[i_am_a_squirrel]

I just went through this journey, except I learned freecad.

You end up having to click and enter so many numbers if you need exact dimensions, so I'm planning on switching to cadquery.

It would be cool to make a framework for modifying cadquery code with natural language, for example "make box 1 and box 1 flush" or "create two concentric semi-spheres and subtract the smaller one from the larger one"

But idk, maybe once you're fast at fusion this kinda stuff is faster to hotkey than speak

[Klaster_1]

Have you tried the new VarSet in 1.0? I found it more ergonomic than the old spreadsheet approach. With a formulas first approach, I find the modeling flow more controllable. Come to think about it, it starts to resemble a view/model arrangement I am used as a frontend dev.

[throw646577]

VarSet has an incomplete GUI but you're right it's a better fit; it has fewer massive recalculation bombs than the Spreadsheet approach (and it can still AFAIK work as an interface to a configuration table sheet).

The Spreadsheet module is awesome (particularly configuration tables, which I used even in one of my first serious designs) but I still don't really know why my model has to recalculate because I changed the background colour in a cell. That seems to me to be unnecessarily deep integration.

[tony69]

Claude can write cadquery, worked well for me

[xemoka]

I’ve had such a hard time with Claude and cadquery/build123d; did you do anything specific to get better results? I tried turning the examples into a markdown document to feed into sonnet as part of the prompt, and that helped a bit, but still couldn’t get it to build basic parts reliably.