FreeCAD is the worst. Thanks for building this!

(I seem to be cast in the role of FreeCAD advocate on HN these days, but here goes!)

For years I agreed with you - I tried FreeCAD multiple times, different versions, always sucked.

Then I watched this video [0] and discovered that v1.1 is different - and that it's good enough for solid reliable hobby usage. It's still a touch frustrating in a few areas (text, for example) but I've now switched over to it completely.

[0] https://youtu.be/VEfNRST_3x8

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bmurphy1976 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I've forced myself to git gud with FreeCAD. It's better. Way better than it used to be. It's also still a very complex and user unfriendly application with a long road ahead of it.

You can make it work. You can also save yourself a lot of headache by using other CAD tools. Personally I value "Freedom" so I will continue to use it despite the difficulties but that may not be the right path for others.

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elaus 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I agree. freeCAD has become a tool that I just use without thinking about it. Earlier versions always made me question my choice and try out other software.

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daotoad 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I really, really want that to be true, but my experience trying to adopt it has been really painful.

Even selecting things in the UI has sucked. I went in and increased the selection radius or whatever, that helped. But really, should I need to do this as a new user?

Getting the constraints to behave is like pulling teeth.

It also kind of sucks that you have to have really sparse sketches that only contain one closed figure. I gather you can create a "master sketch" and selectively project geometry into other sketches. But the last few times I've tried the app, I haven't gotten far enough into my sketches before rage quitting to validate the technique.

Right now I am back F360 with their hobby license wanting to escape their regular messing with the terms and conditions.

	▲	mft_ 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Even selecting things in the UI has sucked. I went in and increased the selection radius or whatever, that helped. But really, should I need to do this as a new user? Agree - selection isn’t broken, but it’s definitely sometimes frustrating and as it’s such a common function, absolutely should be as close to perfect as possible. I think it’s partly that the visual indication of what you’re hovering over and would be selected is too subtle, and also I’ve found (on Mac; I’ve not confirmed on other OSs) that it’s not selecting what’s at the exact tip of the pointer, but is rather selecting a couple of pixels away. > Getting the constraints to behave is like pulling teeth. Huh, once I’ve actually selected correctly, I find the constraints are fine - say, 95% as good as Solidworks. > It also kind of sucks that you have to have really sparse sketches that only contain one closed figure. Can you explain what you mean by this? Do you mean you can’t have a sketch with (to take a very simple example) a circle inside a circle, or two unrelated circles, or something else?

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uberduper 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Recent freecad is pretty decent. My main complaint these days is the performance of the geometry engine.

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cozzyd 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I found FreeCAD fine but it takes me a while to remember how to use it each time (since I don't use it frequently...)

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drivingmenuts 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I’ve tried FreeCAD multiple times, but I’m just too used to Rhino 3D. Unfortunately, it’s rather expensive. Anyone need a slightly used, low-mileage, one owner soul?

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dv35z 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

FreeCAD would benefit from effective

(1) agile Product Management,

(2) Product Design & continuous user-research,

(3) Improvements to test-driven development (TDD),

(4) transparent & open outcome-based roadmap,

(5) a vision to make the application easy to use for newbies in a maker-space, and (this is specific to my use-case),

(6) Improvements to the CAM module to make it easy to use this for CNC routers, and designing objects with sloped/curved surfaces.

- FreeCAD site: https://www.freecad.org/

- FreeCAD code: https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD

- FreeCAD forum: https://forum.freecad.org/

To echo others' comments: FreeCAD has improved significantly since v1.0, so I'm hoping this attracts quality & stability-minded develeopers, and a frequent release cadence.