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by MengerSponge 149 days ago
Aside from Fusion360, is there a Free (or FOSS) cad package that uses breps and is scriptable?

Fusion360 is just stupid fast at perforations and sophisticated modeling constructions via its python API. I use it because it works well, but I'd be happier if I didn't have to maintain that Autodesk dependency...

1 comments

freeCAD is brep based and scriptable.
FreeCAD via AstoCAD (https://www.astocad.com/ - 4€/month) is quite more user friendly too, compared to the vanilla experience, for those who want to do CAD sometimes and forget things between uses. It's made by FreeCAD contributors who push things upstream too.
Eh. Since the 1.0 release of freeCAD, the UI has been greatly improved. Also subscription services are inherently a turn off.
I see it as a donation to developer who work on FreeCAD, not a "subscription service", just a different way of funding FOSS.

I'd agree that FreeCAD's UI isn't horrible, but it is a lot to take in at a first glance, and for people who don't use it frequently. If I was using it daily, I'd probably prefer FreeCAD as-is too, better feature density and everything at a glance.