A considered response to some comments on my Ondsel/FreeCAD video. This was also prompted by a great video response from 4 Axis Printing, which can be found here: ua-cam.com/video/KsMKLAitSwE/v-deo.html I consider this video to be well communicated, fair and honest. Workflows of an experienced user are shown and hard limitations are acknowledged. I thank 4 Axis Printing for making it and I will reference it below. Firstly, a misconception about my video: I did not do any research when using FreeCAD/Ondsel. As mentioned in the video, I did in fact spend a lot of time looking up things I was frustrated by. I spent time on the wiki trying to understand the different workbenches and why you even need them, and for each individual limitation I identified I went through the forums to double check the feature was actually missing. Whenever I am making a video portraying something in a negative way, I try to be very diligent in making sure the problem is real and also exists for others. I reject the idea that my criticisms were solely related to my inexperience. Let’s address the specific limitations I identified in my video. 1. No midpoint constraint. A lot of people said I should use a symmetric constraint. The symmetric constraint exists in other CAD packages and can be used in the same way. Doing so is a workaround. My workaround was to use two construction lines, coincident with the geometry I wanted to be centred, and set them to equal. You can get the job done with either of these methods, but the fact remains that a midpoint constraint does not exist and workflow would be easier and more efficient with it. Please see the video I’ve posted at the bottom. Can anyone honestly say FreeCAD/Ondsel would not be improved by adding a proper midpoint snapping/constraint? 2. One shape/feature per sketch. I have yet to see anyone dispute this. In my opinion it is the biggest drawback to FreeCAD/Ondsel. 4 Axis Printing demonstrates a workaround for this (similar to mine but with more skill) but it is clear how much more involved the process is. Modelling the second example is a trivial job in Onshape and other proprietary CAD packages. It is simple and intuitive. In FreeCAD, an experienced user has to jump through multiple hoops to achieve the same thing, but with the risk of parts breaking with future edits. I was also frustrated by many commenting that I needed to use the external geometry tool when this was clearly demonstrated in the video! My gripe with this approach is that the referenced portions are magenta, and not able to be used for pads/extrusions. Therefore, you have to draw what you want again and use constraints to match the externally referenced components. More clicks, more time, needlessly in my opinion. 3. Manual management of bodies. Again, this one didn’t really receive much attention in the comments. Yes, you can handle it yourself, but you don’t have to in almost any other CAD option. More clicks, more time, more complication. 4. No timeline. In my video I said that the Ondsel/FreeCAD tree view was not strictly in chronological order because some items were nested. That is still correct. I did search for timeline functionality for FreeCAD, but came up empty. Forum posts said it was missing. Commenters, however, pointed out that you can right click and use ‘set tip’ in FreeCAD. Not only did I not come across this when searching, but it is only present if you have the ‘Part Design’ workbench selected, not the ‘Part’ workbench. That one is on me, but in my defence the implementation is counterintuitive and obscure. The visual slider found in other options is easier to use and understand. 5. Topological naming problem. This is an acknowledged problem for which I showed the wiki article. I’m glad to hear fixes to the underlying architecture are in the works. Besides the ‘set tip’ workflow, I stand by all of my criticism of Ondsel/FreeCAD communicated in the video. If you still disagree, please consider two specific questions: 1. All of the industry standard CAD programs conform to an ‘industry standard’ workflow. FreeCAD/Ondsel is different, but is that better? In my opinion, the other options have converged on this workflow because it is the best one. That is why it is easy to switch between them with only temporary inconveniences. As explained in the video, that is the most I’ve ever used Fusion 360, but it was simple to pick up and create what I wanted. Ondsel and FreeCAD were the opposite. So where is the advantage in how FreeCAD/Ondsel modelling is approached? How will the user accomplish more, or do so in a more intuitive and efficient way? I see in 4 Axis Printing’s video that workarounds are possible, but the process takes longer and is more complex. Why choose this alternate path if the end result is diminished? Why do the Ondsel or the Realthunder variations exist if vanilla FreeCAD has no problems? Consider this situation in a different way. If a 3D printer was launched that required the user to jump through hoops, read manuals and tinker a lot, but didn’t print any better than other options on the market, it would be rightly criticised for being inferior. When people were frustrated, no one would say it was a skill issue, they would expect the product to improve. 2. Why is FreeCAD/Ondsel not so much more popular? Although not a dealbreaker for me, I acknowledge the legitimate concerns many people have about Onshape and Fusion360 being tied to the cloud, and the risk of them removing features without notice in future. This should mean that a CAD option that is 100% free and can run 100% locally should be the easy winner, but in reality it is not. Some commenters were upset by the video, but there were just as many who shared my conclusion. The like ratio for the video is still above 96%, so I am confident that my opinion on the state of Ondsel/FreeCAD is not an anomaly. It is also shared by my fellow UA-camrs in Angus Deveson and Tom Sanladerer. Could the reason that the free and open source option is not popular is because it is simply not as good? That users are expected to jump through extra hoops, read wikis and troubleshoot cryptic errors, whereas in other options, you just design and model stuff? That it is so frustrating and limited that the vast majority of people will seek other solutions, if they are tied to corporate entities. I expect and accept others won’t always have the same view as me, but I would hope they do so constructively and fairly. There were too many commenters who clearly didn’t watch the video, or were disingenuous in their responses. Some people were commenting the same thing repeatedly to try and flood the comment section. Others acted as if the symmetric constraint workaround negated everything else I said. When I was reading through the FreeCAD forums, as I mentioned in the video, it was not uncommon to find responses to reasonable questions like ‘read the manual’, or ‘it’s open source so make whatever changes you like yourself’. A less than welcoming community might be another reason the free options are not more popular. Not to say there aren’t generous and talented people in these communities. The trouble is the bad ambassadors tend to leave a stronger impression. In the end, it comes down to the question I posed in the video: Your willingness to adopt open source solutions vs your efficiency and productivity. 4 Axis Printing’s video did a great job of demonstrating how to model my test pieces skilfully in FreeCAD, but it also showed me that it is going to take extra time and extra steps to achieve the same things. Some people commented that it would be fairer to showcase and compare two experienced users’ workflow in Onshape and FreeCAD/Ondsel. Here is a 70 second video of me modelling the second example: ua-cam.com/video/vYDVphD3rDU/v-deo.html I tried to keep the same pacing: efficient, no unnecessary pauses, but not rushing and still with some commentary. What takes 70 seconds in Onshape takes three and a half minutes in FreeCAD (6:00 to 9:30), with many extra little steps and gotchas. Even if we ignore the time taken, watch each video and make a list of the steps required. Ask yourself how the final model, or the user experience is improved by all of the extra steps and nuances. Now imagine an inexperienced user who doesn’t know those workarounds. Then consider this is just a very simple part, with only one body. The differences and nuances will only be exaggerated from here. One more thing to consider: my background and perspective. I have been using CAD for over twenty years, from back when I started studying Industrial Design at University in 2001, using Solidworks. I also spent eleven years as a primary and secondary school teacher, and at each school one of my jobs was to implement 3D modelling into the curriculum. Therefore, I have spent a lot of time over the years testing and evaluating free CAD options, as well as seeing how easily they were picked up by students and my fellow teachers. Judging through that lens, Ondsel/FreeCAD would be a long way down the preference list when selecting CAD to teach in a school. Teachers and students want to spend their precious time working creatively and actually designing their ideas, not searching for workarounds to obscure and counter intuitive software. I think it’s pretty clear that the average hobbyist feels the same way. To repeat what I said in the video, when FreeCAD/Ondsel is developed a lot more to the point where it can compete, I will gladly throw my weight behind it and promote it on the channel. I applaud the commitment and effort of the developers, and I hope in time an outcome is achieved that is satisfactory for all.
Agree, unfortunately I have to use Freecad because I use Linux and the cloud options have an uncertain future as history has shown, you can do most things a real cad can but everything is more complicated and takes more time and yes the devs seem a little hostile when asked why don't you do this like every other cad does it?
I think some of your points are not important unless you really expect/require the same workflow. Which is a fair point, learning to think in new systems is effort. However that doesn't make a different way of doing things inferior - It is not like Solidwork users enjoy the switch to Autodesk products either. For instance use FreeCAD enough and you won't even notice the lack of midpoint, as there are so many other ways to define a midpoint, you won't even notice the concept is missing as you just do it with the constraints at hand. And many of the other issues and gotcha go away when you approach using FreeCAD the right way for FreeCAD. (Edit: part of which from what I've seen of how you are working is to actually use the parametric and math function capabilities for dimensions and the right type of constraints to make the geometry adjust with the part the expected way. FreeCad for me is my preferred CAD because it suits how I think. But then I like OpenSCAD too, which I know lots of people really can't get to grips with (Not enough I'd call myself at all proficient with OpenSCAD really, but editing a master's work to my needs is easy to me as I understand the logic, just haven't really learned the language well enough).) No software is perfect, more than a few gotcha's in the others too and while FreeCAD certainly has its share of limitations some rather more awkward than others it is is ever evolving and improving. But if you match your methods to the tool it is already quite capable and you are not looking for workarounds as the way it works and you are thinking to use the tool match. Where trying to use the metaphorical FreeCAD rasp exactly the same way you would use the chisel of another program it is going to feel inferior.
I tried to like Freecad. I really did. But it just makes things too hard. I was going to power on anyway because $$$. But Maker's Muse just compared a lot of CAD tools, and thanks to the comments section on that video, I'm going to give Solid Edge Community Edition from Siemens a try next. (A video about that package would be welcome, Michael!)
Michael, I appreciate your testing of FreeCAD and respect your decision that it's not for you. I think the problem though, is that you present FreeCAD as a choice that's not for anyone because it's less efficient and more difficult to work with. You're correct that it's less efficient and more difficult to work with, but this is not the sole consideration many of us have. I use FreeCAD exclusively. And the reason is because I am a hobbyist and I cannot pay annually for something like Fusion360, and I absolutely REFUSE to use any software that forces my data to leave my computer. I will not now, and will not EVER use anything that makes me share the project, save it to the cloud, or requires an internet connection for authorizations and updates. No sir. I own my projects and no one else does, and no one else will ever get their hands on my creations no matter what unless I voluntarily want to share it. To me, Fusion 360, Solidworks, and many others are simply not on the table at all for me for those reasons. Yes, FreeCAD was difficult to learn and requires a specific workflow, but I've now gotten very comfortable with it and can create exactly what I need without any errors at all, albeit probably slower than some other packages. But that's totally worth it because my files stay with me. You say you are a big advocate of free and open source software, and I respect that. But it's probably more truthful to say you're an advocate of FOSS only if it doesn't exceed some inconvenience level for you. I respect that choice as well, but let's label it for what it is.
Hi Michael, more respect, understanding, and consideration is needed when reviewing the product of what largely comes from volunteers with typically high levels of social conscience. While factual and fair in your review, your frustrations are in your tone. It would be nice to have something that is free and open source that is a viable alternative to Onshape, but no one wants to pay enough money for it. You would get less polarisation from the community if being more considerate. Also, you can't compare open source hardware to FOSS software, open source hardware companies still make money from sales. FOSS software does not.
Hi Michael, thanks a lot, this is really useful feedback! Most complaints you have are perfectly valid and many are on the TODO list. Some are easier to implement, some are inherited deeply ingrained design decisions, and we need to tread carefully there (e.g. one shape/feature per sketch). The toponaming issue is being actively worked on, you will likely see real results around late spring. A few quick notes. The same Tasks panel on the right where you start a sketch from scratch has commands specific for a selected object or geometry. For example, when you select a face, the topmost option is to start a sketch from it. That's a major workflow notion in FreeCAD and Ondsel ES. We already implemented the quick measure feature a few weeks back, it's coming in the next release. Thanks again :)
I was glad to hear a response from Ondsel on this video. I am currently a Fusion user with a paid 'legacy' subscription, but when I heard about Ondsel, it sounded very interesting and I intend to at least look at it. I am especially interested if the FEA features of FreeCAD were incorporated in Ondsel. I will follow the future development of Ondsel with interest.
@@Ondsel Thank you for that clarification. And could you clarify the cost of the 'Enterprise' version of Ondsel? Your website says '$200 + $10 / User / Month'. Does this mean $200 annually with an additional $10/month for a single user?
FreeCAD is what you get when software is designed from the inside out instead of the outside in. This is something Steve Jobs figured out very early. Determine what the ideal user experience should be, then build the software under that. FreeCAD is what happens when you build the functions first and the interface last, which is why we have a wall of buttons and the interface is constrained by the logical structure of the underlying software. Ondsel looks like it's making an effort to improve that and I hope they continue to make progress. It certainly looks promising.
To be fair, I think this is a common problem among open source projects, because people are mostly focused on solving technical problems rather than forging user experience. I get it.
@@ydoucare55 it is relatively common in open source projects but just like commercial products, if it is hard or complicated to use, people just won’t use it. If they want people to adopt their software then they need to make it an attractive option.
To get what users really need you would have to conduct surveys and test groups, since it's rare to have someone who both has experience as a professional user and UI/UX design without a bias as a developer. This becomes hard to do with minimal to no funds. Even commercial companies can struggle with this.
@@Ether_Void Yes, that's a great point,. That's kind of where I was going with the reply about it being common among open source projects, just not enough resources available to worry much beyond the technical challenges.
I’ve used FreeCAD for so long that I’ve grown so proficient around it’s flaws that I prefer it to my recent introduction to Solidworks lol. Eventually that might change as I alter the settings and set up all the key bindings, but I’ll be cheering for the free program all the way.
Agreed, the learning curve was steep and painful but once you understand it, I actually think it's easier to master. Where as, fusion was easy to learn the basics but had constant issues when models got more complex. The problem is fusion allowed bad practice and with it's interface even encouraged it. So yea, all the issues were my fault but I had no idea why I did it wrong.
Mid-point is not conceptionally equivalent to Symmetry. Mid-point aims to constrain 'middle' of a line (A point which the line can be split to two in equal length), to a vertex. Symmetry aims to constrain two vertices to be at equal distance from a vertex/line, mirrored and flipped (or in case of axis symmetry, mirror or flipped) Mid-point allows arc-to-point constrain while Symmetry does not by itself (It'll need distance constrain to mimic Mid-point behavior)
The symmetry tool will still create a midpoint between two fixed points. So while they may not be conceptually exactly the same, you can still get the same end result at the sacrifice of 2-3 extra clicks.
I was at the FreeCAD conference at FOSDEM 2024, seems like they're finally adressing the topo naming issue, hope that'll be fixed soon. I wish great luck to all FreeCAD and Ondsel contributors.
It's been 12+ years since they first said they intend to address the topological naming problem, and exactly nothing has come of it in mainline FreeCAD because they refuse to acknowledge fixing it will require reworking most if not all of the core of the application, as has been shown with RealThunder's work on that very topic.
@@jeremiahbullfrog9288and years, and years, and years, and years, and years. With Ondsel having VC funding and an explicit goal of fixing the topo problem, hopefully this will be the year that it FINALLY gets fixed instead of just talked about.
This is pretty much a documentary of my experience with Ondsel. Watched the announcement video the day it came out, downloaded the zipped file, eventually found the executable, got frustrated at the lack of a midpoint constraint, worked around that by using two construction lines with equal lengths, tried extruding (took a while to find "pad") and failed because of the selection issues you mentioned. I gave up immediately after that. You clearly have more patience. I also really hope that the Ondsel team manages to sand down all of the many remaining rough edges. In the meantime, an interesting use case is importing STEP files from other programs and using Ondsel for free FEA. Haven't tried it myself though. The Ondsel team is doing great work, for free, for everyone. That should recieve a standing ovation together with constructive criticism that will help Ondsel improve. I hope one day this turns into and open project like blender but for parametric CAD.
I don't understand why this so difficult to find. It is called a symmetry constraint and you can put a point in the middle with it. Do I miss something here?
@@theincapable Yes. You are in a bubble of toxic positivity where the clear deal breakers bounce off of you because you manage to nit pick something it turns out is still a problem because its not obvious at all whereas it is in every other piece of software. That is an endemic problem of freecad not a problem with Michael.
@@BeefIngot Yes this is typical in many opensource projects. I will never forget Gimp refusing to let go of their ridiculous modal UX despite almost the entire planet saying "this sucks" the core developers refused to change it because "it's my software and I like it that way" - and to be fair, that's totally fine, but then don't go around telling everyone they are wrong about subjective issues while trying to hype everyone into using it when it's usability is fundamentally broken. And as you say users looking for things which are mysteriously named in opposition to the rest of the entire industry is broken. Blaming the user is a straw man.
> got frustrated at the lack of a midpoint constraint you select a line and a point and press 's'! or you select two outer points and then select a third point and press 's'
I've got to say that your experience with FreeCAD is not too dissimilar from mine, although I've powered through and continued using it as my main CAD tool, thanks in large part to MangoJelly. While there are some points where the limitations you've found do actually have solutions, I see an attitude in some of these comments that I find a lot on freecad forum posts, which is that because there is *an* existing workflow to do something, it does not warrant improvement or streamlining. I run into this the most with constraints, where having a built-in constraint for something like bisecting an angle would be very useful, but instead you have to build a bunch of construction geometry to get what you want. There are also a lot of operations where FreeCAD just falls on its face and errors out, where other CAD packages have enough error handling or edge case awareness to do things like add fillets or chamfers in places without perfect geometry.
I find that attitude that you're speaking of the same "love of celebrity" that people have in Hollywood and, now, politics! People wish to defend their favourite celebrity, no matter the logic... people wish to defend their favourite software, no matter the logic.
@@christophergrove4876 Partly because you would need to abandon FreeCAD and start from scratch. You would need to rewrite most of the manuals, documentation, etc. Perfect is the enemy of good enough. User base is important too. There is DesignSpark Mechanical based on SpaceClaim. It is cheap or very free. How many people use it?
4:28 FreeCAD has you import existing geometry into your sketch rather than it already being available to constrain to. The button with the cube and the line offset from it, about the middle of the screen in the bottom row of the toolbar, is the tool you use to import existing geometry into a sketch Edit: looks like he figured this out by 9:19
Those videos are unfair. They compare the proprietary tools they are used to (which are objectively better in terms of UI) to FreeCAD without even spending time to learn it. And since there is not the same function with the same icon they jump to the conclusion that something cannot be done.
@@TheGentlemanRider Not unfair. Just realistic. @Michael My past experience with FreeCAD and concurrent solutions makes me fully agree with you on every point you document here. Despite FreeCAD fanboys say, your video is totally fair in its way of comparing the options and is based on pure facts. Thanks for your work. I myself have spent countless hours (adding up to weeks if not months at the end of the day) trying to adopt FreeCAD for many years, studying its "documentation", reading tons of blogs here and there. Each of my attempts ended in a huge frustration and me swearing "never again". But nevertheless, I tried again with almost every new release, hoping some progress would have been here to make my frustration a thing of the past. Although there were some, the same story repeated again and again on each attempt. In addition to the numerous bugs and weirdness, FreeCAD UI is a mess. Why so many different workbenches, some of them (Part and Part design for instance) giving the feeling to have overlapping roles ? I'm quite used to Blender, having touched it for the first time when its UI was Klingon style, having absolutely no similarity with what was in use at that time. Same for Gimp. None of them never left me with such a frustration. Having entered the 3D printing world 3+ years ago, I then needed a productive (although it's a hobby) way to design parts for an educational body I'm actively volunteering. Some of them being functional (i.e. mechanisms), I needed some efficient way to manage constraints, assemblies and parametric stuff, because Sketchup, TinkerCAD and friends were not good enough at that. Being unsatisfied by having ditched FreeCAD so many times and having an after-taste of failure, I gave it one more chance. I spent countless hours again, but same player shoots again and same result. At the end of the day, I have been using OpenSCAD for modeling a 3D printed collection of simplified buildings for a more than 3 x 2 meters 1/100 scale model used as support for several educational public facing activities. Then I discovered OnShape by accident, thanks to a Alex Chapel's UA-cam channel, and gave it a try. I've had no need to read its documentation (BTW very clear, accurate and, above all, -- FreCAD, I'm looking at you 😡) to produce my first functional parts (quite complex ones) in just a couple of hours, thanks to its rather intuitive workflow. I've just extrapolated from what I've remembered from FreeCAD WRT workflow, and also from some far remembering of SolidWorks. At least, I'm now able to bring my ideas to reality in no time. OnShape is maybe proprietary, and I'm not very happy with the fact that my models cannot be stored locally (apart in SolidWorks format, which I've no access to). But it works, it is rather pleasant to use and it has never insulted me with cryptic error messages even when doing pretty basic stuff. I'm surely doing something wrong (or at least not inline with its way of thinking), but if so, it should be able to forbid me doing it beforehand rather that shouting absolutely helpless messages with no clue about fixing the problem and doing things right. I deeply respect people behind FreeCAD and am hugely grateful for their involvement (I know what volunteering means 😉), but I'm sorry to come to the conclusion that it's not at the same level at all (not to speak of the complete lack of a decent assembly tool). I'm a strong advocate of open source. All my machines are running on Linux (which makes me impossible to test Fusion360). All my personal projects are publicly published. I contribute to some FOSS projects too. I'm a big fan of Blender, Gimp and friends for an eternity now. So I'm not here to say that the only option is proprietary solutions, far from it. But at a moment, we have to open our eyes and admit the reality, even if it's not pleasant. I do hope that FreeCAD will be able to fix its problems some day. Maybe Ondsel would be the way. I'll keep on giving a try to both of them until one of them will be able to convince me to switch from OnShape. But I'm afraid it will not be tomorrow unfortunately.
i think the freecad tool is better for this, actually. for example, in onshape, you can reference existing lines and arcs, but only to a certain depth. you can get around this by using constraints to constrain a point to another point, but it is annoying and takes forever
I've been learning the realthunder branch on FreeCAD for a few months now because it fixes the typologic naming problem, but it's still rough. That's my biggest barrier for entry, personally.
I've been using that branch for over a year now and the topology naming improvements were why I stuck with it. Being able to reassign reference geometry, instead of having to delete and re-do it and re-do EVERY constraint that was attached to it, is an immense time (and sanity) saver. Now the versions are getting closer to each other and the latest versions of realthunder's aren't far behind the main version, which is great news because it reduces the differences. But it's a fact that getting into either version is a tough time. MangoJelly and JokoEngineeringHelp make a lot of tutorials that can give great insight into the obscurity and caveats. Although I think only Joko had some tutorials that feature realthunder's version vs the default version.
@@BeefIngot If you know FreeCAD Part Design well you know how to make very robust parametric modelling history, especially together with the spreadsheet module. Number one rule for beginners was to make filllets and chamfers at the end of modelling and stick sketches to planes insted of faces. And the sketcher workbench is improving fast. But yes, I would not see FreeCAD as a very intuitive software yet.
@@BeefIngot because the kinds of people who are willing to make huge sacrifices to productivity in order to avoid using commercial tools includes a lot of people who do so for ideological reasons. (Not saying everyone, by any means, but you just don't see that same ideological motivation in the user base of say Fusion 360 or OnShape.) Being ideologically motivated often leads to forming an identity around the tool and the community. And when your choice in CAD tools becomes part of your identity, any criticism of that tool, no matter how small, by someone outside "the community", is viewed as an attack on you personally. Queue hundreds of commenters nit-picking Michael's well-reasoned and constructively presented review over silly things like failing to use the official "FreeCAD Community Approved" workaround for FreeCAD's missing midpoint constraint feature.
As a regular freecad user this was really interesting. First, for midpoint you probably wanted the symmetry constraint. I didn't know there was a midpoint constraint which is probably why I struggled finding the symmetry constraint in onshape. Second, the multiple geometry in a sketch problem is easily solved with exports. Selection could be easier like what you showed but finding the feature was a game changer for me. Third, using points as external geometries has saved me a lot of headaches. Lines are frustrating unless you want to make something coincident, perpendicular, or parallel. If you want to match, the points make more sense because the points are what's actually the constraint you want to match. These hurdles are probably because they're a different approach to the problem which you wouldn't know to look for based on you experience and knowledge in other platforms. Conversely for me looking back, I find the timeline feature in fusion and onshape infuriating. I often get so fed up I just delete everything and start from scratch. The topology approach definitely is frustrating for filets and drawing off existing faces(use datum planes, your life will be easier) but it's much easier for building parts in my opinion. Stacking Legos just makes more sense to me. For what it's worth, if you read the topology thing you're probably aware, but the "topology problem" is actually tied to how edges and faces are defined internally. They get incremental numbered IDs. Drawing off faces will actually run into the same problem which is why datum planes are so important. If freecad used a timeline it would currently run into the same problem because the names would change as things changed earlier in the timeline. There are several forks trying to address this and they definitely improve it but its still a big problem and you do have to make sure you have to do a couple things like using datum planes, external geometry, and applying filets at the very end, etc. Anyways, looking forward to trying this new fork! Exciting to see an open source alternative gaining traction and getting some much needed improvements.
Oh... the export functionality is apparently in the realthunder fork only. I'd been using it for so long I didn't realize it wasn't in the main branch and its not in Ondsel which yeah... that's really frustrating.
@@neclimdulI think your experience with the timeline is related to the fact that you primarily use free CAD. In general the approach to most CAD programs is that you build up an object through multiple operations. The timeline concept allows you to change the history of how that object was built, and therefore building off of faces and other parts of objects is not just done, but encouraged as the best practice. The fact that freecad's engine is set up the way it is forces it to not allow this kind of approach which is why you see so many people frustrated with it.
@@falxonPSN 100%. software development with a little drafting experience, then tinkercad, then freecad. I _understand_ the idea of the timeline, its just a lot more complicated. Like, I don't get to modify time on a regular basis (not a timetraveler) but I've been gluing things together for 40 years. I just made more sense. I'm sure with years of banging my head against it, timelines would make sense and I'd be very efficient with them. I think that just highlights the point he was making about perspective though.
@@neclimdul You're not alone, same boat here. I kind of feel like in some way FreeCAD's workflow comes from being pretty intuitive to software devs (who wrote the thing, without some kind of external guidance for UI design). At least for me the parameter/spreadsheet/datum-based workflow of FreeCAD feels a lot more programming-like and is way easier to get parametric parts that don't break constantly out of than Fusion360, for anything more complex.
@@falxonPSN That is how you do it in FreeCAD. In fact this multiple-operation workflow is even more important, as FreeCAD uses multiple sketches rather than allowing compound operations from a single sketch. The stack is your timeline, where your most current operation is the tip. You can go to any operation in the stack and modify it, and the stack will recompute (as per timeline). However, there is a long-standing bug, the "topo-naming" bug that comes up to cause breakages due to internal naming conventions for objects. The RealThunder branch provided a solution to this, and has been instrumental in getting a fix, that hopefully is nearing merge with the main. This is expected by the 1.0 release.
Because of you and your awesome videos I learned OnShape. Nowhere near a professional but I'm able to create most of what I envision. Looking forward to learning more about Ondsel as a free alternative! Thanks for making these videos.
I am blown away by the measured, principled approach to this testing. Your experience with FreeCAD mirrors my own. I really wanted it to be usable, so it took me a while to accept it was not a “skill issue”. Thanks for sharing this.
The confusing part comparing Ondsel to FreeCAD for the reviewers who aren't familiar with FreeCAD (or plugged into the FC community) is Ondsel os based on the recent development versions of FC. Thus they don't know which are Ondsel features and which are new features only in FreeCAD development releases. From what I've seen based on @MangoJellySolutions videos about new features better auto constraints and native assembly are current development release features.
You make fair and informed points about the weaknesses of FreeCAD/Ondsel. I appreciate the hard work the developers do for FreeCAD and welcome Ondsel and hope they are successful.
Don't get me wrong, but how are these points informed? They might be fair, but not much more. Let me give you an example: He used construction lines in Fusion and Onshape, but not in FreeCAD. Instead, he complained about the difficulty of its sketch tool. Construction lines exist in FreeCAD too. He explicitly said he had to look up how to use them in Fusion. Why would you not look up the same thing for FreeCAD?! To be clear: I think it's fair to criticize the difficult use of a tool, but you simply cannot objectively compare tools if you know one by heart, read the documentation on another, and give up at the first hurdle in the third. Also, as a long time user of FreeCAD I am very biased.
@@jonathan-c5h2galso not finding the symmetry constraint when looking the center something constraint. It’s just an upsie on his end, not a fault in the program or ux. It was just there, he didn’t know the name of the thing he wanted. Googling “middle point freeCAD” would have solved his issue in 20 seconds
To make the other sketch able to be constrained to the previous face in FreeCAD, pull up the grometry into the current sketch using the plunger looking tool.
As someone who learned freecad from scratch and spent months on it, you jumped in without any tutorial I do agree the interface is a pain and there are many unpolished features with nonsense developer error messages but you would have a lot easier time if you just knew seen a single tutorial 1. If you knew about external geometry button you would have had a much better time 2. Timeline is possible by selecting an operation in the tree and pressing space (weirdly there is no gui for it?) and basically hide/show which operation you want, then you do your hole or whatever 3. Midpoint constraint is creating a point and symmetry contrain it between the line points, it should definitely exist but it does not AFAIK I do not want to bash the video as it is quite good but i feel like these could be an addendum that could help someone learn it and see for themselves is it good enough for them
Thank you for this! I hope both teams will drive each other to great heights, with accelerated improvements for everyone to enjoy. It did just occur to me that if I can get an AI to control Freecad or Ondsel for me, all remaining annoyances will melt away. Any workarounds would need to be applied by that framework, as fast as my system would allow, so I get near-instant visual feedback from my commands. 2025 will be amazing.
As a Linux user, FreeCAD is my only real choice as I don't want to to use a website to create 3D models. I've been using it for over a year now and it has improved over that time. I'm currently using the 0.22 dev version and that also has the assembly WB. Since October last year I've started a new job which requires me to use CATIA v5 and I think that having some knowledge of CAD via FreeCAD has really helped me learn some of the tools.
I've jumped to Linux a few months ago, and I'm still running Fusion in a VM (with GPU passthrough). It's far from a perfect solution, but still not inconvenient enough to push me over to FreeCAD just yet.
I think you vastly underestimate what a “website” can accomplish and how it performs. Outside of the license considerations and the network connectivity, I can't see any reason to not use onShape, a “website” instead of FreeCAD/OndSel. (It's not 1994 anymore, the web has evolved) Seriously, try it... I'm sure you'll be amazed if you stick to it.
My thoughts exactly. I haven't run a Windows computer in over a decade, and I don't intend to switch so I can use Fusion. I am also sad about what they have done to neuter eagle, as I used that a lot as well.
I’ve been using FreeCAD for years and still loathe so much of how it works. But I run Linux as well so not much choice. Gonna try to learn OpenSCAD soon to see if it’s easier for me to design with. Coding tends to be something I like to do
@@Thorou Im also moving to linux (Am a dev as a day job so I get on fine) and it looks like I'll need to do the same seeing not only this video but the toxic replies and a complete laco of rebuttals for the core issues raised. Does it work as well as native? Any oddities? Have you tried wine?
FreeCAD definitely has a rough time prepared for beginners. I probably only got into it at all because I eventually managed to get into Blender too. Which back then was just as obscure and needed tons of tutorials for some of the most basic things. But with Ondsel alongside to FreeCAD now, I'm fairly confident that just like with Blender, it'll get there 🎉
The difference is that blender has a strong centralized managed organization. We have also set themselves up to have a consistent revenue stream with which to have a set of paid core developers. Frankly the blender model is one that every open source product should try to copy if it can.
As a studying UI/UX designer this video is awesome! It goes over what's an issue and what's not really an issue but something that is a migration mishap etc.
“Set tip”…. That’s really intuitive. It would be really confusing if it said something like…I dunno….”rollback”?! It’s stuff like this that makes FreeCAD and its relatives just ridiculously obscure and unintuitive for new users. And there’s no good reason for it: just bad Ui and Ux design.
I have been forcing myself to use free cad over the last month. I really wanted something I could use at home and work without worrying about commercial use problems. However, even though I've overcome a lot of the limitations you pointed out, it is not easy or intuitive and takes me far longer than it ever did in on shape or fusion or even solid works. I'm going to keep using it for now and just hope that it gets easier and better over time.
I began parametric CAD with early version of SolidEdge and changed to FreeCad after school when the FreeCAD projekt vas very young(version 0.11). Oh my goodness that time FreeCAD was crude and also the tech draw module was not there. After many years of (somtimes slow) improvements I learnd to love it more and more. So I use FreeCad for many years, and it has improved much, especially the last two years. And Ondsel pushed development further. My wishes for FreeCAD 1.0: - solving topological naming problem - is under development - easy assembly workflow with and without 3D solver. - is also somehow on the plan. - improving complex fillets and chamfers - this will be the most difficult part because it depends mostly on the old opencascade 3D-kernel. - overall polishing in the user interface and intuitive workflow especially for new users.
@@martind.5061 I appreciate the insight. Yeah it would be nice with naming problems assuming that is the same problem I've ran into where I make an alteration and because the edge number is changed all my fillets are broken would be fixed. That alone would be a game changer.
I had no drawing or 3D modelling experience when I first tried using Fusion 360. Things were not as intuitive as people with previous CAD experience claimed. Then came the change in the free use agreement with Fusion 360 and I decided that I will not put time into a platform that could take away my access. So I looked at FreeCAD. And yes it was a struggle. I had to do exercises to learn how to do things the Freecad way. But once you understand the methodology it does work. And some things work very well when it comes to make revisions of complex parts.
I have migrated to Alibre cad as the middle ground. One time license fee and almost everything I need and learnt it in an afternoon moving from Fusion 360
@alefoot Thing is, I have modeld fairly complex parts without ever resorting to boolean function. Just yesterday I finished designing a telescope dovetail clamp with a moveable jaw, no boolean required
@@alefoot I just installed Alibre for the first time today, did sketch (circle), then Extrude with Cut. Isn't that a boolean operation? SO far, I'm very impressed with how easy Alibre is to use.
Thanks for this. It clearly articulates why I gave up on FreeCAD. I was using the realthunder fork, after a couple of months the standard version. I was able to make a few simple parts with it, but it was a constant frustration of cryptic error messages and fragile parts that would blow up from small changes. When my hard drive crashed, taking my FreeCAD parts with it, I decided to try something else. I don't like AutoDesk holding my part geometry hostage, but I also like being able to actually make stuff. And that wins. Hours of scouring the FreeCAD documentation and repairing formerly working models have been replaced with designing things. Even at free, FreeCAD costs too much, if you count the extra time required to get anything to work.
This right here is a great comment that encapsulates why I've only tried switching in theory. I just do not get the toxic positivity gentoo linux bro type folks willing to put on the blinders to tell people its somehow a user problem that the software is completely unintuitive and requires a significantly higher mental workload to use alongside figuring out all the weird unique _qualities_
This is a real problem that is faced solely by users who migrate from other CAD packages, for me there is no additional effort, I use the same number of button presses to make a part in FreeCAD as I do in Fusion360 and there are no considerations that I'm holding in my mind to make things continue working. I've modeled anything from small parts to extruders to entire 3d printers, with assemblies. In the same way you (A user who presumably started with another piece of software) can find FreeCAD extremely difficult and unintuitive, I feel the same way about Fusion360.
@@ballbous You just said that you can do things in the same number of keystrokes, but then in the same comment said that you find fusion just as difficult. Which is it? It was so simple to find that contradiction in what is obviously yet another toxic positivity "freecads faults are user error" comment, yet here it is. Just disappointing. There are inarguably problems with freecad, like just the fact alone that you have one body per sketch is a nightmare. yes, I know the workarounds. They suck. Its massively slower for a whole lot of tasks and its not the only thing. People ignoring problems like this to act like they'd be just as fast is absurd. Like, one thing I'd love to see anyone do, is point out where Freecad is better than any other proprietary option other than its price tag, because all I see is the lie that its just as convenient or the apologetics that its not that bad. I listed a concrete examples so lets hear you list something that isn't more RtFm UsEr BaD yea?
I think the UI of Onshape and Fusion is so much closer to standard software such as word processors or spreadsheets than the competition, be it FreeCAD/Ondsel, SolidEdge etc. You click on stuff to highlight it, and then there are reasonable, intuitive options that are reachable through context menus and buttons. I am happy to RTFM, but unfortunately, that didn't help in many cases (case in point is the project sketch issue that Michael had).
There's something really magical about Fusion 360. I used Inventor for years but have been seduced by Fusion 360 Free for home / hobby use. It runs really slow on my computers yet somehow invites me to design new stuff in ways that Inventor never did. It has it's issues and potentially ugly 'movement of goalposts' within subscription tiers. But it's a beautiful interface and workflow - which should be experienced by anyone evaluating CAD options.
Remember that user friendly is NOT the same as beginner friendly. Personally I like the comfort of knowing that in 10 years I can still open the sketches I make today without worrying about companies changing license models or going bust.
FreeCAD isn't friendly for anyone. Not a beginner and not a 30 year veteran. I guarantee you that anyone with a couple of months of experience using a decent commercial CAD package like Fusion, Onshape or Shapr3D can model anything/everything faster than the top developers or users of FreeCAD/Ondsell 100% of the time. Likely 2-5 times faster in most cases.
@@espressomaticHmm... Do not forget that most people do not need all bells and whistles of "professional" software, and are perfectly happy with FreeCAD, even if it has limitations. I only had to repeat a few things, but was working with the program within a few hours. So while it has a learning curve, it was not that hard to learn. Personally, I use FreeCAD (and now trying out the Ondsel version) for casings and sometimes weird formed parts in consumer electronics. I can create things fast and a few minutes later the parts are printed on a 3D printer. I use the program on a daily base and, as said, can work fast and comfortable with it. I get it that it's not for everyone, but the program has all I need. I do not need the programs that want you to make a account and track all stuff you do, impose limitations, or limit the amount of models you can make and/or refuse to let you store those locally. That's the reason I have chosen the open source model.
Two sizable comments on your workflow. You can add a midpoint by adding a point and constraining it to the line as well as symmetry constraining it between the ends of the line. It might be nice to have a button that does that for you but it's possible. Furthermore the spreadsheet is a really powerful feature you can use to dimension different things using only one instance so that when it changes everything goes along. Also or alternatively the external geometry tool should've allowed you to select a feature from the object and then you can use coincidence constraints
I had the exact same experience about a week ago. After designing a small network switch case in Fusion 360 in 10 minutes as I have years of experience with it, I tried Ondsel. After 20 minutes and having to google some things, I gave up having designed the basic shape only. I have also tried Onshape in the past and it is indeed equally powerful to Fusion 360 and as easy to get into. I am just sticking with Fusion 360 for now because I have built up my design speed from being very familiar with the interface. I do hope Ondsel improves though and that the same good things that happened for Blender happen for Ondsel. Blender today is amazing and powerful, but 7-5 years ago it was like Ondsel is today.
Most of your criticism is very fair, I would only say that the Timeline thing is not actually a limitation, the feature exists although with a different name and interface. You can right click on a feature inside the PartDesign body and set it as the "tip" and work from there
to overcome the disadvantage of not being familiar with a software you could collaborate with experienced users and have them each perform the same task in their familiar software. Thanks for continuing to draw attention to free alternatives! I hadn't heard of ondsel and will check it out.
It probably isn't, and Im assuming best intent, but this comment read so passive aggressive on first inspection. Like on the first read I just read "sounds like you have a skill issue", where on the second read it sounds like perhaps you work on the project and are just legitimately suggesting this.
I don’t think this would be a useful comparison at all. Sure it may be useful for showing what is actually possible but in terms of showing how well it works and how easy it is to use it isn’t a useful comparison.
@BeefIngot Michael used the usual approach and did his best to overcome the challenges he mentioned himself, and I completely agree that this approach makes sense and helps understand how user friendly and easy to learn a software is. My idea was just to supplement this with a comparison of what you can do after going through the learning curve. And no, I'm definitely not involved in any of the projects, I mainly use tinkercad for its ease of use but struggle with the limitations and sometimes Fusion360 but that is overkill for me, so a simpler, free parametric alternative would be most welcome.
@@therunophil I have to say, given the veracity of the toxic defenders of this software (its almost cult like toxic positivity), when the best they can come up with is "a lot of what you say is right, but there are bad workarounds you have to hold in your working memory for features that are immediately apparent in other pieces of software", while I think after learning you might be more efficient, I sincerely believe now that no person paid a living wage who uses CAD more than a couple hours a month could possibly justify using Freecad. Just soo many things that take entirely too much effort, and especially the amount of reworking necessary, and thats with me reading all of the comments covering every what which way you can work around the limitations. I just want to make clear though that I dont include your comments in the category of toxic. I think its a perfectly valid perspective even if I disagree.
Lots of things said here, so I just want to add that FreeCAD was my first and I'm happy with it. Yes this software has definitly lots of problems, but it get better an better. Currently I so into the freecad workflow, so it's hard to use other cad software. I tried tinkercad for 5 minutes and closed the browser to return to known teritory. What I love in Freecad is that I can use python to extend freecad to my needs. :-) Happy printing and designing
For people who can program python, it’s incredibly useful to be able to write small scripts to automate workflows. For example, i had to model a machine with a frame that was constructed with punched square steel tubing. The tubing sections have slightly rounded edges and holes punched on all faces every 1 inch. The pieces are hollow with a certain wall thickness. It was not hard for me to make a python function that was something like make_1Inch_tube(length_inches, axis, offset). Doing that saved me so much time for a model with like 50 different pieces of steel tubing in a frame vs manually adding 3d rectangles, making them hollow, adding punched holes every inch, adding fillets to 4 edges of each, etc…
Man, it's like like you filmed my pain when trying FreeCAD. Seems like it's not just me. I would have made the same list of issues. The worst part is when you bring some of these things up in chat or the forums and you are often told "once you have learned it, this is the better way". I really hope Onsel will bring some more fresh air into this. It's already looking so much better.
regarding the sketches not updating you must import in that measurement into the current sketch this can be done by making that hole in one sketch a driving constraint and one a driven constraint ie when you change the diameter in one sketch the other follows along with it to do this in any length constraint there will be a formula button click that and then type in what measurement you want from what sketch an example would be Sketch.Constraints.diameter. tip you must name the constraint. to do so open the constraint you want to import and below the measurement there is a tab names name (optional) put a name there and it makes it viewable when you try to import it i wish you could just import them all but that being said you want to name your constraints anyway in any other parametric modeler especially with big models. less confusion when changing things.
I know this doesn’t necessarily help, but there is a midpoint constraint in freecad and I’d assume ondsel. It’s not a constraint per se, but you add a point in the sketch on both lines you want to split and constrain their distance from one of the side to an equation that references the line you are on. So it’s basically a constraint of vertical or horizontal distance set to (whatever reference for the line it’s on) /2. I know it’s convoluted and it’s not easier or anything, but it does work and it will allow changes to carry through the whole shape.
I learned freecad one my first cad program as i wanted cad capabilites coming from blender. (vanila, not ondsel) and the learning curve is dificult. However, i would like to mention a few things : - 1 : No midpoint constaint is not a limitation. It just has a diferent name. The symetry constait constains a point to be in the midle of two other point (among other things) Select the two outers points, then the midle one, and hit the simetry contrait (default shortcut : s). I admit this is a bit unintuitive coming from other cad programs but it is a thing that can be learned. - 2 : One shape per feature / per sketch is a limitation in both ondsel and freecad, but theres another fork of freecad called freecad link branch. Freecad link is an experimental branch made by a solo dev that works on finixing the topo naming problem and ads a few more featues. One of those is the ability to have multiple features from one sketch. I would still consider this a limitation as it is not in the software you looked at. - 3 : No timile might be a bit of a limitation but in the side view you can see all your operations and that acts as a timeline, previus operations are hiden but if you hover and click on the eye it shows that operation and hides all future ones. This acts esentialy as a timeline but its up to you if you consider it one. - 4 : Topo naming problem. The bigest issue with freecad right now. Its somwhat aliviated in link branch but it is a VERY fair critisism for the software you looked at. Completly agree. Extra notes : I have mentioned link branch a bit. I would consider it seperate software and so i understant why it is not evaluated in this review. Great overview of freecad and thanks for the great videos
But, regarding point #2, you don't have the restriction of 1 shape per sketch if you use the part workbench instead of the part design workbench. The print in place example used in this video is quite easy to accomplish in FreeCAD using the part workbench.
It would be great if you would have one of the main FreeCAD UA-camrs collab with you and review your drafts before publishing if you try this again. I'd suggest Mango Jelly. Also, please look at Ondsel when they have a topological naming solution implemented and at FreeCAD when they hit version 1.0.
*Freecad/Ondsel Does have midpoint snap.* No constraints necessary. The mid point is "Sticky" in Sketch, so just hovering near to the centre when trying to snap a line & the displayed coordinates stick briefly when they approach the mid point. This sticky snap is certainly in Both Ondsel and Freecad post version 0.21.0
MEASUREMENT TOOL - ref where you said "I'd love a simple measurement tool" (video at 14:56). Ondsel/FreeCAD already has a measurement tool, and it is "Measure distance", available on the fly in the Inspection Workbench. First, click the ruler icon in its toolbar and then select the two points in the drawing you want to measure. 👍
I think I've developed PTSD from the times I made an attempt at FreeCAD the last time. It wasn't even the complex design I was trying to make, but I faced problems roughly similar to what Michael showcased in the vid, then watched long hours of tutorials thinking that most advanced open source software can't be that bad and that must be myself doing it all wrong. Eventually I was able to model roughly what I was after, but that was after 3 times I had my whole multi-part design collapse into itself beyond a point I would be able to recover it, leading to a very significant re-work. Wasn't a very pleasant experience and definitely agree on somewhat frustrating UX. That FreeCAD encounter had really turned me away from CAD software for around a year until I finally decided to give the commercial CAD software (in my case it was Kompas 3D, which is most similar to Solidworks) a spin and it... just worked, was truly amazing. I really hope FreeCAD would one day get decent funding from big companies to have more people work on it and solve all those issues.
I use FreeCAD. It does require a bit more knowledge of how things work under the hood, but I can't argue with how powerful it is. The pace of improvement is pretty good, and much of what Ondsel is doing will get pushed upstream. Multiple extrusions from one sketch is something Realthunder's branch has implemented, but I'm not sure if it's getting merged alongside the TNP stuff.
I am very novice with CAD software, but had similar thoughts - yes, you can overcome limitations of FreeCAD, but it costs you time. I already get tired of TNI, when I change some dimension and whole model got unstable. Yes, now I understand what caused it and how I can draw models in more stable way with usage of datum planes/reference points. But other software allows you to do it in much simplier way. One big benifit of FreeCAD is free FEA simulation. Either OnShape/Fusion have it only as part of expensive plan.
For programmers, OpenSCAD scripts are ideal. We can build models in the same way we build code, and can version control our models right there in our code repositories. For non coders though, I could see it being rather daunting, if not entirely impenetrable..
I think that's a little unfair @@trw8777. The primitives are very similar, it's just a different way of representing them. For those of us with programmer brains, it's can be easier to describe something in code than it is to do the same in a visual editor. For simple projects, it can be very quick to copy an existing script and hack it to do what you want. You can build up libraries of your own more complex objects. You can use the configurator to allow many different STL's to be exported from a single scad file, for instance a raspberry Pi case where you can select which model of Raspberry Pi you have, and it can adapt the case to fit that model specifically, or design a model which you can either include or exclude space for speakers with a simple checkbox.
OpenSCAD is near useless for anything complex. It’s inability to do fillets in a sensible manner is probably the biggest one, but it also chugs on complex models. CadQuery, Build123d or various other programs are better options, both from a modelling view and performance.
Thanks for the pointer @@SkigBiggler. In particular, I like the idea of using JupyterLab for visualisation, but CQ-Editor is worth a look too. Being python based, it should allow me solve some of the intractable problems I've come up against with OpenScad.
Excellent video. I have used FreeCAD for several years now, and you have nailed its frustrations perfectly. I mainly use it for my 3D printing hobby, and I cannot justify spending oodles of money on a CADD software. I also don't want to use a proprietary software, even if they have a free version. Before FreeCAD, I used Sketchup, and I got away from using it, because for 3D stuff it was terrible to use.
so true, All the CAD software's can do the same thing but its a massive learning curve. As they trend to behave quite different. FREECAD has alot to catch up to onshape but what it can do for the price its worth it. mangojelly makes awesome freecad videos for how FreeCAD does things.
Symmetry constraint is the same as a midpoint constraint, if you select three points and apply it they will be equidistant and along the same line. You can have more than one shape / feature per sketch I think, but the way to do it is awkward and I haven't really done it much. There are actually a few ways to link dimensions in FreeCAD, you can reference external bodies, you can actually refer to other sketches in functions (everything is named), and you can use the spreadsheet. The tree view is basically a timeline. You can drag stuff around and rearrange it - and yes, you can have it show and hide things using the spacebar, which I believe also allows you to perform operations on the currently visible and selected item. I will admit the decision to have it act like a tree as well as a timeline is a bit baffling, and it's definitely not easy to use. I absolutely agree that error messages need to be more helpful, and FreeCAD really needs to make a lot of things simpler and use less clicks. I'm sure I can do everything shown in the video, especially making it so everything is parametric where you can adjust one dimension and the whole model changes. That said - the initial setup would take more clicks than the proprietary tools.
You just pointed out one of Freecads many simple problems (and you pointed it out like it's a great thing). "Just select three points" I don't really think this is equivalent to a one click midpoint constraint.
@@larsord9139 so I guess other packages automatically create a point for you, which would be useful. Don't know where you're getting the ridiculous "like it's a great thing" claim though. I'm just saying there is a way to do it, even if it takes a bit more work. The video seemed to portray it as impossible as he decided to create a completely different kind of constraint that wouldn't keep it centered if other constraints were adjusted.
Using one sketch per multiple features is so painful I avoid it. Even Blender is better - once vertex is selected you can expand selection by pressing a button and it automatically select next edge. In freecad you have to click, then you miss, selection disappears and you can't use undo to restore selection. Also using one sketch for several features means the sketch is more complex. TNP shows more feminine often
Thank you for the excellent review of Ondsel. I've been a long time user of Fusion and have thought about moving to FOSS a number of times and I can see its moving in the right direction but still not suitable for my needs or limited skill.
Your miidpoint constraint could have been achieved with a symmetric constraint between the top and bottom points on the line you wanted to midpoint and the leftmost point of your construction lines.
After 3 years with FreeCAD, I found real thunders branch fixed the topo naming problem and made it more usable in general. Took about 5 mins to make your part.
I use FreeCAD, there are things you do wrong, you can do mid points by selecting 2 points and then the 3rd point that you want to center between them and press S or the > < icon. But yes, the topology is total garbage in free cad, same with the errors and things constantly crying about "overconstrained" as if the program couldn't figure it out itself and I need to delete constraints like you can't have for example a point constraint and horizontal one at the same time... even tho the result is the same either way...
It is always best to accept your prior experience in other software will influence your view of others as they will no doubt do things differently and make your view of it less than desired.
You are trying to use FreeCAD and Ondsel like other CADs and it doesn't work like that. I recently switched from Fusion360 to FreeCAD and they have very few things in common. I also tested Shapr3D, TinkerCAD etc... To design something in FreeCAD you, unfortunately, have to follow very different workflows and use very different tools. It's not intuitive, you have to spend some time to get use to it. It still works though. The most frustrating thing about FreeCAD is naming topology issue, you have to follow "best practices" to avoid it. Upcoming version is very promising, sketching improved a lot. Naming topology issue is also going to be fixed but nobody gives you roadmap. FreeCAD is developed by enthusiast... I'm hoping it will eventually become like Blender with well polished UI.
It seems this is always the case when I read about freecad; What sound like extremely forgiving retellings of struggles using the software to do basic things. I mean, I can understand software being different, but when every single person I've seen who isn't the type of person to pretend Gentoo linux installation is a fun experience says "its quite rough". In Fusion, when I started there was like 3 things I needed to (I say needed but its more like made it more convenient) to remember, and I as a CAD novice could get a usable part fairly quickly. It sounds like if you threw a noob into Freecad, you'd be throwing them to the wolves, whereas you'd only be throwing them to the wolves financially with Fusion 360. Nevertheless, it looks like the Ondsel team are trying to solve that pretty major problem I keep seeing poised as a minor learning curve which clearly isnt.
But that's the problem. It doesn't work like other CAD software, and it's worse off for it. There are very real limitations with this software, which aren't immediately apparent when you first start out. Unlike the limitations with OnShape, where you come across them very quickly, in FreeCad, they are very cryptic and hidden until you come up against them. This is why people shouldn't recommend FreeCAD/Ondesel, it's bad software that will trip up users once people have invested far too much time (and the only reason they need to invest time is because it is bad software to begin with).
@@BeefIngot Well, I teach FreeCAD, including many people entirely new to CAD. If someone gets a little help in the beginning they generally pick it up quickly. Without some guidance in FreeCAD they will hit problems quickly that they will only hit later in Fusion360 as the complexity of their work increases.
@@oddlytimbotwillison6296 Just not remotely true. Its so frustrating to see people repeatedly try to pretend that Freecad is equivalent to anything else in terms of difficulty to pick up. Universally people say freecad is a pain in the ass, but the fans of it just cant take any criticism of their favoured software. Fusion simply does not have anywhere near the level of difficulty of Freecad and has a simply more efficient workflow with new users or experienced users. Its not just a difference. It is specifically that FreeCAD has far more deficiencies than other CAD packages. Its that simple and upfront. None of this deflection nonsense.
@@oddlytimbotwillison6296 Just not remotely true. Its so frustrating to see people repeatedly try to pretend that Freecad is equivalent to anything else in terms of difficulty to pick up. Universally people say freecad is a pain in the ass, but the fans of it just cant take any criticism of their favoured software. Fusion simply does not have anywhere near the level of difficulty of Freecad and has a simply more efficient workflow with new users or experienced users. Its not just a difference. It is specifically that FreeCAD has far more deficiencies than other CAD packages. Its that simple and upfront. None of this deflection nonsense.
It seems that open source CAD software still has a long way to go. Why is there such a divide between the open source CAD and commercial CAD? Why isn’t there an open source CAD program that tries to work just like the commercial ones?
Well, I think to some extent it is the job of open-source to explore different approaches. A lot of our common conventions come from following what has already been done, and certainly there is a strong incentive to do this in a commercially responsible project. But sometimes the entrenched convention is not the only approach, and perhaps not even the best approach. (Consider our keyboards - they are not the most effective design but we're pretty much stuck with them because the convention is so strongly entrenched). Contributors on open-source are often motivated to challenge these conventions. But there is a balance that needs to be found.
to be fair a lot of the limitations he listed were because the way of doing them wasn't similar to commercial cad. mostly none of those limitations are actually limitations.
@@conorstewart2214The vast majority of capability is there in some form, the issue is the user experience. It’s like any other powerful piece of software with a terrible UX, those that know it, love it, and those that don’t, dislike it. Just about anything you can do in any CAD package can be done somehow in FreeCAD, but whether it’ll be obvious, usable or even documented is at best a coin flip.
That is certainly an improvement on FreeCAD. I remember when they were changing the free Fusion360 license and I wanted to familiarise myself with another application in case they would change the deal further. I absolutely could not get my head around the FreeCAD workflow. Ondsel seems to be built around a much more common workflow. I remember around the same time Humble Bundle had a Corel bundle with CorelCAD. I'm still curious to know if CorelCAD is any good.
I have just started using FreeCAD myself and most of the problems brought up in this video are non-issues. From the first example (2:46) 1. There are midpoint constraints, they are just called symmetric constraints. 2. You can bring in references from the geometry you are building on so at 4:31 they can be linked From the second example (7:49) 1. At 9:02 the button next to the external geometry button is called carbon copy and will copy another sketch (even one inside of another feature like a pad) and link to it so that doing things like changing the hole size later will propagate properly. From the third example (10:58) 1. You can do exactly the same thing as show in on shape using a different workflow. I will grant that is sort of a cop out as knowing different workflows and how to use them is really inconvenient and makes things harder. Once you do know them however the process is as simple as it is in onshape From the fourth example(11:59) 1. This one is a real issue unfortunately. The lack of timeline is something I do miss from other cad software. The only thing I will say in FreeCADs defense here is that over time you begin to understand the limitations and how to work around them. All in all im a bit disappointed in this video, FreeCAD has some rough edges and a learning curve but should not just immediately be disregarded. With some time and practice it can do everything any other CAD can do. For hobbyists and makers especially I think being able to learn CAD and design your own parts without spending money on the program or being blocked from commercially using your designs unless you pay up is a negative that cant be overlooked. Large companies and professionals probably get there moneys worth but small business and hobbyists probably dont.
The fact that a sketch cannot be re-used for multiple bodies/features is not something I would wave away as a "non-issue". Creating copies of the same sketch for each use adds clutter and requires far more time. I often refer to the same sketch dozens of times for a project.
@@CullenJWebb/ FreeCAD's Link branch, otherwise known as 'realthunder' branch, had implemented that particular feature quite a while ago. This implementation hadn't made into the main branch yet...
Its like he did literally no research at all...like watch a UA-cam guide video...which is massively ironic considering what his channel is all about. I wonder how he learnt to use all the other tools? Must be born with those skills I guess.
Calling these non-issues is a stretch. Symmetric constraints aren't the same as midpoint constraints. You have to do extra work to define the midpoint for a symmetric constraint, where it's available automatically in professional packages. While you can import geometry, it's a hazard in FreeCAD that often breaks your model if you make changes (topological naming problem). The best advice to date has been to design your part without importing geometry. This is doable but seriously slows down the workflow. Carbon copy sketches aren't a panacea and often break for similar reasons as importing geometry.
@@CullenJWebb That totally makes sense and it requires a change to how you think about modeling that I wont say is good or bad but definitely different. What I meant when I said non-issue is that it is something that can still be achieved but maybe just not as ergonomically as other programs. In the video he shows how the "issue" breaks things when trying to change the hole size later and if you clone the sketch that does not happen.
For a midpoint, you can use the Symmetry constraint. Select the endpoints of the first line and an endpoint of the midline then apply the Symmetry constraint.
Watching this as I'm designing in Onshape and so glad I've moved on from Free cad and Fusion. But all my training was in Solidworks so Onshape is just so easy for me to use and don't have to goggle how to do something every time I'm trying to do an operation.
it's nice that you did not have to watch any tutorials for onshape. I found it kind of confusing when trying it for the first time. I started with fusion, and while it was way easier than freecad, it still required some reading. for simple shapes(vacuum cleaner adapters, clips, cases, GEARS(has a nice gears workbench) etc) I use freecad, for more complicated designs I use fusion, but I want sell some of the designs that I am working on, and as far as I can tell freecad is the only one free, that will allow me to sell, and that is usable.
If you are doing a lot of manual dimensioning, try the spreadsheet workbench where you can add all your parameters as named aliases. Then, you can use those names while dimensioning features and if you go back and modify a dimension in the spreadsheet later, all the features update and stay consistent.
A great thing about aliased spreadsheet cells is that the values are scoped throughout your file so you can enter a dimension once and reference it in multiple sketches and in other contexts outside of sketches such as positioning of objects.
In FreeCAD you can have a little spreadsheet open in a second pane and type a value and alias in there right at the moment that you want to use it the first time while you are in the middle of a sketch or something. You don't have to plan every dimension that you want to name ahead of time, just add them on the fly.
@@AndrewHelgeCox I got what you meant, and Fusion (and probably Oncad, but Im not familiar enough) and certainly Solid works all have similar. What Im referring to is what I assumed you were referring to where he did not want to make multiple dimensions but instead just wanted constraints to work intuitively.
I really gave FreeCAD a go back in Sep 2020 (when Fusion team really shook the boat with the free-tier) and I can't believe all the bottom-barrel problems are still there! I did like the spreadsheet workspace, which acted like an enhanced version of the parameters window in Fusion 360 (which seem to be like "parametric variables" in OnShape, but in a single window) and was more akin to a lite MS-Excel. Actually setting dimensions to them took a bit more typing effort than typing something like "d42" in Fusion though.
I genuinely like, enjoy, and find your content useful but I think this video is a little weird. You state that using software you aren't familiar with comes with differently named tools/functions, so I think it would have been more fair to actually look up the equivalent functions for the gripes you bring up later. I understand you're trying to show it's less than intuitive, which i agree with, but i think as a viewer it's easy to lose track of that point and think you're saying certain things just aren't possible/available when they really are. So for clarity: 1. The symmetry constraint is used (sometimes along with construction geometry) as the equivalent of a midpoint constraint. 2. The external geometry tool is used to reference previously created objects in a new sketch. FreeCAD absolutely doesn't require you to redraw existing geometry like you did multiple times. This kind of tool is used in other CAD packages too, like Alibre, though the name may be different of course. 3. @11:20 you describe a process that can be done much faster and easier just using a second body and a shapebinder or subshape binder. 4. @12:45 the tree view IS in chronological order (at least in part design) though the nesting of sketches does indeed make it less obvious. Also, you can absolutely go back to point in time, by right clicking and choosing "set tip" to the feature you want to start with. 5. @15:00 there is a measurement tool. It's a tape measure icon. There are other things but for the sake of time, i'll just say I totally agree the software could be greatly streamlined to be faster and more intuitive. However, I just want to make sure folks don't completely disregard it due to thinking it isn't capable of accomplishing many things that you struggled with in this video. It can do all the things, it just may take more steps or be named something other than what you're used to. People, please support FreeCAD so it becomes more user friendly. The guts are there, the topological naming problem is on the brink of being remedied, and it just needs better UI/UX.
Nothing was intuitive for me when I first time opened Solidworks and it had me pull my hairs not a once not a twice. Fusion looks like a toy after Solidworks but still had given me headaches. But Onshape and Fusion already have played a "we are taking away the free version" card (though both reversed for non commercial use) so I don't believe it's a wise way to invest in learning them. And as a small business there is no choice. I'm glad Freecad is becoming better, I think it's time for me to start learning it.
@@avelkmI already know of small businesses that have started moving to FreeCAD, now that Ondsel is making all the right noises. For a small business it becomes incredibly hard to justify paying for a CAD package, if you're a 1 man business, especially one with low cashflow, FreeCAD is pretty much the only way to keep afloat.
@Ub3rMario Thank you for posting this, especially the part about "set tip". All it took was a right-click on an item in the tree to figure that one out. For your 2nd point, there's also the option (that I typically use) to bring in another sketch as a reference... it's literally 2 clicks to do this. After that, you can resize the hole repeatedly and both sketches change together. He complained about FreeCAD not being parametric - that's where he completely lost me. Everything in FreeCAD is or can be parametric. Simply name the dimension you want to reference (the hole diameter in the first sketch) then use that name as a reference in the second sketch (click the icon or type the equals sign, then reference sketch001.Constraints.thenameyougaveit). When you do it that way, you completely avoid any topological naming issues as well. I wasn't screaming at the screen as he predicted, but I certainly was cringing at the number of most-difficult-paths he took to accomplish things and facepalming at all the stuff he said it can't do that I've been doing with it for many years. I completely admit that it has a steep learning curve, but I wouldn't expect to be proficient at any software in a super short period of time without reading anything or watching any tutorials. As to technique: For that round thing, start by drawing a circle, then another circle, extrude that sketch. Create another sketch perpendicular to the first, draw a round-cornered box (there's a button for that) overlapping the top by about half, pocket that. Done.... and in a fraction of the number of steps taken in the video, with no problems resizing anything.
"so I think it would have been more fair to actually look up the equivalent functions for the gripes you bring up later. I" he literally describes his process of searching for the correct tools. More than that, you are missing that someone new to fusion glides whereas someone new to freecad crashes and burns. I remember my first time using fusion like it was yesterday. Productive in no time. Not so for freecad, and that is the majority opinion. Stop with this pretending that they all have the same learning curve or that freecad is equivalent in efficiency. It just is not. You ask him to support freecad so it becomes more user friendly but that is backwards. The community being hostile to criticism is why freecad will continue to have this problem. Its also far from "just needing better UI". If that was the case it would have been done. Anyone who has done any programming whatsoever knows that if it hasnt been done already its because its probably really difficult and based on tons of technical debt that has been accrued, likely because when it started the creators likely did not anticipate it growing into what it has. The result is though, this isnt some "oh lets pretty the UI then its just as good". Its some "there are significant underlying major changes to the code base that need to be made to make it similarly functional.
Facenating that He uses the PartDesign workbench in Ondsel, while he used the Part workbench in FreeCAD. Part workbench is just a different modelling workflow compared to the PartDesign workbench. Regarding dimensions, you can link dimensions between eachother. It is a more robust than linking to edges, especially for FreeCAD, but also in the "propriatary software" (being proficiant in using NX I feel confident to state this, have had to fix plenty of crappy cad files of incompetent collegues unfortunately). I do agree that FreeCAD user interface needs a serious improvement, also the toponaming issue as you showed is annoying, will be fixed though. FreeCAD is going in the right direction, not there yet for commercial use (although I use it on a regular basis at my office for random jobs where FreeCAD has the edge).
There are midpoint constraints in FreeCAD. Also you can bring in the geometry from other bodies or sketches into a sketch as construction points and lines. I agree it’s not as user friendly when the software doesn’t make assumptions, but the things you wanted to accomplish are readily possible in FreeCAD, and I assume at least as easy in Ondsel. I always enjoy your content, but I think you didn’t give this one an accurate review.
I disagree. He gave it a fair review. This is the experience that the majority of people have when trying freecad. It's the most unintuitive CAD program I've ever tried. All CAD programs should be intuitive. There's a reason that Onshape and Fusion 360 are the top CAD choices.
This is literally the reason why I don't use FreeCAD. Way too many rough edges. Fusion and OnShape have a bunch of problems, but they at least have coherent design
I have been learning engineering ever since i was 14, i downloaded freecad about a few years ago so i can work on projects at home without licensing, but free cad was so inconvient compared to solid edge (the cad i was taught to use it school) or even inventor (the cad im using at my workplace right now). This looks like a good opportunity but still has so much to be improved on, i hope this will work out in a few years.
The fact corporations sue developers that donate their time and effort trying to provide for others if they come even close to using a similar scheme never occurred to you did it?
@@noanyobiseniss7462LOL Conforming to industry standards and straight copying something are two WILDLY different things. No one holds a patent on easily selecting a piece of geometry to modify it, or on detecting enclosed sketches for extruding. Are you pretending to be an idiot or is this genuine homegrown stupidity?
Learning freecad is about learning a very structured workflow and doing a bit of planning before drawing. The workflow has two or three hard don'ts, and respecting them makes the experience much simpler predictable. 1) Don't rush. Plan out the part before modeling it, start with the part most unlikely to change topology. 2) Use elements from sketches as references in new sketches, instead of faces or edges of pads. 3) Read the docs, the forum, or UA-cam before doing something new. I learnt freecad first, and would not consider moving to other programs for the features shown in this video. There are however a lot of other pain points that are really frustrating to me still. I believe that FreeCAD and its derivatives will soon be on par, as others have mentioned in the comments.
This is exactly what happened to me in my FreeCAD video, and you and your comment section basically said the same thing that I and my comment section said.
Ot really is a toxic community problem isnt it. I hate it when toxic positivity plagues communities. Linux used to be terrible for this and is getting much better but clearly Freecad community wise hasnt gotten past that defensiveness.
I've just yesterday watched some freecad tutorials (haven't used it) and dev version 0.22 has some great improvements that makes a lot of sense (ONE auto dimension tool to rule them all, finally!). It also made a lot of sense to me. Instead of midpoint constraint the guy used symmetrical constraint and it is basically the same if you think about it. As for one sketch per feature, it's the same in Solidworks which IS industry standard. As for Fusion 360, couldn't find today a list of all constraints on a object, that was really frustrating.
CAD has a real problem in that there is no mid-market in this world. It’s either enterprise, free or basic. I pull my hair out with Freecad’s non-user centric design and workflow, and there’s no tool that allows me to design open source models AND proprietary models (ie the Open Source supporting small business). Onshape has a horrid entry level, Fusion is not much better, and beyond those tools, there’s really nothing else that comes close feature-wise without a consider number of 0’s in the start cost.
It really sucks that if you are at that not a business but also sometimes might sell some of their things, you basically only have Fusion 360 as an option. I guess Rhino exists too, but is less parametric and has a far less wide feature base. I think Alibre looks closer as well, but it too is not cheap. To be clear, for anyone else reading and wondering what the previous user and I are talking about, the terms of Fusion 360 free tier and Onshape basically forbid you from making a penny off of your work, and in the case of Onshape, you are automatically sharing your work with everyone. Big no bueno even if you are doing open source work of any level of depth because of the potential for all sorts of issues like your work being taken before its ready for instance.
Nice video. As others have said symmetry tool gives a mid-point and there's a difference in Freecad between a copy and a clone. That would, I believe, solve the issue with the changing hole size. Freecad does have some wierd habits but I still like it.
You really don't need an UI employee to make a better UI. You just don't need to be stubborn like FreeCad devs are and have some brains, eyes and balls to copy what other software do. They could won if they do that but "nooooo tEy ArE sPeCiAl, tHeY nEeD tO bE dIfFrEnT".
FreeCAD isn't a company, it's an open source project. There are no employees, only volunteers. Ondsel is a company that is extending what appears to be the development (0.22) version of FreeCAD, adding some of the UI mods that are available (there are many), and adding a cloud storage option and support behind it for paying customers.
Nice review. I have learned to use freecad, but someday when my ship comes in, I will get a subscription to the high end stuff. In defense of freecad, I had just started 3D with tinkercad. So freecad seemed awesome. Most freecad users learn to work around the limitations. I want to commend the freecad programmers though, what they have done so far is amazing. I hear that the new 0.22 version is going to be nice.
As others have pointed out some of your "actual limitations" are really "temporary inconveniences" (I think of 'set tip' for the lack of timeline or not using shapebinders,....). The real problem is the lack of a good centralized documentation. I learned most from youtube tutorials. Some of the other actual limitations could be solved if RealThunders branch and Ondsel merge and make a beautiful cad baby.
No no no buddy. This was one of the less toxic positivity comments, but absolutely not. This definitely requires far more long term on going mental bandwidth to deal with. The sketching and only one body per sketch is absurd, and using the carbon copy feature isnt remotely a good workaround. Its a fundamentally broken feature that would cost hours upon hours of time, making things painful to edit. I just think anyone who is saying that its all about user knowledge is kidding themselves, because I dont think there is a single person who would be more efficient in freecad than the other options based on not only this video, but all of the weirdly fanatic comments defending it.
I don't read all the comments and I'm certainly not a freecad evangelist. Just pointing out that the multiple body one sketch option is worked on. Realthunder's branch already has it with the added benefit of doing operations on only parts of the sketch so you can easily make a master sketch. Doing arrays on sketches is also available. I fully understand it is out of the scope of Michael's review to investigate what is in development. The midpoint constraint can be solved with a symmetry constraint so for me this doesn't belong in the "actual limitations" category. Still for somebody new to freecad not straight forward and not well documented. Michael's critique is fair. I personally choose to use freecad because I like my linux workflow for 3d printing: ssh available from terminal to access my klipper machines and sftp integration in the file manager. All slicers are easily available with appImages, blender auto updates,... I make simple designs and for me this actually works faster than my windows environment with fusion 360.
Sometimes I like to practice using FreeCAD, I think it's an excellent software for anyone who wants to start designing, see my examples, this t-shirt is in good taste.
The command you were looking for was "create carbon copy" it allows you to project one sketch into another as actual copies. then you can trim, delete, or turn them into construction lines
Hi Michael, I'm new to cad and 3D printing and i'm finding your content extremely helpful. I've started learning Onshape and find it easy to learn with the help of some tutorials but now I want my designs private. I cant afford Onshapes sub every year so i started to find alternatives and found Alibre, they have a one off purchase price which is perfect for me and so far it seems very similar to onshape. Would you be able to a comparison video between them? It would be great to see how quickly someone with experience picks it up and details what Alibre is lacking and if the price makes up for in the end.
I have used both fusion, siemens nx, and freecad. Freecad was the first cad package i used, and while its by far the most painful in UI it also feels for me like the most intuitive in its actual function (because I grew with it). I don't want my sketch snapping to a line, unless I specifically tell it to. But I get that thats personal preference. But limitations (in particular topo-naming and non connected bodies) really annoy me as well. I've learned to work around them and doing so is just part of my workflow now. I wish FreeCAD was more accessible, and I hope that Ondsel does exactly that. Create a User friendly, and still very capable CAD-(and maybe CAM) package.
Having used OpenSCAD for 3D modelling for the last decade I have stuck with it because every time I have had a new project it was just so much easier to stick with what was familiar. I don't trust that propitiatory programs will be available for free in the future so for me open source is the only option. Some day I will give FreeCAD a try but I have been saying that for a long time. Now that I have retired I plan on learning Blender because I would like to move beyond 3D modelling for 3D printing only.
Have you tried CAD Query? It is like OpenSCAD but uses Python instead of a proprietary language and OpenCascade as the geometry engine. I'm trying it at the moment but not experienced enough in either to say which is best (if any one solution could be best for all uses).
@@AndrewHelgeCox i cant find a single good video on CadQuery...every one is wildly off-topic, full of irrelevant rambling or just streams of people who don't know how to use it working it out..
FreeCad has OpenSCAD as one of its base workbenches that other tools can be added on to, so might be a good place to start and explore from. (Might have to be downloaded as a plugin first, but integrates from there)
You can also use Blender to make things for 3D Printing, its what I've been doing so far. Sure its not optimal for it but working with the meshes is at times more intuitive, Though I do need to learn CAD at some point as some things really are not fully practical in Blender. I just have used it because its what I know.
@@AndrewHelgeCox This is the first I have heard of it. Having looked it up now I am intrigued because it can import and export STEP files. Something OpenSCAD can't do.
One have to remember that different programs have different work flows, and trying to force an inefficient workflow on a program is only frustration. If some programs work equal then they doesn't need to be good. It just make it easier to switch between them. I am thinking of GIMP and Photoshop or Blender and other 3D modeling software. The functionality are there, but they have different UI and work flow. And this make some operations work differently, which you learn by using the software.
For people coming from TinkerCAD I'd suggest they avoid sketches and look at the Part workbench where they can follow a familiar workflow of adding and subtracting solids but with a parametric approach and some more bells and whistles, as well as owning their files locally.
Please try FreeCAD 1.0 (Release Candidate). It is really a HUGE step forward and incorporates many of the Ondsel improvements. As for drawing a sketch on an body's surface, you can use that body's geometries by clicking on the "Create external geometry" button in the sketcher and then select the geometries you want to use for your sketch.
Ondsel ES 2024.2 has made many usability-related changes on top of the FreeCAD 0.22. Some of these improvements were specifically in response to this video. Ondsel developer Brad Collette put out a blog on May 7, in which he acknowledges your inputs, and provides a link to this video. I cannot image a more comprehensive response from a developer 👍 1. He provided an immediate explanation to your points in the comments section 2. He addressed the salient points rapidly 3. He explains all new features in a delightful blog, which embeds short videos to demonstrate the features👌 Could you please make a follow up video to re-assess your musing: _'Can FOSS CAD compete?'_
A considered response to some comments on my Ondsel/FreeCAD video.
This was also prompted by a great video response from 4 Axis Printing, which can be found here: ua-cam.com/video/KsMKLAitSwE/v-deo.html
I consider this video to be well communicated, fair and honest. Workflows of an experienced user are shown and hard limitations are acknowledged. I thank 4 Axis Printing for making it and I will reference it below.
Firstly, a misconception about my video: I did not do any research when using FreeCAD/Ondsel. As mentioned in the video, I did in fact spend a lot of time looking up things I was frustrated by. I spent time on the wiki trying to understand the different workbenches and why you even need them, and for each individual limitation I identified I went through the forums to double check the feature was actually missing. Whenever I am making a video portraying something in a negative way, I try to be very diligent in making sure the problem is real and also exists for others.
I reject the idea that my criticisms were solely related to my inexperience. Let’s address the specific limitations I identified in my video.
1. No midpoint constraint. A lot of people said I should use a symmetric constraint. The symmetric constraint exists in other CAD packages and can be used in the same way. Doing so is a workaround. My workaround was to use two construction lines, coincident with the geometry I wanted to be centred, and set them to equal. You can get the job done with either of these methods, but the fact remains that a midpoint constraint does not exist and workflow would be easier and more efficient with it. Please see the video I’ve posted at the bottom. Can anyone honestly say FreeCAD/Ondsel would not be improved by adding a proper midpoint snapping/constraint?
2. One shape/feature per sketch. I have yet to see anyone dispute this. In my opinion it is the biggest drawback to FreeCAD/Ondsel. 4 Axis Printing demonstrates a workaround for this (similar to mine but with more skill) but it is clear how much more involved the process is. Modelling the second example is a trivial job in Onshape and other proprietary CAD packages. It is simple and intuitive. In FreeCAD, an experienced user has to jump through multiple hoops to achieve the same thing, but with the risk of parts breaking with future edits. I was also frustrated by many commenting that I needed to use the external geometry tool when this was clearly demonstrated in the video! My gripe with this approach is that the referenced portions are magenta, and not able to be used for pads/extrusions. Therefore, you have to draw what you want again and use constraints to match the externally referenced components. More clicks, more time, needlessly in my opinion.
3. Manual management of bodies. Again, this one didn’t really receive much attention in the comments. Yes, you can handle it yourself, but you don’t have to in almost any other CAD option. More clicks, more time, more complication.
4. No timeline. In my video I said that the Ondsel/FreeCAD tree view was not strictly in chronological order because some items were nested. That is still correct. I did search for timeline functionality for FreeCAD, but came up empty. Forum posts said it was missing. Commenters, however, pointed out that you can right click and use ‘set tip’ in FreeCAD. Not only did I not come across this when searching, but it is only present if you have the ‘Part Design’ workbench selected, not the ‘Part’ workbench. That one is on me, but in my defence the implementation is counterintuitive and obscure. The visual slider found in other options is easier to use and understand.
5. Topological naming problem. This is an acknowledged problem for which I showed the wiki article. I’m glad to hear fixes to the underlying architecture are in the works.
Besides the ‘set tip’ workflow, I stand by all of my criticism of Ondsel/FreeCAD communicated in the video. If you still disagree, please consider two specific questions:
1. All of the industry standard CAD programs conform to an ‘industry standard’ workflow. FreeCAD/Ondsel is different, but is that better?
In my opinion, the other options have converged on this workflow because it is the best one. That is why it is easy to switch between them with only temporary inconveniences. As explained in the video, that is the most I’ve ever used Fusion 360, but it was simple to pick up and create what I wanted. Ondsel and FreeCAD were the opposite. So where is the advantage in how FreeCAD/Ondsel modelling is approached? How will the user accomplish more, or do so in a more intuitive and efficient way? I see in 4 Axis Printing’s video that workarounds are possible, but the process takes longer and is more complex. Why choose this alternate path if the end result is diminished? Why do the Ondsel or the Realthunder variations exist if vanilla FreeCAD has no problems?
Consider this situation in a different way. If a 3D printer was launched that required the user to jump through hoops, read manuals and tinker a lot, but didn’t print any better than other options on the market, it would be rightly criticised for being inferior. When people were frustrated, no one would say it was a skill issue, they would expect the product to improve.
2. Why is FreeCAD/Ondsel not so much more popular?
Although not a dealbreaker for me, I acknowledge the legitimate concerns many people have about Onshape and Fusion360 being tied to the cloud, and the risk of them removing features without notice in future. This should mean that a CAD option that is 100% free and can run 100% locally should be the easy winner, but in reality it is not. Some commenters were upset by the video, but there were just as many who shared my conclusion. The like ratio for the video is still above 96%, so I am confident that my opinion on the state of Ondsel/FreeCAD is not an anomaly. It is also shared by my fellow UA-camrs in Angus Deveson and Tom Sanladerer.
Could the reason that the free and open source option is not popular is because it is simply not as good? That users are expected to jump through extra hoops, read wikis and troubleshoot cryptic errors, whereas in other options, you just design and model stuff? That it is so frustrating and limited that the vast majority of people will seek other solutions, if they are tied to corporate entities.
I expect and accept others won’t always have the same view as me, but I would hope they do so constructively and fairly. There were too many commenters who clearly didn’t watch the video, or were disingenuous in their responses. Some people were commenting the same thing repeatedly to try and flood the comment section. Others acted as if the symmetric constraint workaround negated everything else I said. When I was reading through the FreeCAD forums, as I mentioned in the video, it was not uncommon to find responses to reasonable questions like ‘read the manual’, or ‘it’s open source so make whatever changes you like yourself’. A less than welcoming community might be another reason the free options are not more popular. Not to say there aren’t generous and talented people in these communities. The trouble is the bad ambassadors tend to leave a stronger impression.
In the end, it comes down to the question I posed in the video: Your willingness to adopt open source solutions vs your efficiency and productivity. 4 Axis Printing’s video did a great job of demonstrating how to model my test pieces skilfully in FreeCAD, but it also showed me that it is going to take extra time and extra steps to achieve the same things. Some people commented that it would be fairer to showcase and compare two experienced users’ workflow in Onshape and FreeCAD/Ondsel. Here is a 70 second video of me modelling the second example: ua-cam.com/video/vYDVphD3rDU/v-deo.html
I tried to keep the same pacing: efficient, no unnecessary pauses, but not rushing and still with some commentary. What takes 70 seconds in Onshape takes three and a half minutes in FreeCAD (6:00 to 9:30), with many extra little steps and gotchas. Even if we ignore the time taken, watch each video and make a list of the steps required. Ask yourself how the final model, or the user experience is improved by all of the extra steps and nuances. Now imagine an inexperienced user who doesn’t know those workarounds. Then consider this is just a very simple part, with only one body. The differences and nuances will only be exaggerated from here.
One more thing to consider: my background and perspective. I have been using CAD for over twenty years, from back when I started studying Industrial Design at University in 2001, using Solidworks. I also spent eleven years as a primary and secondary school teacher, and at each school one of my jobs was to implement 3D modelling into the curriculum. Therefore, I have spent a lot of time over the years testing and evaluating free CAD options, as well as seeing how easily they were picked up by students and my fellow teachers. Judging through that lens, Ondsel/FreeCAD would be a long way down the preference list when selecting CAD to teach in a school. Teachers and students want to spend their precious time working creatively and actually designing their ideas, not searching for workarounds to obscure and counter intuitive software. I think it’s pretty clear that the average hobbyist feels the same way.
To repeat what I said in the video, when FreeCAD/Ondsel is developed a lot more to the point where it can compete, I will gladly throw my weight behind it and promote it on the channel. I applaud the commitment and effort of the developers, and I hope in time an outcome is achieved that is satisfactory for all.
Agree, unfortunately I have to use Freecad because I use Linux and the cloud options have an uncertain future as history has shown, you can do most things a real cad can but everything is more complicated and takes more time and yes the devs seem a little hostile when asked why don't you do this like every other cad does it?
I think some of your points are not important unless you really expect/require the same workflow. Which is a fair point, learning to think in new systems is effort. However that doesn't make a different way of doing things inferior - It is not like Solidwork users enjoy the switch to Autodesk products either. For instance use FreeCAD enough and you won't even notice the lack of midpoint, as there are so many other ways to define a midpoint, you won't even notice the concept is missing as you just do it with the constraints at hand. And many of the other issues and gotcha go away when you approach using FreeCAD the right way for FreeCAD. (Edit: part of which from what I've seen of how you are working is to actually use the parametric and math function capabilities for dimensions and the right type of constraints to make the geometry adjust with the part the expected way. FreeCad for me is my preferred CAD because it suits how I think. But then I like OpenSCAD too, which I know lots of people really can't get to grips with (Not enough I'd call myself at all proficient with OpenSCAD really, but editing a master's work to my needs is easy to me as I understand the logic, just haven't really learned the language well enough).)
No software is perfect, more than a few gotcha's in the others too and while FreeCAD certainly has its share of limitations some rather more awkward than others it is is ever evolving and improving. But if you match your methods to the tool it is already quite capable and you are not looking for workarounds as the way it works and you are thinking to use the tool match. Where trying to use the metaphorical FreeCAD rasp exactly the same way you would use the chisel of another program it is going to feel inferior.
I tried to like Freecad. I really did. But it just makes things too hard. I was going to power on anyway because $$$. But Maker's Muse just compared a lot of CAD tools, and thanks to the comments section on that video, I'm going to give Solid Edge Community Edition from Siemens a try next. (A video about that package would be welcome, Michael!)
Michael, I appreciate your testing of FreeCAD and respect your decision that it's not for you. I think the problem though, is that you present FreeCAD as a choice that's not for anyone because it's less efficient and more difficult to work with. You're correct that it's less efficient and more difficult to work with, but this is not the sole consideration many of us have. I use FreeCAD exclusively. And the reason is because I am a hobbyist and I cannot pay annually for something like Fusion360, and I absolutely REFUSE to use any software that forces my data to leave my computer. I will not now, and will not EVER use anything that makes me share the project, save it to the cloud, or requires an internet connection for authorizations and updates. No sir. I own my projects and no one else does, and no one else will ever get their hands on my creations no matter what unless I voluntarily want to share it. To me, Fusion 360, Solidworks, and many others are simply not on the table at all for me for those reasons. Yes, FreeCAD was difficult to learn and requires a specific workflow, but I've now gotten very comfortable with it and can create exactly what I need without any errors at all, albeit probably slower than some other packages. But that's totally worth it because my files stay with me. You say you are a big advocate of free and open source software, and I respect that. But it's probably more truthful to say you're an advocate of FOSS only if it doesn't exceed some inconvenience level for you. I respect that choice as well, but let's label it for what it is.
Hi Michael, more respect, understanding, and consideration is needed when reviewing the product of what largely comes from volunteers with typically high levels of social conscience. While factual and fair in your review, your frustrations are in your tone. It would be nice to have something that is free and open source that is a viable alternative to Onshape, but no one wants to pay enough money for it. You would get less polarisation from the community if being more considerate. Also, you can't compare open source hardware to FOSS software, open source hardware companies still make money from sales. FOSS software does not.
Hi Michael, thanks a lot, this is really useful feedback! Most complaints you have are perfectly valid and many are on the TODO list. Some are easier to implement, some are inherited deeply ingrained design decisions, and we need to tread carefully there (e.g. one shape/feature per sketch). The toponaming issue is being actively worked on, you will likely see real results around late spring.
A few quick notes. The same Tasks panel on the right where you start a sketch from scratch has commands specific for a selected object or geometry. For example, when you select a face, the topmost option is to start a sketch from it. That's a major workflow notion in FreeCAD and Ondsel ES.
We already implemented the quick measure feature a few weeks back, it's coming in the next release.
Thanks again :)
I was glad to hear a response from Ondsel on this video. I am currently a Fusion user with a paid 'legacy' subscription, but when I heard about Ondsel, it sounded very interesting and I intend to at least look at it. I am especially interested if the FEA features of FreeCAD were incorporated in Ondsel. I will follow the future development of Ondsel with interest.
@@William3DP Thank you! The original FEM workbench is included.
@@Ondsel Thank you for that clarification. And could you clarify the cost of the 'Enterprise' version of Ondsel? Your website says '$200 + $10 / User / Month'. Does this mean $200 annually with an additional $10/month for a single user?
@@William3DP It's all per month
@@William3DP It's all per month
FreeCAD is what you get when software is designed from the inside out instead of the outside in. This is something Steve Jobs figured out very early. Determine what the ideal user experience should be, then build the software under that. FreeCAD is what happens when you build the functions first and the interface last, which is why we have a wall of buttons and the interface is constrained by the logical structure of the underlying software. Ondsel looks like it's making an effort to improve that and I hope they continue to make progress. It certainly looks promising.
To be fair, I think this is a common problem among open source projects, because people are mostly focused on solving technical problems rather than forging user experience. I get it.
@@ydoucare55 it is relatively common in open source projects but just like commercial products, if it is hard or complicated to use, people just won’t use it. If they want people to adopt their software then they need to make it an attractive option.
To get what users really need you would have to conduct surveys and test groups, since it's rare to have someone who both has experience as a professional user and UI/UX design without a bias as a developer.
This becomes hard to do with minimal to no funds. Even commercial companies can struggle with this.
It also doesnt help that when their users explicitly tell them these problems, the devs sometimes just get defensive and refuse to listen
@@Ether_Void Yes, that's a great point,. That's kind of where I was going with the reply about it being common among open source projects, just not enough resources available to worry much beyond the technical challenges.
I’ve used FreeCAD for so long that I’ve grown so proficient around it’s flaws that I prefer it to my recent introduction to Solidworks lol. Eventually that might change as I alter the settings and set up all the key bindings, but I’ll be cheering for the free program all the way.
Agreed, the learning curve was steep and painful but once you understand it, I actually think it's easier to master. Where as, fusion was easy to learn the basics but had constant issues when models got more complex. The problem is fusion allowed bad practice and with it's interface even encouraged it. So yea, all the issues were my fault but I had no idea why I did it wrong.
Mid-point is done using the symmetry tool and you can use external geometry to refer to the previous shape.
To create a new sketch, you have to click on the words on the planes.
There's a tape measure icon on the top icon bar for measuring.
Mid-point is not conceptionally equivalent to Symmetry.
Mid-point aims to constrain 'middle' of a line (A point which the line can be split to two in equal length), to a vertex.
Symmetry aims to constrain two vertices to be at equal distance from a vertex/line, mirrored and flipped (or in case of axis symmetry, mirror or flipped)
Mid-point allows arc-to-point constrain while Symmetry does not by itself (It'll need distance constrain to mimic Mid-point behavior)
Mid point and symmetry aren’t the same.
The symmetry tool will still create a midpoint between two fixed points. So while they may not be conceptually exactly the same, you can still get the same end result at the sacrifice of 2-3 extra clicks.
I was at the FreeCAD conference at FOSDEM 2024, seems like they're finally adressing the topo naming issue, hope that'll be fixed soon.
I wish great luck to all FreeCAD and Ondsel contributors.
We've been hearing "soon" for years and years
It's been 12+ years since they first said they intend to address the topological naming problem, and exactly nothing has come of it in mainline FreeCAD because they refuse to acknowledge fixing it will require reworking most if not all of the core of the application, as has been shown with RealThunder's work on that very topic.
That's in progress. There are like 10 merged pull requests working on that in just the last week. It's just a ton of work to get through it all.
@@jeremiahbullfrog9288and years, and years, and years, and years, and years. With Ondsel having VC funding and an explicit goal of fixing the topo problem, hopefully this will be the year that it FINALLY gets fixed instead of just talked about.
Wondering why people haven't heard from the realthunders fork who has already solved this problem. I use it for years and it worked like a charm.
Listening to this brings to mind a quote from Martin LeBlanc: "A user interface is like a joke, if you need to explain it it's not that good".
This is pretty much a documentary of my experience with Ondsel. Watched the announcement video the day it came out, downloaded the zipped file, eventually found the executable, got frustrated at the lack of a midpoint constraint, worked around that by using two construction lines with equal lengths, tried extruding (took a while to find "pad") and failed because of the selection issues you mentioned. I gave up immediately after that. You clearly have more patience.
I also really hope that the Ondsel team manages to sand down all of the many remaining rough edges. In the meantime, an interesting use case is importing STEP files from other programs and using Ondsel for free FEA. Haven't tried it myself though.
The Ondsel team is doing great work, for free, for everyone. That should recieve a standing ovation together with constructive criticism that will help Ondsel improve. I hope one day this turns into and open project like blender but for parametric CAD.
I don't understand why this so difficult to find. It is called a symmetry constraint and you can put a point in the middle with it.
Do I miss something here?
@@theincapableI was perplexed by that point too.
@@theincapable Yes. You are in a bubble of toxic positivity where the clear deal breakers bounce off of you because you manage to nit pick something it turns out is still a problem because its not obvious at all whereas it is in every other piece of software. That is an endemic problem of freecad not a problem with Michael.
@@BeefIngot Yes this is typical in many opensource projects. I will never forget Gimp refusing to let go of their ridiculous modal UX despite almost the entire planet saying "this sucks" the core developers refused to change it because "it's my software and I like it that way" - and to be fair, that's totally fine, but then don't go around telling everyone they are wrong about subjective issues while trying to hype everyone into using it when it's usability is fundamentally broken. And as you say users looking for things which are mysteriously named in opposition to the rest of the entire industry is broken. Blaming the user is a straw man.
> got frustrated at the lack of a midpoint constraint
you select a line and a point and press 's'! or you select two outer points and then select a third point and press 's'
I've got to say that your experience with FreeCAD is not too dissimilar from mine, although I've powered through and continued using it as my main CAD tool, thanks in large part to MangoJelly.
While there are some points where the limitations you've found do actually have solutions, I see an attitude in some of these comments that I find a lot on freecad forum posts, which is that because there is *an* existing workflow to do something, it does not warrant improvement or streamlining.
I run into this the most with constraints, where having a built-in constraint for something like bisecting an angle would be very useful, but instead you have to build a bunch of construction geometry to get what you want.
There are also a lot of operations where FreeCAD just falls on its face and errors out, where other CAD packages have enough error handling or edge case awareness to do things like add fillets or chamfers in places without perfect geometry.
I find that attitude that you're speaking of the same "love of celebrity" that people have in Hollywood and, now, politics! People wish to defend their favourite celebrity, no matter the logic... people wish to defend their favourite software, no matter the logic.
@@christophergrove4876 Partly because you would need to abandon FreeCAD and start from scratch. You would need to rewrite most of the manuals, documentation, etc. Perfect is the enemy of good enough. User base is important too. There is DesignSpark Mechanical based on SpaceClaim. It is cheap or very free. How many people use it?
Thanks for the video. I am rooting for FreeCAD and Ondsel. Hope they catch up to modern 3D CAD quickly.
4:28 FreeCAD has you import existing geometry into your sketch rather than it already being available to constrain to. The button with the cube and the line offset from it, about the middle of the screen in the bottom row of the toolbar, is the tool you use to import existing geometry into a sketch
Edit: looks like he figured this out by 9:19
Those videos are unfair. They compare the proprietary tools they are used to (which are objectively better in terms of UI) to FreeCAD without even spending time to learn it. And since there is not the same function with the same icon they jump to the conclusion that something cannot be done.
@@TheGentlemanRider Not unfair. Just realistic.
@Michael My past experience with FreeCAD and concurrent solutions makes me fully agree with you on every point you document here. Despite FreeCAD fanboys say, your video is totally fair in its way of comparing the options and is based on pure facts. Thanks for your work.
I myself have spent countless hours (adding up to weeks if not months at the end of the day) trying to adopt FreeCAD for many years, studying its "documentation", reading tons of blogs here and there. Each of my attempts ended in a huge frustration and me swearing "never again". But nevertheless, I tried again with almost every new release, hoping some progress would have been here to make my frustration a thing of the past. Although there were some, the same story repeated again and again on each attempt. In addition to the numerous bugs and weirdness, FreeCAD UI is a mess. Why so many different workbenches, some of them (Part and Part design for instance) giving the feeling to have overlapping roles ? I'm quite used to Blender, having touched it for the first time when its UI was Klingon style, having absolutely no similarity with what was in use at that time. Same for Gimp. None of them never left me with such a frustration.
Having entered the 3D printing world 3+ years ago, I then needed a productive (although it's a hobby) way to design parts for an educational body I'm actively volunteering. Some of them being functional (i.e. mechanisms), I needed some efficient way to manage constraints, assemblies and parametric stuff, because Sketchup, TinkerCAD and friends were not good enough at that. Being unsatisfied by having ditched FreeCAD so many times and having an after-taste of failure, I gave it one more chance. I spent countless hours again, but same player shoots again and same result. At the end of the day, I have been using OpenSCAD for modeling a 3D printed collection of simplified buildings for a more than 3 x 2 meters 1/100 scale model used as support for several educational public facing activities.
Then I discovered OnShape by accident, thanks to a Alex Chapel's UA-cam channel, and gave it a try. I've had no need to read its documentation (BTW very clear, accurate and, above all, -- FreCAD, I'm looking at you 😡) to produce my first functional parts (quite complex ones) in just a couple of hours, thanks to its rather intuitive workflow. I've just extrapolated from what I've remembered from FreeCAD WRT workflow, and also from some far remembering of SolidWorks. At least, I'm now able to bring my ideas to reality in no time.
OnShape is maybe proprietary, and I'm not very happy with the fact that my models cannot be stored locally (apart in SolidWorks format, which I've no access to). But it works, it is rather pleasant to use and it has never insulted me with cryptic error messages even when doing pretty basic stuff. I'm surely doing something wrong (or at least not inline with its way of thinking), but if so, it should be able to forbid me doing it beforehand rather that shouting absolutely helpless messages with no clue about fixing the problem and doing things right.
I deeply respect people behind FreeCAD and am hugely grateful for their involvement (I know what volunteering means 😉), but I'm sorry to come to the conclusion that it's not at the same level at all (not to speak of the complete lack of a decent assembly tool). I'm a strong advocate of open source. All my machines are running on Linux (which makes me impossible to test Fusion360). All my personal projects are publicly published. I contribute to some FOSS projects too. I'm a big fan of Blender, Gimp and friends for an eternity now. So I'm not here to say that the only option is proprietary solutions, far from it. But at a moment, we have to open our eyes and admit the reality, even if it's not pleasant.
I do hope that FreeCAD will be able to fix its problems some day. Maybe Ondsel would be the way. I'll keep on giving a try to both of them until one of them will be able to convince me to switch from OnShape. But I'm afraid it will not be tomorrow unfortunately.
i think the freecad tool is better for this, actually. for example, in onshape, you can reference existing lines and arcs, but only to a certain depth. you can get around this by using constraints to constrain a point to another point, but it is annoying and takes forever
I've been learning the realthunder branch on FreeCAD for a few months now because it fixes the typologic naming problem, but it's still rough. That's my biggest barrier for entry, personally.
I've been using that branch for over a year now and the topology naming improvements were why I stuck with it. Being able to reassign reference geometry, instead of having to delete and re-do it and re-do EVERY constraint that was attached to it, is an immense time (and sanity) saver.
Now the versions are getting closer to each other and the latest versions of realthunder's aren't far behind the main version, which is great news because it reduces the differences. But it's a fact that getting into either version is a tough time.
MangoJelly and JokoEngineeringHelp make a lot of tutorials that can give great insight into the obscurity and caveats.
Although I think only Joko had some tutorials that feature realthunder's version vs the default version.
@@BloodyMobile Christ thay old way sounds horrific. How are people acting like this review isnt good when this is the truth that an avid user faces.
@@BeefIngot If you know FreeCAD Part Design well you know how to make very robust parametric modelling history, especially together with the spreadsheet module. Number one rule for beginners was to make filllets and chamfers at the end of modelling and stick sketches to planes insted of faces.
And the sketcher workbench is improving fast.
But yes, I would not see FreeCAD as a very intuitive software yet.
@@martind.5061 The RealThunder branch also allows the exactly same single sketch approach.
@@BeefIngot because the kinds of people who are willing to make huge sacrifices to productivity in order to avoid using commercial tools includes a lot of people who do so for ideological reasons. (Not saying everyone, by any means, but you just don't see that same ideological motivation in the user base of say Fusion 360 or OnShape.) Being ideologically motivated often leads to forming an identity around the tool and the community. And when your choice in CAD tools becomes part of your identity, any criticism of that tool, no matter how small, by someone outside "the community", is viewed as an attack on you personally.
Queue hundreds of commenters nit-picking Michael's well-reasoned and constructively presented review over silly things like failing to use the official "FreeCAD Community Approved" workaround for FreeCAD's missing midpoint constraint feature.
As a regular freecad user this was really interesting.
First, for midpoint you probably wanted the symmetry constraint. I didn't know there was a midpoint constraint which is probably why I struggled finding the symmetry constraint in onshape.
Second, the multiple geometry in a sketch problem is easily solved with exports. Selection could be easier like what you showed but finding the feature was a game changer for me.
Third, using points as external geometries has saved me a lot of headaches. Lines are frustrating unless you want to make something coincident, perpendicular, or parallel. If you want to match, the points make more sense because the points are what's actually the constraint you want to match.
These hurdles are probably because they're a different approach to the problem which you wouldn't know to look for based on you experience and knowledge in other platforms.
Conversely for me looking back, I find the timeline feature in fusion and onshape infuriating. I often get so fed up I just delete everything and start from scratch. The topology approach definitely is frustrating for filets and drawing off existing faces(use datum planes, your life will be easier) but it's much easier for building parts in my opinion. Stacking Legos just makes more sense to me.
For what it's worth, if you read the topology thing you're probably aware, but the "topology problem" is actually tied to how edges and faces are defined internally. They get incremental numbered IDs. Drawing off faces will actually run into the same problem which is why datum planes are so important. If freecad used a timeline it would currently run into the same problem because the names would change as things changed earlier in the timeline.
There are several forks trying to address this and they definitely improve it but its still a big problem and you do have to make sure you have to do a couple things like using datum planes, external geometry, and applying filets at the very end, etc.
Anyways, looking forward to trying this new fork! Exciting to see an open source alternative gaining traction and getting some much needed improvements.
Oh... the export functionality is apparently in the realthunder fork only. I'd been using it for so long I didn't realize it wasn't in the main branch and its not in Ondsel which yeah... that's really frustrating.
@@neclimdulI think your experience with the timeline is related to the fact that you primarily use free CAD. In general the approach to most CAD programs is that you build up an object through multiple operations. The timeline concept allows you to change the history of how that object was built, and therefore building off of faces and other parts of objects is not just done, but encouraged as the best practice. The fact that freecad's engine is set up the way it is forces it to not allow this kind of approach which is why you see so many people frustrated with it.
@@falxonPSN 100%. software development with a little drafting experience, then tinkercad, then freecad.
I _understand_ the idea of the timeline, its just a lot more complicated. Like, I don't get to modify time on a regular basis (not a timetraveler) but I've been gluing things together for 40 years. I just made more sense.
I'm sure with years of banging my head against it, timelines would make sense and I'd be very efficient with them.
I think that just highlights the point he was making about perspective though.
@@neclimdul You're not alone, same boat here. I kind of feel like in some way FreeCAD's workflow comes from being pretty intuitive to software devs (who wrote the thing, without some kind of external guidance for UI design). At least for me the parameter/spreadsheet/datum-based workflow of FreeCAD feels a lot more programming-like and is way easier to get parametric parts that don't break constantly out of than Fusion360, for anything more complex.
@@falxonPSN That is how you do it in FreeCAD. In fact this multiple-operation workflow is even more important, as FreeCAD uses multiple sketches rather than allowing compound operations from a single sketch. The stack is your timeline, where your most current operation is the tip. You can go to any operation in the stack and modify it, and the stack will recompute (as per timeline). However, there is a long-standing bug, the "topo-naming" bug that comes up to cause breakages due to internal naming conventions for objects. The RealThunder branch provided a solution to this, and has been instrumental in getting a fix, that hopefully is nearing merge with the main. This is expected by the 1.0 release.
Because of you and your awesome videos I learned OnShape. Nowhere near a professional but I'm able to create most of what I envision. Looking forward to learning more about Ondsel as a free alternative! Thanks for making these videos.
Center constant is definitely a thing. I use it often, but it's called symmetry
I am blown away by the measured, principled approach to this testing. Your experience with FreeCAD mirrors my own. I really wanted it to be usable, so it took me a while to accept it was not a “skill issue”. Thanks for sharing this.
Ondsel is really doing great things to improve FreeCAD. Glad they are getting the coverage they deserve!
Hopefully that is all feeding back to the main project for inclusion.
The confusing part comparing Ondsel to FreeCAD for the reviewers who aren't familiar with FreeCAD (or plugged into the FC community) is Ondsel os based on the recent development versions of FC. Thus they don't know which are Ondsel features and which are new features only in FreeCAD development releases. From what I've seen based on @MangoJellySolutions videos about new features better auto constraints and native assembly are current development release features.
You make fair and informed points about the weaknesses of FreeCAD/Ondsel. I appreciate the hard work the developers do for FreeCAD and welcome Ondsel and hope they are successful.
Don't get me wrong, but how are these points informed? They might be fair, but not much more.
Let me give you an example: He used construction lines in Fusion and Onshape, but not in FreeCAD. Instead, he complained about the difficulty of its sketch tool. Construction lines exist in FreeCAD too. He explicitly said he had to look up how to use them in Fusion. Why would you not look up the same thing for FreeCAD?!
To be clear: I think it's fair to criticize the difficult use of a tool, but you simply cannot objectively compare tools if you know one by heart, read the documentation on another, and give up at the first hurdle in the third.
Also, as a long time user of FreeCAD I am very biased.
@@jonathan-c5h2galso not finding the symmetry constraint when looking the center something constraint. It’s just an upsie on his end, not a fault in the program or ux. It was just there, he didn’t know the name of the thing he wanted. Googling “middle point freeCAD” would have solved his issue in 20 seconds
To make the other sketch able to be constrained to the previous face in FreeCAD, pull up the grometry into the current sketch using the plunger looking tool.
There is an AWESOME review. Thanks a lot
As someone who learned freecad from scratch and spent months on it, you jumped in without any tutorial
I do agree the interface is a pain and there are many unpolished features with nonsense developer error messages but you would have a lot easier time if you just knew seen a single tutorial
1. If you knew about external geometry button you would have had a much better time
2. Timeline is possible by selecting an operation in the tree and pressing space (weirdly there is no gui for it?) and basically hide/show which operation you want, then you do your hole or whatever
3. Midpoint constraint is creating a point and symmetry contrain it between the line points, it should definitely exist but it does not AFAIK
I do not want to bash the video as it is quite good but i feel like these could be an addendum that could help someone learn it and see for themselves is it good enough for them
I agree, 30 min of learning and a lot of the critics could have been erase.
Thank you for this!
I hope both teams will drive each other to great heights, with accelerated improvements for everyone to enjoy.
It did just occur to me that if I can get an AI to control Freecad or Ondsel for me, all remaining annoyances will melt away. Any workarounds would need to be applied by that framework, as fast as my system would allow, so I get near-instant visual feedback from my commands. 2025 will be amazing.
As a Linux user, FreeCAD is my only real choice as I don't want to to use a website to create 3D models. I've been using it for over a year now and it has improved over that time. I'm currently using the 0.22 dev version and that also has the assembly WB.
Since October last year I've started a new job which requires me to use CATIA v5 and I think that having some knowledge of CAD via FreeCAD has really helped me learn some of the tools.
I've jumped to Linux a few months ago, and I'm still running Fusion in a VM (with GPU passthrough). It's far from a perfect solution, but still not inconvenient enough to push me over to FreeCAD just yet.
I think you vastly underestimate what a “website” can accomplish and how it performs.
Outside of the license considerations and the network connectivity, I can't see any reason to not use onShape, a “website” instead of FreeCAD/OndSel.
(It's not 1994 anymore, the web has evolved)
Seriously, try it... I'm sure you'll be amazed if you stick to it.
My thoughts exactly. I haven't run a Windows computer in over a decade, and I don't intend to switch so I can use Fusion. I am also sad about what they have done to neuter eagle, as I used that a lot as well.
I’ve been using FreeCAD for years and still loathe so much of how it works. But I run Linux as well so not much choice. Gonna try to learn OpenSCAD soon to see if it’s easier for me to design with. Coding tends to be something I like to do
@@Thorou Im also moving to linux (Am a dev as a day job so I get on fine) and it looks like I'll need to do the same seeing not only this video but the toxic replies and a complete laco of rebuttals for the core issues raised.
Does it work as well as native? Any oddities? Have you tried wine?
FreeCAD definitely has a rough time prepared for beginners. I probably only got into it at all because I eventually managed to get into Blender too.
Which back then was just as obscure and needed tons of tutorials for some of the most basic things.
But with Ondsel alongside to FreeCAD now, I'm fairly confident that just like with Blender, it'll get there 🎉
The difference is that blender has a strong centralized managed organization. We have also set themselves up to have a consistent revenue stream with which to have a set of paid core developers. Frankly the blender model is one that every open source product should try to copy if it can.
That, and python in blender allows wonderful things, like using it with open foam, or FEA scripts.
As a studying UI/UX designer this video is awesome! It goes over what's an issue and what's not really an issue but something that is a migration mishap etc.
You can roll back a feature in FreeCAD in the Part Design workbench. Right click a feature in the feature list, then select 'set tip'.
“Set tip”….
That’s really intuitive. It would be really confusing if it said something like…I dunno….”rollback”?!
It’s stuff like this that makes FreeCAD and its relatives just ridiculously obscure and unintuitive for new users.
And there’s no good reason for it: just bad Ui and Ux design.
I have been forcing myself to use free cad over the last month. I really wanted something I could use at home and work without worrying about commercial use problems. However, even though I've overcome a lot of the limitations you pointed out, it is not easy or intuitive and takes me far longer than it ever did in on shape or fusion or even solid works. I'm going to keep using it for now and just hope that it gets easier and better over time.
I began parametric CAD with early version of SolidEdge and changed to FreeCad after school when the FreeCAD projekt vas very young(version 0.11). Oh my goodness that time FreeCAD was crude and also the tech draw module was not there. After many years of (somtimes slow) improvements I learnd to love it more and more. So I use FreeCad for many years, and it has improved much, especially the last two years. And Ondsel pushed development further.
My wishes for FreeCAD 1.0:
- solving topological naming problem - is under development
- easy assembly workflow with and without 3D solver. - is also somehow on the plan.
- improving complex fillets and chamfers - this will be the most difficult part because it depends mostly on the old opencascade 3D-kernel.
- overall polishing in the user interface and intuitive workflow especially for new users.
@@martind.5061 I appreciate the insight. Yeah it would be nice with naming problems assuming that is the same problem I've ran into where I make an alteration and because the edge number is changed all my fillets are broken would be fixed. That alone would be a game changer.
For me blender with cad sketcher is pretty intuitive and it's completely free
@@trw8777 good to know
I had no drawing or 3D modelling experience when I first tried using Fusion 360. Things were not as intuitive as people with previous CAD experience claimed. Then came the change in the free use agreement with Fusion 360 and I decided that I will not put time into a platform that could take away my access. So I looked at FreeCAD. And yes it was a struggle. I had to do exercises to learn how to do things the Freecad way. But once you understand the methodology it does work. And some things work very well when it comes to make revisions of complex parts.
"I decided that I will not put time into a platform that could take away my access" - That is a wonderful way to express the reluctance.
This is exactly what needs to be done to improve FOSS. Thank you!
I have migrated to Alibre cad as the middle ground. One time license fee and almost everything I need and learnt it in an afternoon moving from Fusion 360
I would like to try it if they had a version for Linux.
US $200 for a product which doesn't handle booleans?!
@alefoot Thing is, I have modeld fairly complex parts without ever resorting to boolean function. Just yesterday I finished designing a telescope dovetail clamp with a moveable jaw, no boolean required
@@alefoot I just installed Alibre for the first time today, did sketch (circle), then Extrude with Cut. Isn't that a boolean operation? SO far, I'm very impressed with how easy Alibre is to use.
Thanks for this. It clearly articulates why I gave up on FreeCAD. I was using the realthunder fork, after a couple of months the standard version.
I was able to make a few simple parts with it, but it was a constant frustration of cryptic error messages and fragile parts that would blow up from small changes. When my hard drive crashed, taking my FreeCAD parts with it, I decided to try something else. I don't like AutoDesk holding my part geometry hostage, but I also like being able to actually make stuff. And that wins. Hours of scouring the FreeCAD documentation and repairing formerly working models have been replaced with designing things. Even at free, FreeCAD costs too much, if you count the extra time required to get anything to work.
This right here is a great comment that encapsulates why I've only tried switching in theory. I just do not get the toxic positivity gentoo linux bro type folks willing to put on the blinders to tell people its somehow a user problem that the software is completely unintuitive and requires a significantly higher mental workload to use alongside figuring out all the weird unique _qualities_
This is a real problem that is faced solely by users who migrate from other CAD packages, for me there is no additional effort, I use the same number of button presses to make a part in FreeCAD as I do in Fusion360 and there are no considerations that I'm holding in my mind to make things continue working. I've modeled anything from small parts to extruders to entire 3d printers, with assemblies.
In the same way you (A user who presumably started with another piece of software) can find FreeCAD extremely difficult and unintuitive, I feel the same way about Fusion360.
@@ballbous You just said that you can do things in the same number of keystrokes, but then in the same comment said that you find fusion just as difficult. Which is it?
It was so simple to find that contradiction in what is obviously yet another toxic positivity "freecads faults are user error" comment, yet here it is.
Just disappointing.
There are inarguably problems with freecad, like just the fact alone that you have one body per sketch is a nightmare. yes, I know the workarounds. They suck. Its massively slower for a whole lot of tasks and its not the only thing. People ignoring problems like this to act like they'd be just as fast is absurd. Like, one thing I'd love to see anyone do, is point out where Freecad is better than any other proprietary option other than its price tag, because all I see is the lie that its just as convenient or the apologetics that its not that bad.
I listed a concrete examples so lets hear you list something that isn't more RtFm UsEr BaD yea?
So your crying because you didn't make backups?
I think the UI of Onshape and Fusion is so much closer to standard software such as word processors or spreadsheets than the competition, be it FreeCAD/Ondsel, SolidEdge etc. You click on stuff to highlight it, and then there are reasonable, intuitive options that are reachable through context menus and buttons. I am happy to RTFM, but unfortunately, that didn't help in many cases (case in point is the project sketch issue that Michael had).
There's something really magical about Fusion 360. I used Inventor for years but have been seduced by Fusion 360 Free for home / hobby use. It runs really slow on my computers yet somehow invites me to design new stuff in ways that Inventor never did. It has it's issues and potentially ugly 'movement of goalposts' within subscription tiers. But it's a beautiful interface and workflow - which should be experienced by anyone evaluating CAD options.
Geez. flashbacks from trying FreeCAD years ago.. I had not heard of Ondsel before. I'm rooting for you free software.Thanks for the video.
Remember that user friendly is NOT the same as beginner friendly.
Personally I like the comfort of knowing that in 10 years I can still open the sketches I make today without worrying about companies changing license models or going bust.
Too right, I don't wanna sign in every feking time and have some other company hold my designs.
@@wyattutz Only if you are blind and deaf
FreeCAD isn't friendly for anyone. Not a beginner and not a 30 year veteran. I guarantee you that anyone with a couple of months of experience using a decent commercial CAD package like Fusion, Onshape or Shapr3D can model anything/everything faster than the top developers or users of FreeCAD/Ondsell 100% of the time. Likely 2-5 times faster in most cases.
Even if your fusion 360 license runs out you can still access your files through autodesk account.
@@espressomaticHmm... Do not forget that most people do not need all bells and whistles of "professional" software, and are perfectly happy with FreeCAD, even if it has limitations. I only had to repeat a few things, but was working with the program within a few hours. So while it has a learning curve, it was not that hard to learn.
Personally, I use FreeCAD (and now trying out the Ondsel version) for casings and sometimes weird formed parts in consumer electronics. I can create things fast and a few minutes later the parts are printed on a 3D printer. I use the program on a daily base and, as said, can work fast and comfortable with it. I get it that it's not for everyone, but the program has all I need.
I do not need the programs that want you to make a account and track all stuff you do, impose limitations, or limit the amount of models you can make and/or refuse to let you store those locally. That's the reason I have chosen the open source model.
Two sizable comments on your workflow. You can add a midpoint by adding a point and constraining it to the line as well as symmetry constraining it between the ends of the line. It might be nice to have a button that does that for you but it's possible. Furthermore the spreadsheet is a really powerful feature you can use to dimension different things using only one instance so that when it changes everything goes along. Also or alternatively the external geometry tool should've allowed you to select a feature from the object and then you can use coincidence constraints
I had the exact same experience about a week ago. After designing a small network switch case in Fusion 360 in 10 minutes as I have years of experience with it, I tried Ondsel. After 20 minutes and having to google some things, I gave up having designed the basic shape only. I have also tried Onshape in the past and it is indeed equally powerful to Fusion 360 and as easy to get into. I am just sticking with Fusion 360 for now because I have built up my design speed from being very familiar with the interface. I do hope Ondsel improves though and that the same good things that happened for Blender happen for Ondsel. Blender today is amazing and powerful, but 7-5 years ago it was like Ondsel is today.
Most of your criticism is very fair, I would only say that the Timeline thing is not actually a limitation, the feature exists although with a different name and interface. You can right click on a feature inside the PartDesign body and set it as the "tip" and work from there
to overcome the disadvantage of not being familiar with a software you could collaborate with experienced users and have them each perform the same task in their familiar software. Thanks for continuing to draw attention to free alternatives! I hadn't heard of ondsel and will check it out.
Yes, a Collab with Mango Jelly would make sense for FreeCAD.
It probably isn't, and Im assuming best intent, but this comment read so passive aggressive on first inspection. Like on the first read I just read "sounds like you have a skill issue", where on the second read it sounds like perhaps you work on the project and are just legitimately suggesting this.
I don’t think this would be a useful comparison at all. Sure it may be useful for showing what is actually possible but in terms of showing how well it works and how easy it is to use it isn’t a useful comparison.
@BeefIngot Michael used the usual approach and did his best to overcome the challenges he mentioned himself, and I completely agree that this approach makes sense and helps understand how user friendly and easy to learn a software is. My idea was just to supplement this with a comparison of what you can do after going through the learning curve. And no, I'm definitely not involved in any of the projects, I mainly use tinkercad for its ease of use but struggle with the limitations and sometimes Fusion360 but that is overkill for me, so a simpler, free parametric alternative would be most welcome.
@@therunophil I have to say, given the veracity of the toxic defenders of this software (its almost cult like toxic positivity), when the best they can come up with is "a lot of what you say is right, but there are bad workarounds you have to hold in your working memory for features that are immediately apparent in other pieces of software", while I think after learning you might be more efficient, I sincerely believe now that no person paid a living wage who uses CAD more than a couple hours a month could possibly justify using Freecad. Just soo many things that take entirely too much effort, and especially the amount of reworking necessary, and thats with me reading all of the comments covering every what which way you can work around the limitations.
I just want to make clear though that I dont include your comments in the category of toxic. I think its a perfectly valid perspective even if I disagree.
Lots of things said here, so I just want to add that FreeCAD was my first and I'm happy with it. Yes this software has definitly lots of problems, but it get better an better. Currently I so into the freecad workflow, so it's hard to use other cad software. I tried tinkercad for 5 minutes and closed the browser to return to known teritory.
What I love in Freecad is that I can use python to extend freecad to my needs. :-) Happy printing and designing
For people who can program python, it’s incredibly useful to be able to write small scripts to automate workflows.
For example, i had to model a machine with a frame that was constructed with punched square steel tubing. The tubing sections have slightly rounded edges and holes punched on all faces every 1 inch. The pieces are hollow with a certain wall thickness.
It was not hard for me to make a python function that was something like make_1Inch_tube(length_inches, axis, offset).
Doing that saved me so much time for a model with like 50 different pieces of steel tubing in a frame vs manually adding 3d rectangles, making them hollow, adding punched holes every inch, adding fillets to 4 edges of each, etc…
Man, it's like like you filmed my pain when trying FreeCAD. Seems like it's not just me. I would have made the same list of issues.
The worst part is when you bring some of these things up in chat or the forums and you are often told "once you have learned it, this is the better way".
I really hope Onsel will bring some more fresh air into this. It's already looking so much better.
regarding the sketches not updating you must import in that measurement into the current sketch this can be done by making that hole in one sketch a driving constraint and one a driven constraint ie when you change the diameter in one sketch the other follows along with it to do this in any length constraint there will be a formula button click that and then type in what measurement you want from what sketch an example would be Sketch.Constraints.diameter. tip you must name the constraint. to do so open the constraint you want to import and below the measurement there is a tab names name (optional) put a name there and it makes it viewable when you try to import it i wish you could just import them all but that being said you want to name your constraints anyway in any other parametric modeler especially with big models. less confusion when changing things.
I know this doesn’t necessarily help, but there is a midpoint constraint in freecad and I’d assume ondsel. It’s not a constraint per se, but you add a point in the sketch on both lines you want to split and constrain their distance from one of the side to an equation that references the line you are on. So it’s basically a constraint of vertical or horizontal distance set to (whatever reference for the line it’s on) /2. I know it’s convoluted and it’s not easier or anything, but it does work and it will allow changes to carry through the whole shape.
The midpoint constraint is added in Ondsel 2024.2, in response to this video.
I learned freecad one my first cad program as i wanted cad capabilites coming from blender. (vanila, not ondsel) and the learning curve is dificult. However, i would like to mention a few things :
- 1 : No midpoint constaint is not a limitation. It just has a diferent name. The symetry constait constains a point to be in the midle of two other point (among other things) Select the two outers points, then the midle one, and hit the simetry contrait (default shortcut : s). I admit this is a bit unintuitive coming from other cad programs but it is a thing that can be learned.
- 2 : One shape per feature / per sketch is a limitation in both ondsel and freecad, but theres another fork of freecad called freecad link branch. Freecad link is an experimental branch made by a solo dev that works on finixing the topo naming problem and ads a few more featues. One of those is the ability to have multiple features from one sketch. I would still consider this a limitation as it is not in the software you looked at.
- 3 : No timile might be a bit of a limitation but in the side view you can see all your operations and that acts as a timeline, previus operations are hiden but if you hover and click on the eye it shows that operation and hides all future ones. This acts esentialy as a timeline but its up to you if you consider it one.
- 4 : Topo naming problem. The bigest issue with freecad right now. Its somwhat aliviated in link branch but it is a VERY fair critisism for the software you looked at. Completly agree.
Extra notes : I have mentioned link branch a bit. I would consider it seperate software and so i understant why it is not evaluated in this review.
Great overview of freecad and thanks for the great videos
But, regarding point #2, you don't have the restriction of 1 shape per sketch if you use the part workbench instead of the part design workbench. The print in place example used in this video is quite easy to accomplish in FreeCAD using the part workbench.
It would be great if you would have one of the main FreeCAD UA-camrs collab with you and review your drafts before publishing if you try this again. I'd suggest Mango Jelly. Also, please look at Ondsel when they have a topological naming solution implemented and at FreeCAD when they hit version 1.0.
Thanks! This video saved me a lot of time. I'll keep using OnShape and maybe play around with Fusion, too.
*Freecad/Ondsel Does have midpoint snap.* No constraints necessary. The mid point is "Sticky" in Sketch, so just hovering near to the centre when trying to snap a line & the displayed coordinates stick briefly when they approach the mid point.
This sticky snap is certainly in Both Ondsel and Freecad post version 0.21.0
This needs to be highlighted as it looks like even regular freecad user are aware of this feature.
MEASUREMENT TOOL - ref where you said "I'd love a simple measurement tool" (video at 14:56). Ondsel/FreeCAD already has a measurement tool, and it is "Measure distance", available on the fly in the Inspection Workbench. First, click the ruler icon in its toolbar and then select the two points in the drawing you want to measure. 👍
I think I've developed PTSD from the times I made an attempt at FreeCAD the last time. It wasn't even the complex design I was trying to make, but I faced problems roughly similar to what Michael showcased in the vid, then watched long hours of tutorials thinking that most advanced open source software can't be that bad and that must be myself doing it all wrong. Eventually I was able to model roughly what I was after, but that was after 3 times I had my whole multi-part design collapse into itself beyond a point I would be able to recover it, leading to a very significant re-work. Wasn't a very pleasant experience and definitely agree on somewhat frustrating UX. That FreeCAD encounter had really turned me away from CAD software for around a year until I finally decided to give the commercial CAD software (in my case it was Kompas 3D, which is most similar to Solidworks) a spin and it... just worked, was truly amazing. I really hope FreeCAD would one day get decent funding from big companies to have more people work on it and solve all those issues.
This is fantastic, you have perfectly communicated the workflow challenges. Hopefully the freecad team will take it to heart and make the improvements
I use FreeCAD. It does require a bit more knowledge of how things work under the hood, but I can't argue with how powerful it is.
The pace of improvement is pretty good, and much of what Ondsel is doing will get pushed upstream. Multiple extrusions from one sketch is something Realthunder's branch has implemented, but I'm not sure if it's getting merged alongside the TNP stuff.
I am very novice with CAD software, but had similar thoughts - yes, you can overcome limitations of FreeCAD, but it costs you time. I already get tired of TNI, when I change some dimension and whole model got unstable. Yes, now I understand what caused it and how I can draw models in more stable way with usage of datum planes/reference points. But other software allows you to do it in much simplier way. One big benifit of FreeCAD is free FEA simulation. Either OnShape/Fusion have it only as part of expensive plan.
Maybe check out Siemans Solid Edge. It's free and is not going to go away.
For programmers, OpenSCAD scripts are ideal. We can build models in the same way we build code, and can version control our models right there in our code repositories. For non coders though, I could see it being rather daunting, if not entirely impenetrable..
Openscad is for a very niche group of people that like pain
I think that's a little unfair @@trw8777. The primitives are very similar, it's just a different way of representing them. For those of us with programmer brains, it's can be easier to describe something in code than it is to do the same in a visual editor.
For simple projects, it can be very quick to copy an existing script and hack it to do what you want. You can build up libraries of your own more complex objects. You can use the configurator to allow many different STL's to be exported from a single scad file, for instance a raspberry Pi case where you can select which model of Raspberry Pi you have, and it can adapt the case to fit that model specifically, or design a model which you can either include or exclude space for speakers with a simple checkbox.
OpenSCAD is near useless for anything complex. It’s inability to do fillets in a sensible manner is probably the biggest one, but it also chugs on complex models. CadQuery, Build123d or various other programs are better options, both from a modelling view and performance.
Thanks for the pointer @@SkigBiggler. In particular, I like the idea of using JupyterLab for visualisation, but CQ-Editor is worth a look too. Being python based, it should allow me solve some of the intractable problems I've come up against with OpenScad.
Let me guess, you also use VIM as your IDE?
Excellent video. I have used FreeCAD for several years now, and you have nailed its frustrations perfectly. I mainly use it for my 3D printing hobby, and I cannot justify spending oodles of money on a CADD software. I also don't want to use a proprietary software, even if they have a free version. Before FreeCAD, I used Sketchup, and I got away from using it, because for 3D stuff it was terrible to use.
You can still achieve midpoint-like constraint with the more versatile 'symmetry' constraint.
so true, All the CAD software's can do the same thing but its a massive learning curve. As they trend to behave quite different.
FREECAD has alot to catch up to onshape but what it can do for the price its worth it.
mangojelly makes awesome freecad videos for how FreeCAD does things.
Symmetry constraint is the same as a midpoint constraint, if you select three points and apply it they will be equidistant and along the same line.
You can have more than one shape / feature per sketch I think, but the way to do it is awkward and I haven't really done it much.
There are actually a few ways to link dimensions in FreeCAD, you can reference external bodies, you can actually refer to other sketches in functions (everything is named), and you can use the spreadsheet.
The tree view is basically a timeline. You can drag stuff around and rearrange it - and yes, you can have it show and hide things using the spacebar, which I believe also allows you to perform operations on the currently visible and selected item. I will admit the decision to have it act like a tree as well as a timeline is a bit baffling, and it's definitely not easy to use.
I absolutely agree that error messages need to be more helpful, and FreeCAD really needs to make a lot of things simpler and use less clicks. I'm sure I can do everything shown in the video, especially making it so everything is parametric where you can adjust one dimension and the whole model changes. That said - the initial setup would take more clicks than the proprietary tools.
You just pointed out one of Freecads many simple problems (and you pointed it out like it's a great thing). "Just select three points" I don't really think this is equivalent to a one click midpoint constraint.
@@larsord9139 so I guess other packages automatically create a point for you, which would be useful. Don't know where you're getting the ridiculous "like it's a great thing" claim though. I'm just saying there is a way to do it, even if it takes a bit more work. The video seemed to portray it as impossible as he decided to create a completely different kind of constraint that wouldn't keep it centered if other constraints were adjusted.
Using one sketch per multiple features is so painful I avoid it. Even Blender is better - once vertex is selected you can expand selection by pressing a button and it automatically select next edge. In freecad you have to click, then you miss, selection disappears and you can't use undo to restore selection. Also using one sketch for several features means the sketch is more complex. TNP shows more feminine often
Thank you for the excellent review of Ondsel. I've been a long time user of Fusion and have thought about moving to FOSS a number of times and I can see its moving in the right direction but still not suitable for my needs or limited skill.
What a well made review. Thank you!
Your miidpoint constraint could have been achieved with a symmetric constraint between the top and bottom points on the line you wanted to midpoint and the leftmost point of your construction lines.
After 3 years with FreeCAD, I found real thunders branch fixed the topo naming problem and made it more usable in general. Took about 5 mins to make your part.
I use FreeCAD, there are things you do wrong, you can do mid points by selecting 2 points and then the 3rd point that you want to center between them and press S or the > < icon.
But yes, the topology is total garbage in free cad, same with the errors and things constantly crying about "overconstrained" as if the program couldn't figure it out itself and I need to delete constraints like you can't have for example a point constraint and horizontal one at the same time... even tho the result is the same either way...
It is always best to accept your prior experience in other software will influence your view of others as they will no doubt do things differently and make your view of it less than desired.
You are trying to use FreeCAD and Ondsel like other CADs and it doesn't work like that. I recently switched from Fusion360 to FreeCAD and they have very few things in common. I also tested Shapr3D, TinkerCAD etc... To design something in FreeCAD you, unfortunately, have to follow very different workflows and use very different tools. It's not intuitive, you have to spend some time to get use to it. It still works though. The most frustrating thing about FreeCAD is naming topology issue, you have to follow "best practices" to avoid it. Upcoming version is very promising, sketching improved a lot. Naming topology issue is also going to be fixed but nobody gives you roadmap. FreeCAD is developed by enthusiast... I'm hoping it will eventually become like Blender with well polished UI.
It seems this is always the case when I read about freecad; What sound like extremely forgiving retellings of struggles using the software to do basic things. I mean, I can understand software being different, but when every single person I've seen who isn't the type of person to pretend Gentoo linux installation is a fun experience says "its quite rough".
In Fusion, when I started there was like 3 things I needed to (I say needed but its more like made it more convenient) to remember, and I as a CAD novice could get a usable part fairly quickly. It sounds like if you threw a noob into Freecad, you'd be throwing them to the wolves, whereas you'd only be throwing them to the wolves financially with Fusion 360.
Nevertheless, it looks like the Ondsel team are trying to solve that pretty major problem I keep seeing poised as a minor learning curve which clearly isnt.
But that's the problem. It doesn't work like other CAD software, and it's worse off for it. There are very real limitations with this software, which aren't immediately apparent when you first start out. Unlike the limitations with OnShape, where you come across them very quickly, in FreeCad, they are very cryptic and hidden until you come up against them. This is why people shouldn't recommend FreeCAD/Ondesel, it's bad software that will trip up users once people have invested far too much time (and the only reason they need to invest time is because it is bad software to begin with).
@@BeefIngot Well, I teach FreeCAD, including many people entirely new to CAD. If someone gets a little help in the beginning they generally pick it up quickly. Without some guidance in FreeCAD they will hit problems quickly that they will only hit later in Fusion360 as the complexity of their work increases.
@@oddlytimbotwillison6296 Just not remotely true.
Its so frustrating to see people repeatedly try to pretend that Freecad is equivalent to anything else in terms of difficulty to pick up.
Universally people say freecad is a pain in the ass, but the fans of it just cant take any criticism of their favoured software.
Fusion simply does not have anywhere near the level of difficulty of Freecad and has a simply more efficient workflow with new users or experienced users.
Its not just a difference. It is specifically that FreeCAD has far more deficiencies than other CAD packages. Its that simple and upfront. None of this deflection nonsense.
@@oddlytimbotwillison6296 Just not remotely true.
Its so frustrating to see people repeatedly try to pretend that Freecad is equivalent to anything else in terms of difficulty to pick up.
Universally people say freecad is a pain in the ass, but the fans of it just cant take any criticism of their favoured software.
Fusion simply does not have anywhere near the level of difficulty of Freecad and has a simply more efficient workflow with new users or experienced users.
Its not just a difference. It is specifically that FreeCAD has far more deficiencies than other CAD packages. Its that simple and upfront. None of this deflection nonsense.
Moving from FreeCad to F360. Thanks for the video, you showed me that there is a heaven xD
It seems that open source CAD software still has a long way to go. Why is there such a divide between the open source CAD and commercial CAD? Why isn’t there an open source CAD program that tries to work just like the commercial ones?
Like 20-30 years to go to catch up to commercial software last year.
@@espressomatic exactly, but people advocating for freecad act like it is just as good, if not better.
Well, I think to some extent it is the job of open-source to explore different approaches. A lot of our common conventions come from following what has already been done, and certainly there is a strong incentive to do this in a commercially responsible project. But sometimes the entrenched convention is not the only approach, and perhaps not even the best approach. (Consider our keyboards - they are not the most effective design but we're pretty much stuck with them because the convention is so strongly entrenched). Contributors on open-source are often motivated to challenge these conventions. But there is a balance that needs to be found.
to be fair a lot of the limitations he listed were because the way of doing them wasn't similar to commercial cad. mostly none of those limitations are actually limitations.
@@conorstewart2214The vast majority of capability is there in some form, the issue is the user experience. It’s like any other powerful piece of software with a terrible UX, those that know it, love it, and those that don’t, dislike it. Just about anything you can do in any CAD package can be done somehow in FreeCAD, but whether it’ll be obvious, usable or even documented is at best a coin flip.
That is certainly an improvement on FreeCAD. I remember when they were changing the free Fusion360 license and I wanted to familiarise myself with another application in case they would change the deal further. I absolutely could not get my head around the FreeCAD workflow. Ondsel seems to be built around a much more common workflow. I remember around the same time Humble Bundle had a Corel bundle with CorelCAD. I'm still curious to know if CorelCAD is any good.
I have just started using FreeCAD myself and most of the problems brought up in this video are non-issues.
From the first example (2:46)
1. There are midpoint constraints, they are just called symmetric constraints.
2. You can bring in references from the geometry you are building on so at 4:31 they can be linked
From the second example (7:49)
1. At 9:02 the button next to the external geometry button is called carbon copy and will copy another sketch (even one inside of another feature like a pad) and link to it so that doing things like changing the hole size later will propagate properly.
From the third example (10:58)
1. You can do exactly the same thing as show in on shape using a different workflow. I will grant that is sort of a cop out as knowing different workflows and how to use them is really inconvenient and makes things harder. Once you do know them however the process is as simple as it is in onshape
From the fourth example(11:59)
1. This one is a real issue unfortunately. The lack of timeline is something I do miss from other cad software. The only thing I will say in FreeCADs defense here is that over time you begin to understand the limitations and how to work around them.
All in all im a bit disappointed in this video, FreeCAD has some rough edges and a learning curve but should not just immediately be disregarded. With some time and practice it can do everything any other CAD can do. For hobbyists and makers especially I think being able to learn CAD and design your own parts without spending money on the program or being blocked from commercially using your designs unless you pay up is a negative that cant be overlooked. Large companies and professionals probably get there moneys worth but small business and hobbyists probably dont.
The fact that a sketch cannot be re-used for multiple bodies/features is not something I would wave away as a "non-issue". Creating copies of the same sketch for each use adds clutter and requires far more time. I often refer to the same sketch dozens of times for a project.
@@CullenJWebb/ FreeCAD's Link branch, otherwise known as 'realthunder' branch, had implemented that particular feature quite a while ago. This implementation hadn't made into the main branch yet...
Its like he did literally no research at all...like watch a UA-cam guide video...which is massively ironic considering what his channel is all about. I wonder how he learnt to use all the other tools? Must be born with those skills I guess.
Calling these non-issues is a stretch. Symmetric constraints aren't the same as midpoint constraints. You have to do extra work to define the midpoint for a symmetric constraint, where it's available automatically in professional packages.
While you can import geometry, it's a hazard in FreeCAD that often breaks your model if you make changes (topological naming problem). The best advice to date has been to design your part without importing geometry. This is doable but seriously slows down the workflow.
Carbon copy sketches aren't a panacea and often break for similar reasons as importing geometry.
@@CullenJWebb That totally makes sense and it requires a change to how you think about modeling that I wont say is good or bad but definitely different. What I meant when I said non-issue is that it is something that can still be achieved but maybe just not as ergonomically as other programs. In the video he shows how the "issue" breaks things when trying to change the hole size later and if you clone the sketch that does not happen.
For a midpoint, you can use the Symmetry constraint. Select the endpoints of the first line and an endpoint of the midline then apply the Symmetry constraint.
Watching this as I'm designing in Onshape and so glad I've moved on from Free cad and Fusion. But all my training was in Solidworks so Onshape is just so easy for me to use and don't have to goggle how to do something every time I'm trying to do an operation.
Solidworks really is awful, and I work in jt professionally
@@nikoraasu6929 why? I'd be using Solidworks if I still had a license for it.
it's nice that you did not have to watch any tutorials for onshape. I found it kind of confusing when trying it for the first time. I started with fusion, and while it was way easier than freecad, it still required some reading. for simple shapes(vacuum cleaner adapters, clips, cases, GEARS(has a nice gears workbench) etc) I use freecad, for more complicated designs I use fusion, but I want sell some of the designs that I am working on, and as far as I can tell freecad is the only one free, that will allow me to sell, and that is usable.
If you are doing a lot of manual dimensioning, try the spreadsheet workbench where you can add all your parameters as named aliases. Then, you can use those names while dimensioning features and if you go back and modify a dimension in the spreadsheet later, all the features update and stay consistent.
This sounds like an utterly painful alternative to properly working contraints.
Problem is you have to know what you are going to design, so no fast prototyping with spreadsheet.
A great thing about aliased spreadsheet cells is that the values are scoped throughout your file so you can enter a dimension once and reference it in multiple sketches and in other contexts outside of sketches such as positioning of objects.
In FreeCAD you can have a little spreadsheet open in a second pane and type a value and alias in there right at the moment that you want to use it the first time while you are in the middle of a sketch or something. You don't have to plan every dimension that you want to name ahead of time, just add them on the fly.
@@AndrewHelgeCox I got what you meant, and Fusion (and probably Oncad, but Im not familiar enough) and certainly Solid works all have similar. What Im referring to is what I assumed you were referring to where he did not want to make multiple dimensions but instead just wanted constraints to work intuitively.
I really gave FreeCAD a go back in Sep 2020 (when Fusion team really shook the boat with the free-tier) and I can't believe all the bottom-barrel problems are still there!
I did like the spreadsheet workspace, which acted like an enhanced version of the parameters window in Fusion 360 (which seem to be like "parametric variables" in OnShape, but in a single window) and was more akin to a lite MS-Excel. Actually setting dimensions to them took a bit more typing effort than typing something like "d42" in Fusion though.
I genuinely like, enjoy, and find your content useful but I think this video is a little weird. You state that using software you aren't familiar with comes with differently named tools/functions, so I think it would have been more fair to actually look up the equivalent functions for the gripes you bring up later. I understand you're trying to show it's less than intuitive, which i agree with, but i think as a viewer it's easy to lose track of that point and think you're saying certain things just aren't possible/available when they really are. So for clarity:
1. The symmetry constraint is used (sometimes along with construction geometry) as the equivalent of a midpoint constraint.
2. The external geometry tool is used to reference previously created objects in a new sketch. FreeCAD absolutely doesn't require you to redraw existing geometry like you did multiple times. This kind of tool is used in other CAD packages too, like Alibre, though the name may be different of course.
3. @11:20 you describe a process that can be done much faster and easier just using a second body and a shapebinder or subshape binder.
4. @12:45 the tree view IS in chronological order (at least in part design) though the nesting of sketches does indeed make it less obvious. Also, you can absolutely go back to point in time, by right clicking and choosing "set tip" to the feature you want to start with.
5. @15:00 there is a measurement tool. It's a tape measure icon.
There are other things but for the sake of time, i'll just say I totally agree the software could be greatly streamlined to be faster and more intuitive. However, I just want to make sure folks don't completely disregard it due to thinking it isn't capable of accomplishing many things that you struggled with in this video. It can do all the things, it just may take more steps or be named something other than what you're used to.
People, please support FreeCAD so it becomes more user friendly. The guts are there, the topological naming problem is on the brink of being remedied, and it just needs better UI/UX.
Nothing was intuitive for me when I first time opened Solidworks and it had me pull my hairs not a once not a twice. Fusion looks like a toy after Solidworks but still had given me headaches. But Onshape and Fusion already have played a "we are taking away the free version" card (though both reversed for non commercial use) so I don't believe it's a wise way to invest in learning them. And as a small business there is no choice. I'm glad Freecad is becoming better, I think it's time for me to start learning it.
@@avelkmI already know of small businesses that have started moving to FreeCAD, now that Ondsel is making all the right noises. For a small business it becomes incredibly hard to justify paying for a CAD package, if you're a 1 man business, especially one with low cashflow, FreeCAD is pretty much the only way to keep afloat.
@Ub3rMario Thank you for posting this, especially the part about "set tip". All it took was a right-click on an item in the tree to figure that one out.
For your 2nd point, there's also the option (that I typically use) to bring in another sketch as a reference... it's literally 2 clicks to do this. After that, you can resize the hole repeatedly and both sketches change together.
He complained about FreeCAD not being parametric - that's where he completely lost me. Everything in FreeCAD is or can be parametric. Simply name the dimension you want to reference (the hole diameter in the first sketch) then use that name as a reference in the second sketch (click the icon or type the equals sign, then reference sketch001.Constraints.thenameyougaveit). When you do it that way, you completely avoid any topological naming issues as well.
I wasn't screaming at the screen as he predicted, but I certainly was cringing at the number of most-difficult-paths he took to accomplish things and facepalming at all the stuff he said it can't do that I've been doing with it for many years. I completely admit that it has a steep learning curve, but I wouldn't expect to be proficient at any software in a super short period of time without reading anything or watching any tutorials.
As to technique: For that round thing, start by drawing a circle, then another circle, extrude that sketch. Create another sketch perpendicular to the first, draw a round-cornered box (there's a button for that) overlapping the top by about half, pocket that.
Done.... and in a fraction of the number of steps taken in the video, with no problems resizing anything.
"so I think it would have been more fair to actually look up the equivalent functions for the gripes you bring up later. I"
he literally describes his process of searching for the correct tools. More than that, you are missing that someone new to fusion glides whereas someone new to freecad crashes and burns.
I remember my first time using fusion like it was yesterday. Productive in no time. Not so for freecad, and that is the majority opinion. Stop with this pretending that they all have the same learning curve or that freecad is equivalent in efficiency. It just is not.
You ask him to support freecad so it becomes more user friendly but that is backwards. The community being hostile to criticism is why freecad will continue to have this problem. Its also far from "just needing better UI". If that was the case it would have been done. Anyone who has done any programming whatsoever knows that if it hasnt been done already its because its probably really difficult and based on tons of technical debt that has been accrued, likely because when it started the creators likely did not anticipate it growing into what it has. The result is though, this isnt some "oh lets pretty the UI then its just as good". Its some "there are significant underlying major changes to the code base that need to be made to make it similarly functional.
Facenating that He uses the PartDesign workbench in Ondsel, while he used the Part workbench in FreeCAD. Part workbench is just a different modelling workflow compared to the PartDesign workbench. Regarding dimensions, you can link dimensions between eachother. It is a more robust than linking to edges, especially for FreeCAD, but also in the "propriatary software" (being proficiant in using NX I feel confident to state this, have had to fix plenty of crappy cad files of incompetent collegues unfortunately).
I do agree that FreeCAD user interface needs a serious improvement, also the toponaming issue as you showed is annoying, will be fixed though. FreeCAD is going in the right direction, not there yet for commercial use (although I use it on a regular basis at my office for random jobs where FreeCAD has the edge).
There are midpoint constraints in FreeCAD. Also you can bring in the geometry from other bodies or sketches into a sketch as construction points and lines. I agree it’s not as user friendly when the software doesn’t make assumptions, but the things you wanted to accomplish are readily possible in FreeCAD, and I assume at least as easy in Ondsel. I always enjoy your content, but I think you didn’t give this one an accurate review.
I disagree. He gave it a fair review. This is the experience that the majority of people have when trying freecad. It's the most unintuitive CAD program I've ever tried. All CAD programs should be intuitive. There's a reason that Onshape and Fusion 360 are the top CAD choices.
This is literally the reason why I don't use FreeCAD. Way too many rough edges. Fusion and OnShape have a bunch of problems, but they at least have coherent design
I have been learning engineering ever since i was 14, i downloaded freecad about a few years ago so i can work on projects at home without licensing, but free cad was so inconvient compared to solid edge (the cad i was taught to use it school) or even inventor (the cad im using at my workplace right now). This looks like a good opportunity but still has so much to be improved on, i hope this will work out in a few years.
Same FOSS issues that have been plaguing the scene for decades: Refusal to conform to the industry standards; especially when it comes to UI and UX.
There is no reason to conform to any UI that is "standardized" by shit companies like Microsoft or Google.
The fact corporations sue developers that donate their time and effort trying to provide for others if they come even close to using a similar scheme never occurred to you did it?
@@noanyobiseniss7462LOL Conforming to industry standards and straight copying something are two WILDLY different things. No one holds a patent on easily selecting a piece of geometry to modify it, or on detecting enclosed sketches for extruding. Are you pretending to be an idiot or is this genuine homegrown stupidity?
@@noanyobiseniss7462 Lets be completely clear. That is completely irrelevant to this situation and a poor excuse.
Don't forget the deliberate infiltration of FOSS projects by the market leaders.
Nice T Shirt,
Greetings from Brazil dude
It’s like watching myself trying to learn FreeCAD. I had all these errors and gave up before going back to Fusion.
Learning freecad is about learning a very structured workflow and doing a bit of planning before drawing.
The workflow has two or three hard don'ts, and respecting them makes the experience much simpler predictable.
1) Don't rush. Plan out the part before modeling it, start with the part most unlikely to change topology.
2) Use elements from sketches as references in new sketches, instead of faces or edges of pads.
3) Read the docs, the forum, or UA-cam before doing something new.
I learnt freecad first, and would not consider moving to other programs for the features shown in this video.
There are however a lot of other pain points that are really frustrating to me still. I believe that FreeCAD and its derivatives will soon be on par, as others have mentioned in the comments.
This is exactly what happened to me in my FreeCAD video, and you and your comment section basically said the same thing that I and my comment section said.
Ot really is a toxic community problem isnt it. I hate it when toxic positivity plagues communities. Linux used to be terrible for this and is getting much better but clearly Freecad community wise hasnt gotten past that defensiveness.
I've just yesterday watched some freecad tutorials (haven't used it) and dev version 0.22 has some great improvements that makes a lot of sense (ONE auto dimension tool to rule them all, finally!). It also made a lot of sense to me. Instead of midpoint constraint the guy used symmetrical constraint and it is basically the same if you think about it. As for one sketch per feature, it's the same in Solidworks which IS industry standard. As for Fusion 360, couldn't find today a list of all constraints on a object, that was really frustrating.
CAD has a real problem in that there is no mid-market in this world. It’s either enterprise, free or basic. I pull my hair out with Freecad’s non-user centric design and workflow, and there’s no tool that allows me to design open source models AND proprietary models (ie the Open Source supporting small business). Onshape has a horrid entry level, Fusion is not much better, and beyond those tools, there’s really nothing else that comes close feature-wise without a consider number of 0’s in the start cost.
It really sucks that if you are at that not a business but also sometimes might sell some of their things, you basically only have Fusion 360 as an option. I guess Rhino exists too, but is less parametric and has a far less wide feature base. I think Alibre looks closer as well, but it too is not cheap.
To be clear, for anyone else reading and wondering what the previous user and I are talking about, the terms of Fusion 360 free tier and Onshape basically forbid you from making a penny off of your work, and in the case of Onshape, you are automatically sharing your work with everyone. Big no bueno even if you are doing open source work of any level of depth because of the potential for all sorts of issues like your work being taken before its ready for instance.
Nice video. As others have said symmetry tool gives a mid-point and there's a difference in Freecad between a copy and a clone. That would, I believe, solve the issue with the changing hole size. Freecad does have some wierd habits but I still like it.
Freecad needs UI employees.
You really don't need an UI employee to make a better UI. You just don't need to be stubborn like FreeCad devs are and have some brains, eyes and balls to copy what other software do. They could won if they do that but "nooooo tEy ArE sPeCiAl, tHeY nEeD tO bE dIfFrEnT".
FreeCAD isn't a company, it's an open source project. There are no employees, only volunteers.
Ondsel is a company that is extending what appears to be the development (0.22) version of FreeCAD, adding some of the UI mods that are available (there are many), and adding a cloud storage option and support behind it for paying customers.
Do you even realize there are NO employees???
It is a open source collaboration of people donating their time.
Nice review. I have learned to use freecad, but someday when my ship comes in, I will get a subscription to the high end stuff. In defense of freecad, I had just started 3D with tinkercad. So freecad seemed awesome. Most freecad users learn to work around the limitations. I want to commend the freecad programmers though, what they have done so far is amazing. I hear that the new 0.22 version is going to be nice.
As others have pointed out some of your "actual limitations" are really "temporary inconveniences" (I think of 'set tip' for the lack of timeline or not using shapebinders,....). The real problem is the lack of a good centralized documentation. I learned most from youtube tutorials. Some of the other actual limitations could be solved if RealThunders branch and Ondsel merge and make a beautiful cad baby.
No no no buddy. This was one of the less toxic positivity comments, but absolutely not. This definitely requires far more long term on going mental bandwidth to deal with. The sketching and only one body per sketch is absurd, and using the carbon copy feature isnt remotely a good workaround. Its a fundamentally broken feature that would cost hours upon hours of time, making things painful to edit.
I just think anyone who is saying that its all about user knowledge is kidding themselves, because I dont think there is a single person who would be more efficient in freecad than the other options based on not only this video, but all of the weirdly fanatic comments defending it.
I don't read all the comments and I'm certainly not a freecad evangelist. Just pointing out that the multiple body one sketch option is worked on. Realthunder's branch already has it with the added benefit of doing operations on only parts of the sketch so you can easily make a master sketch. Doing arrays on sketches is also available. I fully understand it is out of the scope of Michael's review to investigate what is in development. The midpoint constraint can be solved with a symmetry constraint so for me this doesn't belong in the "actual limitations" category. Still for somebody new to freecad not straight forward and not well documented. Michael's critique is fair. I personally choose to use freecad because I like my linux workflow for 3d printing: ssh available from terminal to access my klipper machines and sftp integration in the file manager. All slicers are easily available with appImages, blender auto updates,... I make simple designs and for me this actually works faster than my windows environment with fusion 360.
Sometimes I like to practice using FreeCAD, I think it's an excellent software for anyone who wants to start designing, see my examples, this t-shirt is in good taste.
The command you were looking for was "create carbon copy" it allows you to project one sketch into another as actual copies. then you can trim, delete, or turn them into construction lines
Hi Michael, I'm new to cad and 3D printing and i'm finding your content extremely helpful. I've started learning Onshape and find it easy to learn with the help of some tutorials but now I want my designs private. I cant afford Onshapes sub every year so i started to find alternatives and found Alibre, they have a one off purchase price which is perfect for me and so far it seems very similar to onshape. Would you be able to a comparison video between them? It would be great to see how quickly someone with experience picks it up and details what Alibre is lacking and if the price makes up for in the end.
I have used both fusion, siemens nx, and freecad. Freecad was the first cad package i used, and while its by far the most painful in UI it also feels for me like the most intuitive in its actual function (because I grew with it).
I don't want my sketch snapping to a line, unless I specifically tell it to. But I get that thats personal preference.
But limitations (in particular topo-naming and non connected bodies) really annoy me as well. I've learned to work around them and doing so is just part of my workflow now. I wish FreeCAD was more accessible, and I hope that Ondsel does exactly that. Create a User friendly, and still very capable CAD-(and maybe CAM) package.
That's my FreeCAD theme! :)
Having used OpenSCAD for 3D modelling for the last decade I have stuck with it because every time I have had a new project it was just so much easier to stick with what was familiar. I don't trust that propitiatory programs will be available for free in the future so for me open source is the only option. Some day I will give FreeCAD a try but I have been saying that for a long time. Now that I have retired I plan on learning Blender because I would like to move beyond 3D modelling for 3D printing only.
Have you tried CAD Query? It is like OpenSCAD but uses Python instead of a proprietary language and OpenCascade as the geometry engine. I'm trying it at the moment but not experienced enough in either to say which is best (if any one solution could be best for all uses).
@@AndrewHelgeCox i cant find a single good video on CadQuery...every one is wildly off-topic, full of irrelevant rambling or just streams of people who don't know how to use it working it out..
FreeCad has OpenSCAD as one of its base workbenches that other tools can be added on to, so might be a good place to start and explore from. (Might have to be downloaded as a plugin first, but integrates from there)
You can also use Blender to make things for 3D Printing, its what I've been doing so far. Sure its not optimal for it but working with the meshes is at times more intuitive, Though I do need to learn CAD at some point as some things really are not fully practical in Blender. I just have used it because its what I know.
@@AndrewHelgeCox This is the first I have heard of it. Having looked it up now I am intrigued because it can import and export STEP files. Something OpenSCAD can't do.
One have to remember that different programs have different work flows, and trying to force an inefficient workflow on a program is only frustration.
If some programs work equal then they doesn't need to be good. It just make it easier to switch between them.
I am thinking of GIMP and Photoshop or Blender and other 3D modeling software. The functionality are there, but they have different UI and work flow. And this make some operations work differently, which you learn by using the software.
For people coming from TinkerCAD I'd suggest they avoid sketches and look at the Part workbench where they can follow a familiar workflow of adding and subtracting solids but with a parametric approach and some more bells and whistles, as well as owning their files locally.
Thank you!
I would love to see Fusion 360 tutorials.
Love the content
Please try FreeCAD 1.0 (Release Candidate). It is really a HUGE step forward and incorporates many of the Ondsel improvements. As for drawing a sketch on an body's surface, you can use that body's geometries by clicking on the "Create external geometry" button in the sketcher and then select the geometries you want to use for your sketch.
Ondsel ES 2024.2 has made many usability-related changes on top of the FreeCAD 0.22.
Some of these improvements were specifically in response to this video.
Ondsel developer Brad Collette put out a blog on May 7, in which he acknowledges your inputs, and provides a link to this video.
I cannot image a more comprehensive response from a developer 👍
1. He provided an immediate explanation to your points in the comments section
2. He addressed the salient points rapidly
3. He explains all new features in a delightful blog, which embeds short videos to demonstrate the features👌
Could you please make a follow up video to re-assess your musing: _'Can FOSS CAD compete?'_
Great video. How do you feel about Alibre?