[ur-whale]

> FreeCAD is amazing these days.

FreeCAD has become much better, no denying it.

"Amazing" is however not the word I would use though, the UI is still very convoluted and very hard to learn.

The worst part in FreeCAD, and which remains true to this day is the load of minutia you need to know to handle/avoid weird corner cases that you inevitable run into when you start building complex models and where FreeCAD stubbornly refuses to let you carry on with your work.

When you paint yourself into one of these corners, the software is hugely unhelpful when it comes to understanding what you did wrong and how to correct it.

In short, the word "Amazing" only works if you compare it to the absolute abomination the UI was a few years back.

But compare FreeCAD today to, for example, how slick Fusion is, there is still a very, very wide gap.

Finally, the geometry engine, is a somewhat old and creaky thing that sometimes downright fails to compute fillets or surface/surface intersections correctly, so yeah, YMMV.

FreeCAD is however, free software, and not controlled by one of the worst corp. in the world of software: Autodesk. So huge thumbs up there.

[trey-jones]

This is really accurate to my experience learning FreeCAD earlier this year. I am a former professional CAD user (of a lesser software than AutoCAD) and I don't think I would have gotten far without being able to ask ChatGPT for help understanding some of the quirks of FreeCAD.

For free and open it's truly impressive though. Actually I think my time building iOS UIs in Storyboard was at least as useful as previous CAD experience, since constraints are the foundation of (at least one approach to) designing parts.

[ruevs]

The last Autodesk software I've used was AutoCAD 2000 (released in 1999). And I've not followed them since.

Perhaps they have indeed become "one of the worst corp. in the world of software", but in the early years they were very interesting. The founder of Autodesk, John Walker (he died in 2024) wrote/edited and interesting book on the early years: "The Autodesk File" https://fourmilab.ch/autofile/

[WillAdams]

Yeah, and then ran away to Switzerland rather than work to preserve the democracy which made his fortune possible.

[ruevs]

By the way this creation of his, from July 1990: https://www.fourmilab.ch/evilempire/ is very relevant here, but we are getting off-topic :-)

SpeakFreely was his as well - a very early encrypted, VoIP app.

And this: https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/ ... As I said - an interesting person :-)

[hollerith]

That is more of an indictment of the US than it is of Mr Walker. Maybe I should run away to Switzerland, too.

[ruevs]

Is this critique or praise of his character? ;-)

[WillAdams]

Statement of fact with my interpretation --- folks should verify the fact and read what he has written and come to their own conclusions.

While I'm grateful Autodesk stepped in and kept TinkerCAD afloat, I'm relieved Sketchbook escaped their clutches, and am glad I never got involved in Fusion 360 so as to suffer from their on-going "rug pulls" --- which of these are a result of his influence, I've not found a need to discern.

[jstanley]

The word "amazing" fits perfectly if you compare FreeCAD to viable alternatives, of which there are none.

[blacklion]

I nominate Adobe to the worst corp. in the world of software.

Fusion360 at least works on Linux

Photoshop/Lightroom don't.