Newcomer's thoughts about FreeCAD

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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sojournerman1
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Newcomer's thoughts about FreeCAD

Post by sojournerman1 »

My 2 cents worth !! I think FC is A mess having tried to use it on numerous occasions over the past couple of months and I find it quite frustrating to use (which annoys me because i can see the potential that FC has). I think 3 things need to be done the devs need to look at the way paid apps do the same jobs and code for similar workflow .
Andrew price got himself into a lot of hot water when he said a similar thing about blender and since then blender has been refining it releases that is what i hope will come from this.
To me Fc needs three core modules part , Assembly and the machine shop drawing side (drafting WB??)
Part wb Comments
1)part workbench all the tools for making a part is in the one WB Sketcher wb, part design wb, part wb all these should be one wb .there are soooooo many unnecessary clicks and mouse movements to get easy jobs done.
Using solidworks 2006(yes its old) as a bench mark it is so much easier to get things done in it.
1a) Datum(sketch planes?) planes (and you should be able to add datum planes in different ways) and the origin point should not only be visible but pickable (I have not found away to make this happen So please correct me if I'm wrong)
1b) the origin point and the datum planes should be able to be used to mate together parts in the assembly module (Which I know is under heavy development as we speak) as well as faces, edges, vertices and the central axis of a round hole or object .

there is a lot more to say and I'm tired but this should kick things off nicely
Im not doing this to be a P.I.T.a but to hopefully provoke, motivate and encourage the Devs in all their hard work
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jreinhardt
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Re: Release discussion 0.15

Post by jreinhardt »

Hi,

first of all I think that this post is not appropriate in the release discussion thread, maybe a mod could split this into a separate thread.

Second of all, IMHO ranting is not a nice, nor an particularly effective way to try to change things. Especially if it isn't accompanied by any form of engagement or effort to help.

It is true that FreeCAD is more fragmented with respect to workbenches than commercial products. This has its roots in the very modular architecture of FreeCAD, which is extremely powerful from a developer point of view. As a consequence the FreeCAD user base is quite diverse (mechanical engineers, architects, ship builders, ...) and not as homogeneous as packages that focus mainly on mechanical engineering. As the needs of these groups can be quite different, it is not necessarily a good idea to streamline too much with respect to a certain workflow. However, there is always the possibility to define custom toolbars that suit your workflow.
BOLTS, standard parts library for FreeCAD Thread, Help with Translation
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NormandC
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Re: My rant about FreeCAD

Post by NormandC »

jreinhardt wrote:first of all I think that this post is not appropriate in the release discussion thread, maybe a mod could split this into a separate thread.
Indeed. Had you not replied to it I would have considered deleting it.

If sojourneyman doesn't like the title he can change it by editing the first post.
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tanderson69
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Re: My rant about FreeCAD

Post by tanderson69 »

"Who needs action when you got words"
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bejant
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Re: My rant about FreeCAD

Post by bejant »

Even though "rant" is in the title, I don't read it as much of a rant.
sojournerman1 wrote:My 2 cents worth !! I think FC is A mess having tried to use it on numerous occasions over the past couple of months and I find it quite frustrating to use
I found it frustrating to learn too (which led me to make some tutorials).
It would probably be more helpful for you if you post whatever it is that you're trying to model and we can offer some help to get you started.
sojournerman1 wrote:To me Fc needs three core modules part , Assembly and the machine shop drawing side (drafting WB??)
The Assembly WB is being developed now, and FreeCAD already has a drafting workbench, the Draft WB. There's also a very handy and easy to use dimensioning plug-in for it, which is discussed here:
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=8395
sojournerman1 wrote:1)part workbench all the tools for making a part is in the one WB Sketcher wb, part design wb, part wb all these should be one wb .there are soooooo many unnecessary clicks and mouse movements to get easy jobs done
Sketcher WB is integrated into the Part Design WB, so I wonder if you didn't have the Sketcher toolbars enabled in the Part Design WB? (View -> Toolbars)

If you are always going back and forth between Part and Part Design WB, you're probably modeling your part in the wrong manner.
sojournerman1 wrote:1a) Datum(sketch planes?)
The Assembly WB will bring this, but you can also use the Work Features macro to create these tools:
viewtopic.php?f=22&t=9056
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quick61
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Re: My rant about FreeCAD

Post by quick61 »

sojournerman1 wrote:I think FC is A mess having tried to use it on numerous occasions over the past couple of months and I find it quite frustrating to use (which annoys me because i can see the potential that FC has).
You know the age old saying, one man's mess is another man's go to CAD application. ;)
To me Fc needs three core modules part , Assembly and the machine shop drawing side (drafting WB??)
Part wb Comments
1)part workbench all the tools for making a part is in the one WB Sketcher wb, part design wb, part wb all these should be one wb .there are soooooo many unnecessary clicks and mouse movements to get easy jobs done.
All you need to do is grab the source code, and code up a new plugin workbench that has everything you want in one place. I had mentioned this my own self in passing in the past. A "Super" Workbench that has Part, Part Design, and Draft in one workbench. All it takes is for someone to code it and post it on GitHub or some such place for everyone to use. That someone is not me however, because I suck rocks at programing. :P

Assembly? Well if you had look just a little bit, there is a plugin for that now and I and others have "assembled" some rather complex designs just fine without it. See the screenshots at the top of the FreeCAD Home Page for some examples. There is also major work being done with assembly which includes the other things you mention but that takes time to code. So it's coming though it won't be here by this afternoon, sorry.

As far as mechanical drawings, there has been a lot of improvement to the Drawing Workbench as of late and more improvement is being done, maybe as I type. Again, taking the time to look would of shown that.

I see that as I was typing, bejant replied, and I will echo what he has said. Please ask for help if your finding FreeCAD hard to use as others like my own self find just the opposite. True enough, I didn't find it easy to use for the first few weeks or so, but then something clicked and I "got it". From then on it has been a very pleasant and smooth process designing my parts, many of which get 3D printed, or Drawings made to take to the shop to be tacked up over the lathe, or used to produce Gcode for the 3 axis router, etc..

Mark
This post made with 0.0% Micro$oft products - GOT LINUX?
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TT-RS
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Re: My rant about FreeCAD

Post by TT-RS »

jreinhardt said:
It is true that FreeCAD is more fragmented with respect to workbenches than commercial products. This has its roots in the very modular architecture of FreeCAD, which is extremely powerful from a developer point of view. As a consequence the FreeCAD user base is quite diverse (mechanical engineers, architects, ship builders, ...) and not as homogeneous as packages that focus mainly on mechanical engineering. As the needs of these groups can be quite different, it is not necessarily a good idea to streamline too much with respect to a certain workflow. However, there is always the possibility to define custom toolbars that suit your workflow.
I 100% agree with that !

Solidworks also has workbenches (kinf of WBs) - "CAD module" is separated with assembly "module" and drafting "module". You have them in one ribbon, but they are separated. Of course in assembly (in SW) you can also modify your model, but this another "animal".

I think that WBs in FC should be in menu not in combobox. I mean they should be grouped in menus and submenus, as CATIA has it. For Example: solid modeling WBs, surface related WBs, manufacturing WBs (for CAM/CNC, 3Dprinting), CAE WBs (for FEM/FEA, CFD), etc. This is not the problem today, but in near future - yes, as the number of WBs is growing rapidly ;)

....but I must agree also with topic starter that FC need better planes support, etc. The solution in SW works very fine.

I also have used SW 2006, as well as older versions (from 1999 :) ) and they have (among many bugs) better functionality, but you can't compare software made by hundreds software specialists with app made by dozen (???) programmers who share they free time for it.
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NormandC
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Re: My rant about FreeCAD

Post by NormandC »

bejant wrote:Even though "rant" is in the title, I don't read it as much of a rant.
If it was not clear enough, sojournerman1 posted this in the Release discussion 0.15 topic where it had no place, as per jreinhardt reply. I split both replies into a new topic, I had to type a new topic subject and was pressed for time but this pretty much read as a rant, and we're at least two to think so.
sojournerman1 wrote:Im not doing this to be a P.I.T.a but to hopefully provoke, motivate and encourage the Devs in all their hard work
We get that you are frustrated but no motivation can be found from such a topic. It will be quickly forgotten as random noise. Honestly this has been rehashed to death, and anyone who bothers to stick around and read the existing topics will see that the developers are well aware of the situation. He will also see why we are in this situation, and why it won't be "solved" anytime soon.

And I agree 100% with what jreinhardt wrote:
jreinhardt wrote:Second of all, IMHO ranting is not a nice, nor an particularly effective way to try to change things. Especially if it isn't accompanied by any form of engagement or effort to help.
If you want to see what actual useful constructive criticism looks like, I recommend anyone interested to look at this almost 3-year old topic:
User Interface confusion.
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NormandC
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Re: Newcomer's thoughts about FreeCAD

Post by NormandC »

OK, I changed the topic title to something more neutral... :roll:
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NormandC
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Re: Newcomer's thoughts about FreeCAD

Post by NormandC »

TT-RS wrote:I think that WBs in FC should be in menu not in combobox.
Already planned by jriegel, don't have the time to dig up the topic, hopefully you can find it.
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