![]() I click around, I press the left and then the right mouse button, but I simply get a list of a myriad options where nothing seems to be relevant to the case. It snaps to the grid, but I want to be able to change the dimensions of it. However, as I progress I notice that there doesn’t seem to be any obvious way to dimension the rectangle. It’s a curious experience to run across a program that you should know by experience, yet it is perfectly obtuse and just short of being violent towards its user (though not quite as bad as Blender with unlabeled buttons that you’re just supposed to know), and still there appears to be people who find it “Great” and “Awesome”.Ĭhanging the viewport to the X-Y plane, I get a familiar grid and manage to draw an rectangle on the screen. Where do I even start? By careful experiment and guesswork, I managed to create a “part”, and switched on some mode where I got to create a cube, but there doesn’t seem to be any simple way to change the size of the cube, or to even know what dimensions and scales I’m working in… I would have expected to enter some sort of a drafting mode where I get to draw a 2D shape on a grid and then extrude it out to 3D, but nothing of the sort seems to be available. Everything looks vaguely familiar, and yet literally nothing does what you’d expect it to do. ![]() If there is any workflow, you certainly have to go through some sort of a tutorial to figure it out. The whole user interface seems to be actively trying to prevent you from doing anything with it and nothing is self-explanatory. I just downloaded it now, and from a first blush I can’t make head or tails of it. Maybe I’m not the right demographic for it – the last time I tried FreeCAD was when it was still very early and very buggy to the point that it would just crash on you, so I couldn’t even get started. The features of for-pay, closed-source software are driven by the masses: “is this a feature that enough of our customers want?” The features of open-source software are driven by the freaky ideas of nerds just like me. Open source lets you scratch your own itch, and share your solution with others. GIMP has plugins for every imaginable image transformation - things that 99% of graphic artists will never use, and so Adobe has no incentive to incorporate. Inkscape has plugins that let you create Gcode to drive CNC mills or strange plotters. Does FreeCAD? Yup, because some other nerd was in my shoes.Īnd then I started thinking of the other big free projects. Does Fusion 360 seamlessly import my OpenSCAD work? Nope. For me, for instance, I’ve done most of my 3D modelling for 3D printing using OpenSCAD, which is kinda niche, but also the language that underpins Thingiverse’s customizer functionality. But the critical bit here is that a good number of the workbenches are contributed to the open project by people who have had particular niche needs. The central workflow is to pick a “workbench” where specific tasks are carried out, and then you take your part to each bench, operate on it, and then move to the next one you need. But it’s the quirky features that set it apart. I’ve used Fusion 360, and although FreeCAD isn’t “the same” as Fusion 360, it has most of the features that I need. I just started learning FreeCAD for a CNC milling project, and it’s awesome. Or rather, it lets them cater to themselves. I’m not here to argue that GIMP is better than Photoshop, but rather to point out what I really love about open software: it caters to the little guys and gals, the niche users, and the specialists. That’s OK, different closed-source programs work differently as well. None of the “big” software packages work exactly the same as their closed-source counterparts, often missing a few features here and gaining a few there, or following a different workflow. Of course, we all know the answer - mostly. It’s one thing to write xeyes, but how about something to rival Photoshop, or Altium? Folks outside of the free software scene are still a little surprised when small programs are free to use and modify, but they’re downright skeptical when it comes to the big works of professional software. And I do a lot of stuff with and on computers. I use open source software almost exclusively at least on the desktop - the phone is another matter, sadly.
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