On Monday 19. January 2015 17.14.12 Werner Almesberger wrote: > > So I decided to give FreeCAD a try. After all, it says it's nice and > parametric, just what I need. It also has a nice sketcher that lets > you "declaratively" define geometries in no time. So far, so good. > > Then came the moment when I wanted to adjust some parameter, e.g., > the diameter of the cylinder containing the lanyard hole. It let me > do that without complaining, but then all the things that depended > on that geometry were out of sync. > > To make a long story short, I don't think this mechanism is useful > for non-trivial designs. There are plans to improve this, but that's > not there yet and may take a good while.
I found FreeCAD to be fairly unstable and counterintuitive, but I imagine that CAD software is a matter of taste, anyway. (Brief flashback to using AutoCAD on monochrome SunOS workstations in the early 1990s!) > However, there is a plan B: FreeCAD can also be scripted in Python. > The workflow would now be more similar to what I had done with fped > (edit, compile, inspect, edit, ...), but I'd still have that 3D > engine of a real CAD to do things like those pesky cut-outs for me. > > This approach worked and I have the script to prove it: > https://gitorious.org/anelok/anelok/source/case/case.py > > It's longer than the fped script but it also does more. E.g., there > are more case details and it also generates some components, for > easier orientation. It looks quite clean, and it makes me consider it instead of OpenSCAD for future stuff. Certainly, the style is similar enough. > This is what the model for the complete case currently looks like: > http://downloads.qi-hardware.com/people/werner/anelok/tmp/anelok-case-20150 > 114.png Very nice! I particularly like the shading. You may have mentioned this already, but how do you generate these nice previews? It's interesting how Python finds its way into the CAD process. Although I find OpenSCAD to be sufficient for my limited needs, others have added a degree of Python-based preprocessing to it: http://rhombus-tech.net/community_ideas/kde_tablet/news/Revision_3.2_CAD/ Paul _______________________________________________ Qi Hardware Discussion List Mail to list (members only): [email protected] Subscribe or Unsubscribe: http://lists.en.qi-hardware.com/mailman/listinfo/discussion
