I'm a occasional hobbyist maker and i've used Autodesk Fusion, Solid Edge, OpenSCAD and other niche parametric programs, but always felt FreeCAD was too complex. But I really wanted it to work for me because it's FOSS and 100% offline. So with the new FreeCAD 1.1 RC I found an hour long tutorial and dove in.
(1.1 is supposedly much easier to work with)
After doing the tut I can say that 1.1 is very nice, i can uninstall Fusion and Solid Edge finally :)
FreeCAD is one of those programs that I want to like and I’m rooting for, but for modeling outside of work I’m a much bigger fan of plasticity and blender. I’m hopeful now that language models are so good at software development that we can get a fork of freeCAD with a focus on ease of use.
Unrelated to part modeling, I would love to have a browser based roadway design tool that is domain-first, CAD second. Autodesk and Bentley are trying to be less bad, but their solutions create an extremely high administrative burden and unreasonable costs. Oh, if I just have someone working full-time for a month preparing files to be federated on your cloud platform I can finally get clash detection? I mean, shouldn’t that be table stakes for the software you are already being asked to buy over again every single year?
I've also dove into all of those, and have mostly stuck to OpenSCAD now. I'm not amazing at it, but I've been able to get a few things done that I needed for 3D printing. What has really made much better at OpenSCAD is ClaudeCode or Antigravity in VSCode, with BSOL2 library. The documentation is just bad enough that it takes me forever to figure out on my own, but just good enough with lots of examples out there that an LLM can get mostly what I want with little fuss.
I want to like FreeCad, or FOSS CAD. For example: KiCAD and Blender are exquisite Free/OSS software I'm proud to use. For [non-EDA] CAD, I use SolidWorks, as I find FreeCAD (and OpenSCAD) is not in the same quality and user-experience tier.
I got to use SolidWorks, Catia, Inventor before having my hands on pre-1.0 versions of FreeCAD. I never really understood the argument that it's too complex. The UI may be what it is (and admittedly full of shortcomings), but I found FreeCAD to be very conventional in the sense that you build out of sketches, define constraints that are identical from every other tool, compose those through extrusions, revolutions, etc.
The fact that it crashed on me for everything and nothing all at once seemed a bigger problem than "complexity".
I feel CAD is one area where open source does not shine. The problem space is too complex, and the UIs demand continuous, thoughtful development driven from customer demands rather than developers scratching their own itches.
Not least there are free (as in beer) solutions available, like fusion 360, that are enormously capable.
Theres certainly a place for open source, and openscad would be a great tool to reach for for procedurally generated models. But in all honesty, Freecad doesn't compare well to the professional tools in this space - not in the way that say, gimp does to its commercial competitors.
The reason being that Open Source is a bunch of people who approach EVERYTHING as a programming problem, and they are chronically allergic to graphics, graphical UIs, and any kind of sense of what user interactions are a good experience.
They don't start with "how do users want this to operate?" They start with a weekend of coding, applying their preconceived notions, a library of fancy algorithms that are not directly motivated by an actual feature, and they go from there. This does not lead to a good product, as in something that could earn you money on an open market. It only prevails, in spite of nobody wanting to pay for it, because they give it away for free, and they sink their own "disposable time" (and maybe even income) into the project.
In a space that's being taken over by cloud shit where you have no privacy, FreeCAD is one of the last good CAD engineering tools left, let alone being FOSS.
I only used it for some hobby modeling, but I have to say it's fantastic and very impressive.
It seems like it's fully community-maintained, there is no big company or foundation behind it. Honestly it's hard to believe!
There was just one major problem, the infamous "topological naming problem" which caused issues downstream is you edited a non-leaf node. That was pretty frustrating to deal with, but in later releases they fixed it I think. (Have not tried it since because I didn't have anything to model)
I really want to support open-source CAD, but it's so hard to take FreeCAD seriously. It reminds me of POV-Ray, which was (and still is) a parametric raytracer. An impressive feat of engineering completely derailed by the choice of a "UI" paradigm that made the simplest things unreasonably hard.
Designing 3D parts is hard enough, and while parametric modeling has uses... come on.
A very powerful feature of FreeCAD is its Python console. It is very useful when debugging software that uses/produces 3D solids. With it I was able to:
I’ve really enjoyed Shapr3D (built on Parasolid). Nothing particularly better than the usual competitors but the interface is really intuitive and you can realistically develop on an iPad. Curious if anyone else has had experiences with it.
I will try the newer version again. Last I tried 2 years or so back, it was crashing for me.
Personal Context: I am a civil enginer, and our requirement from CAD softwares are a lot simpler than Mechanical Engineering. Here on HN, whenever I see people discussing CAD, its the mechanical version of parts and 3d printing.
Shameless Plug:
I have decided to try building my own! Over a long enough timeline, it is doable, including the UI/UX part.
FreeCAD is now in the same ballpark of capability and usability as Solidworks. It can still be a bit clunky and frustrating sometimes, but then so can most CAD programs, in their own ways.
Side note: the creator of the video above also has a video on optimising the FreeCAD interface. (There are some frustrations related to the interface generally, and this would seem to be a low hanging fruit for the FreeCAD team to address.)
I recently gave CadQuery (a Python wrapper around OpenCASCADE) and its Jupyter and VSCode integrations another try. Two years ago installation was a mess across conda, Docker, and pyenv, and the API itself felt like a dense, bespoke DSL you had to fight.
This time everything just installed, and Claude Code turned out to be pretty good.
Designing with code is sometimes more work upfront, but iteration is so much better. You get proper abstractions: functions, encapsulation, loops. You can drop in a SAT solver to optimize part placement or grab data from an excel sheet. No more clicking through a GUI that crashes and loses your session. I've spent time with Fusion, SolidWorks, NX, OnShape, FreeCAD, and Rhino, and each has its merits, but none of them can benefit from the LLM revolution the way a code-first tool can.
I asked Claude Code to generate a set of Lego bricks in various sizes, apply a nice color palette, and pack them optimally into a grid. It needed some steering, but all in all I was impressed
Nice too see this here. I've been using FreeCAD a lot recently for various personal 3d projects.
I can't compare to any of the paid competitors as I've not used those, but in my opinion FreeCAD is slightly disappointing when it comes to UI, bugs and stability.
It's fine for simple stuff, but man, it can be frustrating to work with especially when working on something more complicated then running into random bugs or application crashes.
I've crashed and burned in FreeCAD each time I've tried it (to be fair, that's happened in every other traditional 3D CAD program I've tried except Dune 3D) --- hoping that someone will update:
The thing which would really help me in FreeCAD would be having a graphical programming workbench as a first-class citizen, something like Grasshopper for Rhino3D, or the node editor in Moment of Inspiration 3D, or Dynamo as used for AutoDesk software --- any word on that?
I like freecad. I'm just not very good at using it. I rarely do sketches and part design. I end up doing stuff the kiddie way with just joining and cutting out basic shapes from the parts bench.
MJ is awesome, but I recently discovered this another treasure trove of a YT channel that has only 5k subscribers and covers topics MJ has less focus on, like reverse engineering or surfaces: https://www.youtube.com/@DuyQuangDang/videos
I wish they would just copy the gui format of Solidworks, Creo, NX, etc. Every time I open it to try and learn it, it frustrates the crap out of me and I close it until it's been long enough that I'm willing to try again.
FreeCAD is the first program I ever used where I actually drafted hate mail to the devs (but the oss nature gave me restraint in actually pressing send)
I spent 2 days crash coursing freeCAD (this is with a general understanding of the theory of 3D design already) to try and make an adapter plate for my car. A plate with 6 holes in precise spots and tapped. It was absolutely brutal and after the first 3D print trial had the a couple holes misaligned, I trashed freecad got the free fusion360.
No shit, in 20 minutes I had made the exact part I needed. The program actually worked the way you would expect. I didn't even need a tutorial it was so intuitive. Even if I hadn't spent the previous 2 days getting bent by freecad, I'm pretty sure it would have taken me only an hour max with a blank slate mind in fusion.
Now I'm getting angry writing this. If the FreeCAD guys see this, thanks for the hard work, but understand your minds must work completely differently than even the average engineers.
I am not trained to be a mechanical engineer. I wanted to explore 3D printing. The usual suspects (FOSS missionaries with a deep-rooted hotly burning hate for capitalism) gave me OpenSCAD, which was okay to dick around with but QUICKLY showed its clunkiness ("compiling"... what a joke). So then I gave FreeCAD a look, because everyone said it's just like the commerical programs. It was not. Documentation and tutorials were a mess. The program itself was a mess. UX that makes you want to strangle someone.
So then I looked for free student versions of commercial software. They had a clear UI and UX, clear tutorials. It was a joy to model the parts I needed.
If I needed 3D modeling for engineering in the future, I would absolutely pay for a commercial program. FreeCAD was simply no competition. I don't know if it is now. Nor do I have any motivation whatsoever to even bother to give it another look.
If I need a license for hobbyist purposes, I'm sure some of the commercial offerings are happy to give me one for free because that would translate into commerce for them if I ever needed it professionally.
I get frustrated when people recommend FreeCAD as an alternative to SolidWorks, Fusion etc. The comparisons often miss the point of it being substantially worse. We understand this, but someone new (Maybe you or I prior to learning CAD) do not; it feels dishonest, and disrespectful of peoples' time.
I learned CAD (formally, in a classroom) on Solidworks/AutoCAD, and once I understood the difference between part and part design, I didn't have major issues with FreeCAD-the concepts of good modeling are the same. I had some "okay, what does this software call this function" moments, but it wasn't nearly as bad as when I learned NX and couldn't find the constraints menu. I personally find the shortcomings in techdraw & assembly to be a much bigger problem than the UI-frankly, if I compare it to every engineering software I've used, it is solidly middle-of-the-pack in UI. The worst ones were commercial, expensive software. At least with FreeCAD if something is unbearably stupid I can go in and _fix_ it.
I'm a big fan of FreeCAD and have been using it to design and sell 3d printed parts. The learning curve was kinda steep because FreeCAD really wants you to things the "FreeCAD way" but once I got past that I started to enjoy using it.
My only gripe with FreeCAD is that the program runs on a single CPU core as far as I can tell and it's easy to lock up the program for multiple seconds if you do too complex of an operation. This isn't usually an issue for me though.
I have no formal CAD experience, I just wanted to build some stuff with my 3D printer.
If you are going to experiment with FreeCAD, I highly, highly recommend starting by learning about parametric modelling. Define everything in the spreadsheet, and relate all of the sizes to each other.
If you don't, it will be a very frustrating experience when you realize halfway into your design that some earlier piece needs to be tweaked, and your whole model falls apart.
I've enjoyed Build123d (and it's over-loaded python operators) as an alternative to OpenSCAD, backed (like FreeCAD) by the OpenCascade CAD kernel... but now they're vibe-coding PRs, and I'm even more exited to adopt real constructive-modeling (rather than emulating it on-top of edge & face representations) as libfive matures -- it's already widespread language bindings and a few lightweight dedicated editors
37 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 59.6 ms ] thread* This needs a better renderer in today's day & age
* Need cross-device/web support
* Topology Optimization w/ pure physics code
-----
Hopefully LLMs can work on forking this or adding better features with AI-assists
Finding Cadquery less of a hurdle for casual use. Wish I could run it from Termux though.
After doing the tut I can say that 1.1 is very nice, i can uninstall Fusion and Solid Edge finally :)
The guide i followed, no relation to it whatsoverer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxxDahY1U6E
Unrelated to part modeling, I would love to have a browser based roadway design tool that is domain-first, CAD second. Autodesk and Bentley are trying to be less bad, but their solutions create an extremely high administrative burden and unreasonable costs. Oh, if I just have someone working full-time for a month preparing files to be federated on your cloud platform I can finally get clash detection? I mean, shouldn’t that be table stakes for the software you are already being asked to buy over again every single year?
The fact that it crashed on me for everything and nothing all at once seemed a bigger problem than "complexity".
Not least there are free (as in beer) solutions available, like fusion 360, that are enormously capable.
Theres certainly a place for open source, and openscad would be a great tool to reach for for procedurally generated models. But in all honesty, Freecad doesn't compare well to the professional tools in this space - not in the way that say, gimp does to its commercial competitors.
They don't start with "how do users want this to operate?" They start with a weekend of coding, applying their preconceived notions, a library of fancy algorithms that are not directly motivated by an actual feature, and they go from there. This does not lead to a good product, as in something that could earn you money on an open market. It only prevails, in spite of nobody wanting to pay for it, because they give it away for free, and they sink their own "disposable time" (and maybe even income) into the project.
It seems like it's fully community-maintained, there is no big company or foundation behind it. Honestly it's hard to believe!
There was just one major problem, the infamous "topological naming problem" which caused issues downstream is you edited a non-leaf node. That was pretty frustrating to deal with, but in later releases they fixed it I think. (Have not tried it since because I didn't have anything to model)
Designing 3D parts is hard enough, and while parametric modeling has uses... come on.
- colorise solid faces with random colors
- colorise faces by type (cylinder, plane, etc.)
- add 3D labels in the scene
Personal Context: I am a civil enginer, and our requirement from CAD softwares are a lot simpler than Mechanical Engineering. Here on HN, whenever I see people discussing CAD, its the mechanical version of parts and 3d printing.
Shameless Plug: I have decided to try building my own! Over a long enough timeline, it is doable, including the UI/UX part.
https://mv.ramshanker.in/
I’m an CAD hobbyist, and I’ve tried to work with FreeCAD multiple times over past years, always failing….
…until I saw this video and learned about version 1.1:
https://youtu.be/VEfNRST_3x8
FreeCAD is now in the same ballpark of capability and usability as Solidworks. It can still be a bit clunky and frustrating sometimes, but then so can most CAD programs, in their own ways.
Side note: the creator of the video above also has a video on optimising the FreeCAD interface. (There are some frustrations related to the interface generally, and this would seem to be a low hanging fruit for the FreeCAD team to address.)
This time everything just installed, and Claude Code turned out to be pretty good. Designing with code is sometimes more work upfront, but iteration is so much better. You get proper abstractions: functions, encapsulation, loops. You can drop in a SAT solver to optimize part placement or grab data from an excel sheet. No more clicking through a GUI that crashes and loses your session. I've spent time with Fusion, SolidWorks, NX, OnShape, FreeCAD, and Rhino, and each has its merits, but none of them can benefit from the LLM revolution the way a code-first tool can.
I asked Claude Code to generate a set of Lego bricks in various sizes, apply a nice color palette, and pack them optimally into a grid. It needed some steering, but all in all I was impressed
I can't compare to any of the paid competitors as I've not used those, but in my opinion FreeCAD is slightly disappointing when it comes to UI, bugs and stability.
It's fine for simple stuff, but man, it can be frustrating to work with especially when working on something more complicated then running into random bugs or application crashes.
It's a great project though and very powerful.
https://magazine.raspberrypi.com/books/freecad
for the new UI --- any word on that? (Just an annotated copy would be great)
Apparently, one of the devs from Ondsel has done a soft-fork and is stumping for funding:
https://www.astocad.com/
(but he wasn't interested in the feature I want, see below)
That said, I managed to make it through the tutorial for Dune 3D twice now (after a fashion), and I think that the tutorial needs to do a better job of explaining concepts from first principles: https://github.com/dune3d/dune3d/discussions/118 and https://github.com/dune3d/dune3d/discussions/252 c.f., my own attempt to explain the commercial CAD/CAM software which a company I work for sells/supports: https://willadams.gitbook.io/design-into-3d/2d-drawing --- is there a really good book which explains fundamental 3D CAD concepts and terminology?
I'm way more successful w/ OpenSCAD (usually by way of BlockSCAD: https://www.blockscad3d.com/editor/ or https://github.com/derkork/openscad-graph-editor) and the available printed books help a lot, though I've been using the new Python integrated version:
https://pythonscad.org/
https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview
The thing which would really help me in FreeCAD would be having a graphical programming workbench as a first-class citizen, something like Grasshopper for Rhino3D, or the node editor in Moment of Inspiration 3D, or Dynamo as used for AutoDesk software --- any word on that?
I spent 2 days crash coursing freeCAD (this is with a general understanding of the theory of 3D design already) to try and make an adapter plate for my car. A plate with 6 holes in precise spots and tapped. It was absolutely brutal and after the first 3D print trial had the a couple holes misaligned, I trashed freecad got the free fusion360.
No shit, in 20 minutes I had made the exact part I needed. The program actually worked the way you would expect. I didn't even need a tutorial it was so intuitive. Even if I hadn't spent the previous 2 days getting bent by freecad, I'm pretty sure it would have taken me only an hour max with a blank slate mind in fusion.
Now I'm getting angry writing this. If the FreeCAD guys see this, thanks for the hard work, but understand your minds must work completely differently than even the average engineers.
So then I looked for free student versions of commercial software. They had a clear UI and UX, clear tutorials. It was a joy to model the parts I needed.
If I needed 3D modeling for engineering in the future, I would absolutely pay for a commercial program. FreeCAD was simply no competition. I don't know if it is now. Nor do I have any motivation whatsoever to even bother to give it another look.
If I need a license for hobbyist purposes, I'm sure some of the commercial offerings are happy to give me one for free because that would translate into commerce for them if I ever needed it professionally.
My only gripe with FreeCAD is that the program runs on a single CPU core as far as I can tell and it's easy to lock up the program for multiple seconds if you do too complex of an operation. This isn't usually an issue for me though.
If you are going to experiment with FreeCAD, I highly, highly recommend starting by learning about parametric modelling. Define everything in the spreadsheet, and relate all of the sizes to each other.
If you don't, it will be a very frustrating experience when you realize halfway into your design that some earlier piece needs to be tweaked, and your whole model falls apart.