where do you see FreeCAD main focus go towards?

[chrisb]

I'm not sure if the time invested in this document is really a useful investment. It looks to me like another managment document which costs quite some time but finally produces nothing. Currently it states flaws which are well known. May I ask what the purpose is of this document? More lists and surveys don't really help. We are not short of tasks or ideas, we are short of people doing it.

[Cekuhnen]

Yes, great idea.

So I added some more notes.
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Sketcher is pretty simple
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But for modeling this is harder to make it look clear
A complicating factor is
Part Design, Part, and Surface WB have very specific focuses.
While Part Design offers surfacing too and has some very unique tools it also suffers from tools like trim or blend which then curve WB supplies.
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I am not happy about the spreadsheet because it might get confusing
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ChrisB ask Kunda1

[andyk]

does it provide all the tools I would need to model surfaces for industrial design

Maybe. I'll do my best to translate the Fusion tools you're referencing with parallel ideas in FreeCAD. One of the big differences is that there are far, far fewer convenience operations (like "Rib" for example) where instead of a specialized dialogue, you use a generic and simpler process to produce a feature. I'll try my best.

Loft lacks the ability to blend between targets.

This operation is mostly reproduced in Curves WB "Blend Surface", works about the same. You select the edges and faces of the surfaces you want to join with a nurbs surface, and in the Properties you can set its tangency (0 -> 5 or more maybe?). One notable drawback, it will only connect one face+edge to another face+edge, it will not do multiple on one side. Not that big a problem, really, it just requires splitting the profile surfaces equally.

Fillet has no G2

Completely true, for blended corners you have to use a more laborious process that is well demonstrated here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJYep637c14

Sketcher is limited to B-splines and also how to snap to it
Sketcher has no fitpoint curve
Sketcher is limited with projecting curves and splines

Sketches have the ability to import geometry from outside as reference vertices and edges within the plane of the sketch. Using construction geometry you can then control the B-spline nodes to be tangent to whatever external geometry you want. Adding in more nodes onto a line already drawn is something I don't know how to do. Extending (is this what you mean by projecting?) lines and splines has a tool in the Curves WB, and either Curves or Silk WB objects can easily create non-planar B-splines.

Surfacing needs are broken up between Part, Surface and Curve WB.
Curve WB I assume because it is written in Python has computation speed problem making single transitions slow.

One of the most non-obvious and important things in FreeCAD is the ability to customize what tools are accessible from what WB. I always have all of the Surface tools and some of the Part tools on my Curves WB to prevent going back and forth. Silk and Sketcher both have too many buttons to merge them. Any time I do something in Curves and it gets slow it's because I've done something that's actually broken or wrong (like trying to define a Gordon surface with impossible geometry). Usually pretty instant.

As for what's possible, I think a lot is possible with practice. It's definitely not a replacement for SolidWorks or Rhino, but it's not a toy. In the hands of a skilled user it can really do some amazing things. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjkxCXyHHnk


edit:

Okay I saw your spreadsheet thing. A lot of the tools you say are missing are absolutely there. I'll run down the list

Add midpoint - Curves WB split wire (one example, there are others for different contexts)
B-spline convenience tools - They do not exist, but doing them manually either in a sketch or with a wire (Curves WB B-spline wire) is not too hard
Break project - ???
Relink project - ??? Part links are an element of main FreeCAD since 0.17 I think
Project spline - ???
Intersect - This is a part of RealThunder's Link3 as Slice, or a part of main FreeCAD working with surfaces and Curves (trim face etc)
Decrease spline degree - ???
Fit point spline - Regular sketcher splines work like this, you can put constraints on the control points
Chamfers - Both in Part for constructed shapes and PartDesign for Bodies
Dimension Line 2 Line - Use construction geometry
Dimension Tangent Arc - Use construction geometry
Circular Pattern - This is called Polar pattern in either Draft Array or PartDesign transforms

[Cekuhnen]

Yes you can create custom toolbars - the problem I tried to illustrate is however like with the curves WB blend curves that for example in part WB sweep command it can either accept a sketcher or a curves WB but not both at the same time as a guide.

So it is more about tool compatibility or completion.

Curve WB loft solid for example also shows the speed drawback of python - this tools particularly is very slow.
No criticism of the developer at all intended. My main point is that this would be a fantastic addition to part and part design wb.

I absolutely do not doubt that FreeCAD can do work. But like the guy from Studio Petrikas this is really dependant on what you want to make. For industrial design and curved surfaces this is rather a problematic.

And for me as an educator leaving the sketcher WB to go to Draft WB for an offset and then later convert it back to a sketch and combine sketches is well confusing.
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Regarding to your sketcher entry:

In Sketcher "Break Projection" turns a projected external geometry into an editable element in the sketcher.
Re-link is about in the sketcher relinking a lost external geometry reference into the sketch

Fit point spline has the spline run through the points, so I don't understand your comment.

You can use construction geometry but it is kinda a labor intensive task plus the solver can slow down fast.

Can you show me a screenshot of how sketch intersect works in RT Link3 ???

[user1234]

I'm not sure if the time invested in this document is really a useful investment. It looks to me like another managment document which costs quite some time but finally produces nothing.

+1

https://tracker.freecadweb.org/

Greetings
user1234

[Kunda1]

I'm not sure if the time invested in this document is really a useful investment. It looks to me like another managment document which costs quite some time but finally produces nothing. Currently it states flaws which are well known. May I ask what the purpose is of this document? More lists and surveys don't really help. We are not short of tasks or ideas, we are short of people doing it.

I know you've seen a lot of good intentions fall to the wayside. So have I. But what I feel we miss sometimes is a clear understanding that can be communicated to users who don't have a clear overview of what is the state of this or that workbench in FC. Case in point, a while ago I started a thread to track upstream OCC bugs. All it did was track bugs that were already in the tracker but in a linear and categorical way that was easy and efficient to understand. I kept at it between different version updates of OCC (and still do). It generated attention.

Did it fix all the issues, unfortunately no
Did it fix some, why yes...it did! and I've declutterd/closed quite a few tickets due to it.

So I think this effort could produce results in a similar way. If it fixes even one bug, that would be awesome, IMHO. I hope it will do much more. <fingers crossed>

[drmacro]

...
For industrial design and curved surfaces this is rather a problematic.

...

Doesn't this sum up almost all of your discussions?

I.e:
FreeCAD in it's current state...even Linkstage3, is inconvenient, incomplete, or unsuited for your purposes or possible intentions.

And, there is no defined or scheduled path forward from the current state for much of the shortcomings you describe as issues for you. (Even, LK3 is at whatever pace (and direction) RT decides.)

As chrisb has eluded, you can make documents that lay out all the shortcomings you see, but, for the most part, you are preaching to the choir.

There is no management, planning meetings, assigned projects or deadlines.

For example, the prime mover for core FreeCAD has been MIA for over a month? The major (possibly only) developer of the sketcher has been absent for a while as well.

And, of course the original developer of TechDraw had to move away from the project almost a year ago.

Don't take these comments as angry or argumentative, etc., I'm simply stating the facts as I see them.

[Kunda1]

Since this thread has now evolved in to a more practical documentation/mapping stage, I think it may be of benefit to decouple the efforts in to a new thread. The philosophical paradigm-clashing discussions can stay in this one. Lets choose a thread title that encapsulates that, Cekuhnen?

Addendum, of course lets emphasize here, FreeCAD is FreeCAD. We don't aim to a clone of any contemporary proprietary or opensource CAD solutions.

[Cekuhnen]

Kunda1

While I make references to other software it is not to be understood as emulating it.
If it will be helpful and beneficial yes we can decouple this.


drmarcro

no offense taken

[bernd]

... We are not short of tasks or ideas, we are short of people doing it.

good one

If it is about main focus of FreeCAD, do not forget about FEM in the document