Hi Rohan. -----Original Message----- From: Rohan McLeod via luv-main [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, 26 July 2021 2:53 PM To: luv-main Subject: 3D modelling software
Assembled Cogniscenti Just wondering if anyone is using 3D modelling software; eg https://www.pannam.com/blog/best-3d-cad-modeling-software/ because I know nothing about such ! A friend was dubious when I suggested FreeCAD eg https://www.freecadweb.org/ -zero dollars -open source -MacOS, Windows,Linux as an alturnative to SolidWorks eg https://www.solidworks.com/ - >1000 dollars -proprietary closed source -Windows only regards Rohan McLeod _______________________________________________ Both are parametric solid modeling CAD packages. (Sketch then lock down with constraints to remove all degrees of freedom for the elements it contains. To change the final CAD model you only need to alter the contraints, and the rest takes care of itself.) Both have a fair sized learning curve before you start to get anything useful going. Both require an artistic talent than I don't have. :-( FreeCad allows you to dip your toe in the water for basically nothing, and lets you do quite a lot. It also ties in well with things like slicers for 3D printing and even has an inbuilt CAM interface. With Solidworks, you get very well polished and highly capable 3D modelling software, but the various options are mostly paid-for addons. If you were doing 3D modelling in an industrial setting, SolidWorks, despite its pricetag is likely the better option for commercial usage, as it can tie in with a larger number of other CAD data formats as proprietary plugins, while FreeCad can't access them all due to their proprietary nature. CAD is by its nature, a product with a finite audience, so development costs need to be amortised over a limited number of expected sales. This starts the pricetag at a fairly high level, and if the product is good enough to build a dedicated market share, there's hay to be made while the sun shines. In the hands of someone with talent and experience, Solidworks can provide results very quickly. FreeCad on the other hand is at version 0.19, and seems to be following Inkscape's versioning toward V1.0 only when they consider it good enough to warrant a whole number. That said, it's still quite powerful at its present stage of development, as can be demonstrated by some of the work people have done with it. (Note however that the Raspberry Pi version segfaults with the Pi version of the Coin3D libraries when you click the "Create new" button. The problem is specific to the Raspberry Pi. The issue may or may not have been solved by now.) So it largely depends upon what your friend is wanting to use it for. For me, FreeCad is the better fit, particularly given my lack of artistic talent. (I've worked for over 43 years in the metrology industry, so I've had the chance to dabble with SolidWorks, but have no way to justify the cost for use at the office. We supply measuring equipment and software to the engineering industry and support what we sell. So I have some skin in the game so to speak.) Hope the information is helpful. Regards, Morrie. _______________________________________________ luv-main mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
