freecad next step

Have some feature requests, feedback, cool stuff to share, or want to know where FreeCAD is going? This is the place.
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barbarerik
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freecad next step

Post by barbarerik »

Hi community.
I am new here, and i chose FreeCad because its free. It suits to my hobby projects.
Actually i am trying to emerge to the concept of this software.

I really appreciate if somebody dedicate time to create such incredibly helpful software. With main idea to create it for the community with knowing that it newer be rewarded as working for some software giant company.

Couple years ago i start using Blender and i had lot of problems with logic and usability of that software. Hardcore users were spitting angry words against mine notes of unintuitive old-school UI. Logic of how some processes are functioning. I know i am piece of nobody who even have problem with primary school algebra. But in couple years Blender got founding and everything changed. Suddenly UI came closer to user, some principles become much easier, much clearer. And my problems were solved.... magic. Whole software made a huge step to user probably from HC dedicated programmers and community.
Because that's only what's important. Humans create Tools to save time and energy. To have software which doeasn't wasting users time. Because one hour saved by developer can end up in infinite hours wasted by users.
I don't know how blender did its mega jump from "right click to left click!" but we can see it kicks community to an other hundreds levels up.
Well probably i know and its MONEY probably lot of money invested into coders and development. Devs which are listening community and working on ideas they get.
I am not blaming nobody, i am just trying to give some enthusiastic newbie look on what i saw and how i perceive reality :) ups :)

Do you think wouldn't it be worth to hire some lobbyist who can penetrate companies who probably could support development of this software? There should be lot of companies proudly showing support of working product, to implement their new AI development, cut their taxes and so...
And in eyes of only God save microsecond of working time of users, which they can spend with their families (as Andrew Cramer said when he developed shortcut plugin for AE - actually it saved me more then microsecond, love it )

Damn i even can't write and speak in English well, i can do nothing good i feel like nobody when i compare my self with some other people. But i believe that this software has a BIG future and its community deserve that jump up.
We have only one life so please pump it UP and don't let it fade out :)

best
love
chrisb
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Re: freecad next step

Post by chrisb »

Hi and welcome to the forum!

Go ahead and raise funds. It wouldn't harm to pay some developers.
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johnwang
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Re: freecad next step

Post by johnwang »

Better to also have a choice to pay a function. Who finished it who can get paid.
That function is not a must to be in the main.
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onekk
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Re: freecad next step

Post by onekk »

I think that FreeCAD must remain very distant from lobbyst and such things, as they tend to monopolize development and not to spread users.

As it is Opensource, maybe the only way would be a "FreeCAD Foundation", where maybe there is a "paid professional help desk" to support "professional users".

This way "funding" will be used more easy on real development than on "mere customization" for some company machine, or systems.

My two cents.

Regards

Carlo D.
GitHub page: https://github.com/onekk/freecad-doc.
- In deep articles on FreeCAD.
- Learning how to model with scripting.
- Various other stuffs.

Blog: https://okkmkblog.wordpress.com/
drmacro
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Re: freecad next step

Post by drmacro »

It would be nice to have a foundation such as Blender with a paid staff, publicly, etc. But is corporate sponsorship and possibly influence a desired situation? It appears this is working well for Blender, at least at this point in time.

But, if it is as simple as money, it begs the question, why few, if any, are collecting from the funds available for fixing bugs in FreeCAD.
:?:
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Spock: "...His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking."
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onekk
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Re: freecad next step

Post by onekk »

drmacro wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 11:20 am But, if it is as simple as money, it begs the question, why few, if any, are collecting from the funds available for fixing bugs in FreeCAD.
:?:

Where are the funds?

And if they where available, maybe fixings these bugs is not a "too easy" task, maybe you have to modify many parts of FreeCAD.

Other reason could be the omnipresent one: lack of documentation of "FreeCAD internal works", very few know "how it works" in enough details to be able to make some "deep modifications".

FreeCAD is a very complex piece of software and without documentation is difficult to acquire enough skills to modify his "internals", maybe you could code some macro, or "high level" programs that use FreeCAD as the "modeling engine" (I could do this sort of things), but when dealing with some "low level" tasks, I could not find enough documentation to even see the "real workflow" without driving mad following source code, and with many library involved is a nightmare without some "guidance".

Regards

Carlo D.
GitHub page: https://github.com/onekk/freecad-doc.
- In deep articles on FreeCAD.
- Learning how to model with scripting.
- Various other stuffs.

Blog: https://okkmkblog.wordpress.com/
rstech
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Re: freecad next step

Post by rstech »

onekk wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 11:34 am
FreeCAD is a very complex piece of software and without documentation is difficult to acquire enough skills to modify his "internals", maybe you could code some macro, or "high level" programs that use FreeCAD as the "modeling engine" (I could do this sort of things), but when dealing with some "low level" tasks, I could not find enough documentation to even see the "real workflow" without driving mad following source code, and with many library involved is a nightmare without some "guidance".

Regards

Carlo D.
Maybe taking care of documentation can be a reason to pay someone? It seems nobody will start to do this by itself.
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onekk
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Re: freecad next step

Post by onekk »

Documenting things has to be done by competent people who know many aspects of the program.

So without some help from core developers you could document GUI workfliw, and maybe some aspects of some basic concepts, provided that there is enough knowledge a or dicumentation around.

Many efforts are done to improve this part of documentation, but I'm speaking of inner work, like what happens when you issue a Part.show() command.

what App code is called and what Gui code is invoked, and for Gui, maybe what Coin3d operation happens, and simular things.

Making even compex programs is doable, I ve just done some complex work to model cabinets, producing both DXF file for cutting with a CNC and 3D representation of the whole cabinet.

It is diable even if Path is in WIP state and "not ready for scripting" yet to produce some gcode for pocket and prifile operation, even with multilple job creation to obtain boxes like those in my logo.

So FreeCAD is very usable even in this not Stable state (a proper 1.0 version is not yet released).

Regards

Carlo D.
GitHub page: https://github.com/onekk/freecad-doc.
- In deep articles on FreeCAD.
- Learning how to model with scripting.
- Various other stuffs.

Blog: https://okkmkblog.wordpress.com/
drmacro
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Re: freecad next step

Post by drmacro »

onekk wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 11:34 am ...
Where are the funds?
...
https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic. ... kkremitzki
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Spock: "...His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking."
drmacro
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Re: freecad next step

Post by drmacro »

rstech wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 12:05 pm ...

It seems nobody will start to do this by itself.
This is simply a false statement.


There are plenty of us who have access and improve the documentation regularly.
There is a sub-forum dedicated to the wiki.
There are people who translate the wiki into many languages.

Granted the wiki, in many cases, is poorly organized (though this has begun to change in the last year) and is not particularly good as a beginning user instructional tool.

And lets not forget it is a rapidly moving target. Changes on the development branch are happening daily.

And there is no 0.19 documentation "release", separate from 0.20. Making them separate would just multiply the work by way more than 2X.

It is also not a new programmers introductory tool in either the internals or Python scripting levels.

End user and developer documentation really need two separate approaches. They also require a somewhat different level of understanding.

In the end, would a paid staff help that? Sure. But, even the structure (either financially or managerially) to support such a thing is non-existent.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Spock: "...His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking."
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