Freecad Learning Curve?

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tonyaimer
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Freecad Learning Curve?

Post by tonyaimer »

I love FreeCAD but am taking a while to get comfortable.

The learning curve is already very steep.

I picked up recently that Fusion 360 has raised its pricing again and we can expect more new users as a result.

As more and more features are added the learning curve will tend towards being vertical to the extent it will become unusable except for those who have been with FreeCAD for many years.

How can we address this?

My thought was the possibility of a series of menus such as "beginner, intermediate, expert, master" as a means of reducing the slope of the learning curve without doing a FreeCAD "light"' as other companies have done.

There will always be someone complaining that a feature they want is in a higher level menu but a list of what is in each menu might help with that. I do not think that customizable menus is the way to go because it would be a lot of work and I cannot volunteer because I do not have the skill set required.

I think we have to find ways to reduce the slope of the learning curve for new folk who are of course most welcome.

If we do not find a way to solve this problem then we may find negative reactions being spread via social media.

What other views exist on this matter?

Regards


Tony Aimer
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adrianinsaval
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Re: Freecad Learning Curve?

Post by adrianinsaval »

Adding functionality doesn't make it harder to learn FreeCAD, it just means there is more to be learned if you so desire, just because a new advanced feature has been added doesn't mean a new user should learn that at the same time as the basics. A common mistake is the belief that reducing the number of features directly available somehow magically makes the software easier to use, this is IMO BS. There are software that can be effectively learned by just blindly trying whatever commands are available, this is a terrible approach to learning CAD whether you use F360 or FreeCAD or whatever else, to learn modelling it is best to follow some structured learning material. It might be possible to integrate some learning materials in FreeCAD to guide new users, but hiding functionality is IMO counterproductive as it makes it harder to discover the existence of those functions.
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Re: Freecad Learning Curve?

Post by GeneFC »

One of the things that has changed dramatically over the past decade is that the ability to manufacture complex shapes has exploded many-fold due to additive processes such as 3D printing.

In the "old days" designs had to be manufacturable on typical 2-axis or 3-axis machines. Today there are few limits. That naturally means that beginners often want to immediately design complex curved shapes. The old "sketch-pad-sketch-pocket" routine just does not get it done.

The basics for FreeCAD are no more difficult than in the past. Indeed, most operations are more stable. The documentation is much better. The growing issue is that the "basics" are not enough for many newcomers.

I do not have an answer. :?

Gene
chrisb
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Re: Freecad Learning Curve?

Post by chrisb »

tonyaimer wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 3:48 pm What other views exist on this matter?
You would definitely be right, if FreeCAD was a program that was self explaining. That's what is sometimes expected nowadays, because an app on a mobile phone is like that.
Alas not only FreeCAD, but 3D modeling in general needs to be learned. 3D modeling is inherently difficult, learning it from only looking at the program, would take far too long and for sure would such a user acquire quite some bad habits.

Conclusion: 3D modeling needs advice. And then it doesn't matter if there are more specialized functions or not. I usually start teaching in Part workbench and I wouldn't care and it wouldn't even be noticed, if there was a new "Implode" command or not in the compound submenu.
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Re: Freecad Learning Curve?

Post by Bance »

Tony, you've been around for a while now.

Maybe it's time for you to start using the software, sometimes it's quicker/more intuitive to learn on the job as it were.

I look forward to helping you with your future projects. :D

Steve.
drmacro
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Re: Freecad Learning Curve?

Post by drmacro »

This unfortunately is not an easy answer. The current state of things is a combination of expectations, lack of basic concepts, etc.

I've been teaching CAD for nearly 1/2 a century. When I started, all my students were engineering and drafting professionals. We did not need to teach design skills.

These people came to a week or even two week class and learned how to create their designs in the CAD program. The class was structured to learn how to use the basic tools of the program so as to learn and build understanding from simple to complex.

One of the current expectations is that design and CAD can be learned effectively by the "poke buttons until it works" method. This doesn't work well for either design or CAD. And training material for CAD isn't going to teach design skill.

The other expectation is the "I've used other CAD, so this one has to be the same, right?" mindset. And of course we know that's not the case with FreeCAD. I don't know how you can change this. I believe training material could be improved, but, those with this mindset don't tend to have the patience to use it. And, as noted, want jump in and design JWST as their first project.

FreeCAD definitely doesn't think for you as some other programs do. If your expectations are such, then the learning curve is going to be frustrating. It also may require 3 clicks when other programs require 1. I find it amusing when I hear this complaint from people who are happy to wait for hours (even days) for a 3D print, but a few milliseconds for an extra click is to slow. 8-)

In the end, a lot of the "FreeCAD is so hard" is self induced, some is FreeCAD. The concept of "make a sketch, Pad or Extrude it, is just not that difficult. But if you download, open the program, and expect to use Curves workbench in the first 10 minutes...good luck. ;)

As noted in other threads, there are always people talking about "we should fix FreeCAD", but few with a plan or action.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Spock: "...His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking."
chrisb
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Re: Freecad Learning Curve?

Post by chrisb »

drmacro wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 10:28 am The current state of things is a combination of expectations, lack of basic concepts, etc.
I have bookmarked this.
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Zolko
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Re: Freecad Learning Curve?

Post by Zolko »

I think that some of the misconceptions comes from the differences between "learning 3D CAD" -vs- "learning FreeCAD" -vs- "learning engineering to design a sophisticated mechanical construct".

- 3D CAD is easy of you know how to draw 2D on paper.
- FreeCAD is easy if you know general 3D CAD
- engineering is hard and takes years of practice, you cannot really "learn" it.

The really difficult bit is to draw 2D on paper by hand. One should first learn to properly draw an isometric view of their idea on a piece of paper, and only THEN fire-up FreeCAD
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Re: Freecad Learning Curve?

Post by thomas-neemann »

tonyaimer wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 3:48 pm ...
I've been watching cad software for over 30 years. back then, the 2d system hp me10 was ahead of its time. i have had a lot of positive feedback from users. of all the 3d systems i've seen so far, i like it best with freecad. In my opinion, it is also ahead of its time because it is logical and with the simplest of methods, e.g. The most common thing that is drawn in 3d can only be created quickly and intuitively with draft and part. upwards without limits. parametric, fem, free-form surfaces, cam, kinematics, animation, etc
Gruß Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Thomas Neemann

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paddle
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Re: Freecad Learning Curve?

Post by paddle »

IMO freecad learning curve is steep because of some UI issue which are frustrating and requires search and time to learn.

Example :
Many constrain tools:
- horizontal distance
- vertical distance
- distance.
When the 3 could be done by one tool. As shown by Havaard suggestion which I integrated in constrain contextually.

It may seem like small things, but for the newcomer it's very annoying. I remember spending so much time launching the wrong distance command. It takes time to learn where are the commands, their shortcuts and so on. So the more you have the harder the learning.

And small streams make big rivers. There are a lot of annoying things like that and when you pile them up the result is a steep learning curve.

Another example of too many commands : point-on-object and coincidence. Both should be done by a single tool. There's absolutely no point in having 2 tools (beside liking the fact that they are two slightly separate concept and should have 2 separate tools).
Yet here we are with 2 tools. No other CAD has that but we do.

Why you ask? Because Freecad doesn't have a leadership and rely on some weird democracy-but-not-really where very few people have merging right and decisions are never really taken unless 95% of forum users say they agree.
And the problem is that forum users are specialists that know the software by heart and don't see the problem that having 10 commands just for constraining is unnecessarily painful for users for absolutely no advantages. Because of course they know the key shortcuts by heart.
So the result is a 10 page topic on the forum where people argue that coincidence and point on object are not exactly the same concept, so they should not be a single tool. I mean... Stop typing and start coding missing stuff.

For all their evils, commercial softwares like fusions have leadership and the need to be better than other CAD. So they end up with better UI.
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