thank you for your FreeCAD UX efforts also.

As a novice user I am going through it and noticed a few typos, do you want them?

Absolutely. Please pm me

[rdinohio]

This sounds good but I am new to e-books. If I were to purchase a copy, would I be entitled to a digital copy that I could print and/or copy to another computer, or would I need to be online every time that I wanted to read from it.

[shiftee]

I bought from Kobo, which allows you to download the ebook.
I think it's in epub3 format and DRM free.

I converted to pdf and printed at 80% scale to fit it nicely on the page.
I also got the cover image from the Kobo website and put that on the front

[yorik]

A bit late, but congratulations!! Getting the kobo version right now, VERY eager to see.

[rdinohio]

Thanks, I'll be getting a copy.

[Johnquicker]

Congratulations on the release of this quality resource, and thank you for your FreeCAD UX efforts also.

As a novice user I am going through it and noticed a few typos, do you want them?

Absolutely. Please pm me

I have just finished reading your FreeCAD for Inventors. I bought it at Kobo by 12.99 dollars with a discount. Amazon China don't have your book on shelf.

I have taken some notes when reading the book, marking some typing mistakes. Because @shiftee might have sent you PM about that, I think it is better to just say something about the pros and cons with my reading, as a way to express my thanks.


What I enjoy:

1. The Introduction makes a clear promise.
"What it ISN'T" and "what is IS", you mentioned well and keep your promise. I have used FreeCAD to draw something finally, not just wondering around, such as translating the wiki pages.

2. The Concept part introduces many interesting tricks from experiences.
I like your "What ~ is good for" and "Best practice for ~".

3. The tricks with Sketch.
As sketch is used widely throughout FreeCAD's workbenches, I am happy I can give a complete constraints with confidence within a short time.

What I think needs improvement:

1. The editing work.
Maybe hackers and inventor don't care about formatting problems too much, but it does have some influence on reading speed.

2. The linking work.
I don't know about Tesla's turbine and Bell's metal detector and your models is just part of the original inventions. I went to google for images of metal detector and youtube for Tesla's turbine. If you can give a trusted link about them, I will appreciate that.

3. The applying work.
Third part of this book introduces what it means with solid models. However, I cannot see the practical contents from an engineer's point of view. The Tech draw dimension is not complete. The FEM result is hard to achieve because of solver installation. The CAM part is a bit misleading. CNC may be not necessary for Batman's Batarang, as for such kind of plate, I think we shall use wire cutting?

By the way, after reading your book and wondering around FreeCAD, I can understand what you are saying in "5 Ways FreeCAD will Annoy You". I think it is healthy to speak aloud the annoying part and trigger the improvement efforts. So, here you are, I wrote publicly instead of a PM.

If I would like to translate your book into Chinese, and add some editing and linking, what licence with your ebook should I consider?