The price is always whatever they think you are willing to pay. Especially for software where their cost is entirely development and the marginal cost is zero.
We need something like Affinity for CAD. Surely it must be possible to make a CAD program that can do the basics you need for 3D printing without all the advanced simulations and analysis. I just want to draw some sketches and extrude them.
IMHO its because the software lack a lot of polish. At times i found FreeCAD is better that fusion. But for the amount of pain it takes to get the software to work, it makes me want to look elsewhere.
But man are the tools in freecad good, when they work. Just wish it was multithreaded
Like others have said, Autodesk is a piece of shit company that continues to be customer hostile. They pulled the rug out from underneath users years ago with F360.
FreeCAD is a good alternative. A lot of people complain about the UI polish, and complain that models break. I’ll admit that the UI isn’t as polished as commercial software like F360 or SolidWorks. However, it’s just as easy to break models in SolidWorks as it is in FreeCAD. I’ve been using 3D CAD for over 20 years, and it’s always been a problem. Even with all of my experience, I still have to fix references that get broken as I make design changes. The more you use 3D CAD, the less you run into situations like this because you’re able to think ahead and avoid them. Talk to any experienced CAD user and they’ll tell you the same thing.
The workflows of FreeCAD are just like commercial software for most functions. There are definitely features that commercial software has that FreeCAD doesn’t, but that’s where you have to make the judgement about whether it’s worth it to pay for it.
For me, I’ll continue to use FreeCAD for my personal projects. I use SolidWorks at work, but we have different demands there, and it’s worth the company paying the maintenance for it.
It appears to be built specifically for designing electronics enclosures with 3D printing in mind. I’m sure it’s a great utility, and I don’t mean to argue to no end, but to me a tool built specifically for 3D printed design would have core functionality which offers layer line alignment and orientation, custom and customizable internal structure (what we call “fill”), and a parametric engine to adjust the design and internal structure based on layer and nozzle thickness. While these are all currently slicer-like functions, slicers are absolute trash at being able to customize a part for strength, stiffness, and failure mode selection. (Yes, I’m a structural engineer - I actually do know about these things and design for them - usually being at odds with the slicer over just such effects)
Anyway - I’m sure Dune3D comes in handy for its designer’s purpose, and I’ll probably file this for the next time I think about fighting a Pi case in CAD.
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SolidWorks is cheap for noncommercial and is the only package that I know of that still offers a permanent license for commercial work.
There is also Solid Edge noncommercial if you are doing 3D printing around the house.
The price is always whatever they think you are willing to pay. Especially for software where their cost is entirely development and the marginal cost is zero.
We need something like Affinity for CAD. Surely it must be possible to make a CAD program that can do the basics you need for 3D printing without all the advanced simulations and analysis. I just want to draw some sketches and extrude them.
FreeCAD. I’m not sure why more people aren’t using tbh.
FreeCAD is soooo shitty. The history breaks all the time - small changes introduce so many issues you might just be better off by starting over.
IMHO its because the software lack a lot of polish. At times i found FreeCAD is better that fusion. But for the amount of pain it takes to get the software to work, it makes me want to look elsewhere.
But man are the tools in freecad good, when they work. Just wish it was multithreaded
OpenCAD. But it’s like Photoshop vs Gimp. But also with a bigger learning curve.
I greatly miss the ability to simply purchase a program on a disk for a given year and just have access to that tool.
This is why I will continue putting up with FreeCAD.
There’s a newer project called Dune 3D
It was built specifically for 3D printing in mind.
deleted by creator
Like others have said, Autodesk is a piece of shit company that continues to be customer hostile. They pulled the rug out from underneath users years ago with F360.
FreeCAD is a good alternative. A lot of people complain about the UI polish, and complain that models break. I’ll admit that the UI isn’t as polished as commercial software like F360 or SolidWorks. However, it’s just as easy to break models in SolidWorks as it is in FreeCAD. I’ve been using 3D CAD for over 20 years, and it’s always been a problem. Even with all of my experience, I still have to fix references that get broken as I make design changes. The more you use 3D CAD, the less you run into situations like this because you’re able to think ahead and avoid them. Talk to any experienced CAD user and they’ll tell you the same thing.
The workflows of FreeCAD are just like commercial software for most functions. There are definitely features that commercial software has that FreeCAD doesn’t, but that’s where you have to make the judgement about whether it’s worth it to pay for it.
For me, I’ll continue to use FreeCAD for my personal projects. I use SolidWorks at work, but we have different demands there, and it’s worth the company paying the maintenance for it.
Dune 3D is a newer tool built specifically for 3D printing design.
It appears to be built specifically for designing electronics enclosures with 3D printing in mind. I’m sure it’s a great utility, and I don’t mean to argue to no end, but to me a tool built specifically for 3D printed design would have core functionality which offers layer line alignment and orientation, custom and customizable internal structure (what we call “fill”), and a parametric engine to adjust the design and internal structure based on layer and nozzle thickness. While these are all currently slicer-like functions, slicers are absolute trash at being able to customize a part for strength, stiffness, and failure mode selection. (Yes, I’m a structural engineer - I actually do know about these things and design for them - usually being at odds with the slicer over just such effects)
Anyway - I’m sure Dune3D comes in handy for its designer’s purpose, and I’ll probably file this for the next time I think about fighting a Pi case in CAD.
In other news, war is still peace and slavery is still freedom.