Running FreeCAD on Steam Deck (my small test)

[kwahoo]

Hi all!

Steam Deck is a portable, gaming oriented PC. Beefy GPU and CPU and advanced input methods made it well suited for 3D apps.

I decided to try FreeCAD on Steam Deck and results are pretty promising:

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FreeCAD Link Appimage is added as non-steam game and it is running in the gaming mode.

The Steam Deck has two modes:
* Gaming mode, where could be only one full screen application running
* Desktop mode, which is just a fully featured Linux (FedoraArch + KDE) desktop.

In the desktop mode, input is very limited, right touchpad works as mouse.

In the gaming mode, there is a very advanced input configuration available.



In my setup:
Right touchpad is a mouse and left click, left touchpad is mouse wheel and middle click.
Dpad and ABXY are for various keyboard shortcuts (dpad for pie menus (double press), ABXY for enter, space, escape and on-screen keyboard).
Right bumper for left mouse click (doubling right touchpad, to avoid cursor movement), left for right click.
Menu button for magnification.
Gyro doubles the mouse.

Config files https://github.com/kwahoo2/freecad-steamdeck-config

Steam Deck can be docked to external monitor/mouse/keyboard in both modes. There is comparison of docking in the gaming mode and desktop mode:

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Interestingly FreeCAD Link UX scaling is completely broken on the small screen (1280x800) in the desktop mode. Desktop mode creates extended desktop with correct external screen resolution. Gaming mode just switches the output, so for clear image FreeCAD would need some resolution adjustment.

[Kunda1]

NICE!!!!

[adrianinsaval]

* Desktop mode, which is just a fully featured Linux (Fedora + KDE) desktop.

AFAIK it's actually arch, very cool to see this anyways

[kwahoo]

* Desktop mode, which is just a fully featured Linux (Fedora + KDE) desktop.

AFAIK it's actually arch, very cool to see this anyways

Yes, I mixed this, probably because of immutable system, like Fedora Silverblue;)

[adrianinsaval]

would be nice to somehow bind the joysticks for rotation, tilt and pan

[kwahoo]

would be nice to somehow bind the joysticks for rotation, tilt and pan

You can bind every[1] keyboard/mouse combination to joysticks. At this moment, the right joystick emulates a mouse, so you can do standard view pan/rotate.

I think this Hyper Controller project from FreeCAD Utils could be modified to use the Deck input instead of external controller.

[1] seriously, multiple keys, with delays, multiple bindings in groups (so you can have separate bindings for separate workbenches)

[adrianinsaval]

Damn, wish I had one, everything surrounding the device seems so cool.

[kwahoo]

Bonus, apparently SteamVR tracking runs just fine on Steam Deck:

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Real space mouse is possible now;)

[kwahoo]

Performance seems to be quite nice too. SD runs very detailed Mars Rover made by NASA JPL at 35-60 fps MSAAx8, consuming only 8 Watts at the same time. Realthunder's experimental renderer made this possible.
The Rover on Github.

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Full video.

[OficineRobotica]

Bonus, apparently SteamVR tracking runs just fine on Steam Deck:

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Real space mouse is possible now;)

WoW ..... Imagine this coupled with VR . I love the space mouse idea. Really nice work. Thank you for sharing.