Ah okay, my mistake.
I'd strongly recommend trying the Realthunder branch of FreeCAD.Good write-up thanks
I might have a look at Free cad.
...and I read all without a cup
Is it not available elsewhere? I hate github.If going thru GitHub to get it then no
I'm a fan
RE the Solidworks personal use…it looks like it’s probably their new cloud package ‘3Dexperience’ kind of CATIA ish. I hate it so far.A bit of a mix-and-match mess comprising Onshape, ZW3D Lite and CADQuery. If you really want to know why, grab yourself a cuppa and read on...
I didn't find anything that met all the requirements I had (at a price I could justify) and I spent a lot of time agonising over the options. There were some free ones that were rubbish (in my opinion, obviously), like DesignSpark, NaroCAD, NanoCAD Pro etc. There were some free ones that were good (FreeCAD mainly) and some free ones that were excellent (with caveats), in particular Onshape.
There were also some paid ones that were awful (especially Alibre Atom3D). I wouldn't touch Atom3D with a barge pole: it has no benefits compared to FreeCAD that I could see and once FreeCAD get the assembly thing sorted (which may be a while off yet), FreeCAD will be better. Alibre have made it clear (in emails to me) that there will never be the ability to do top-down design (designing parts based on other parts, rather than starting each part as an independent thing), which I see as an essential CAD feature. They want this to be a distinguishing feature of their more premium product (which I also tried, and the top-down design implementation was terrible). Given that Atom3D is several hundred pounds, that's a massive waste of money.
Fusion 360 is very capable (although reducing in capability every time someone at Autodesk sneezes) but there were a few things that put me off:
1. It's a bit quirky in that quite a few things work differently to other CAD systems. Get used to Fusion 360 and any other system will feel odd.
2. Draftsight. I used Draftsight for years and then Autodesk decided to muck about with licences and make it not free any more. Thankfully everything I did with it was DXF, which is a relatively open standard. They'll probably do it with Fusion 360 at some point. To keep access to your parametric models, you rely on Autodesk renewing your free licence.
3. 3D sketching seemed a bit c**p (this might have improved since I trialled the various CAD systems as it was several years ago).
4. Mesh import only really works if you buy the premium version (not that it's much better in other software).
The main problems were 1 & 2. I couldn't bring myself to learn something in detail that worked differently to most other tools and which Autodesk might pull the plug on at any point. It's worth noting that I really don't like the subscription model as a hobbyist, so if I used Fusion 360 it would have been the free version. The software is designed in such a way they can easily tweak what's available in the free version and that is definitely not a good thing.
Onshape is awesome and was the best (by a surprisingly wide margin) in my test of drawing a complicated part (comprised of lots of sketch, extrude, sketch, extrude, sketch extrude etc steps), then going back to an early sketch and changing all the dimensions. It has a very good scripting language for fancy stuff and makes top-down design work really well. The obvious disadvantages are:
1. All your projects are public (not that there's much chance anyone will ever find them amongst the thousands of public projects).
2. If Onshape pull the plug on the free version (shall we call it "doing an Autodesk"?
IronCAD INOVATE [sic] I didn't get very far with. I could get a trial of IronCAD, but the lower cost "INOVATE" [sic] one was described as having "a reduced feature set", but with no opportunity to try the reduced feature set version. Therefore I could get used to some feature in the trial version, pay for the lower cost version and find that the feature I used had disappeared. I didn't like that.
ZW3D Lite is not as powerful as Onshape and definitely not as good at the test of changing early sketches, although in my tests (and the use I've had since buying it) I never got to the point that I couldn't recover after a change. It did a lot better in that test than FreeCAD, which has a habit of falling over if you change an early sketch in a way it doesn't like. It lacks some features of the more premium version (ZW3D), but these differences were clear and I was able to get a trial of the Lite version: nothing concerned me too much. It wasn't cheap: I think I paid a bit under £1000 for the licence, but that's a one-off cost and I'm still using the same version quite a few years later. I don't get to upgrade to the latest version (I'd have to pay a few hundred pounds to upgrade), but I haven't felt the need to do so and am still quite content with my old version. Unlike subscription type software, I don't lose access to the software if I don't pay. The commercial version of Fusion 360 is (I think) about £450 a year, which would add up quickly.
I still use Onshape for some things (Onshape has a built in gear generator, more in the way of fancy assembly constraints & scripting is better in Onshape: ZW3D scripting is possible, but hard work). Where I really want to do stuff in a very scripty way, I use CADQuery by preference or occasionally OpenJSCAD (note the "J": I don't get on with the OpenSCAD language). Very occasionally I even open FreeCAD but mainly just out of curiosity to see how it has improved since last time I ran it or because it seems to load STEP files quite quickly. I also use NX occasionally, but only because it's what I've got on my work machine (I'm not a mechanical engineer, but I occasionally need to look at mechanical models at work and so have the software on my work PC). In my last job the same was true except it was SolidEdge instead of NX.
If anyone (hobbyist) asks me what CAD program to use, I recommend Onshape first and if they don't get on with that or can't abide public models for whatever reason, I recommend FreeCAD with a strong advisory to keep it up to date. I tell them to steer well clear of Atom 3D and DesignSpark and not to bother with NanoCAD Pro or NaroCAD. I also mention Fusion 360 and that it's very capable (if quirky) but they may end up locked in an ecosystem and having to pay £450 a year to keep accessing their models. Oh, and I tell them to buy a 3DConnexion Space Mouse (which works with most of the interactive CAD systems mentioned and all the ones I recommend)!
The final and probably most important bit of advice I try to give anyone who asks about 3D CAD is this: every time you finish a model (or a version of a model), regardless of which CAD system you use, export the project as a STEP file. That way you'll always be able to edit your old designs (albeit not parametrically), even if the system you use today goes kaput or gets Autodesked in some way or other.
If you're reading this sentence and also managed to read all the other sentences: well done! You've probably finished your cuppa, so go and get another one!
You don't need to clone the source. GitHub has download links for zipped files. So no login required.Is it not available elsewhere? I hate github.
Which part of "hub for gits" are you unsure about?GitHub is the most un-intuative platform I've ever seen. Made by and for programmers thinking every one speaks their kind of language
I resemble that allegation!GitHub is the most un-intuative platform I've ever seen. Made by and for programmers thinking every one speaks their kind of language
GitHub is the most un-intuative platform I've ever seen. Made by and for programmers thinking every one speaks their kind of language
GitHub is the most un-intuative platform I've ever seen. Made by and for programmers thinking every one speaks their kind of language
