I never use CATIA and I don't have access to the software. BRL-CAD has been working bottom-up with a focus on analytic correctness, capability, hybrid representation. It's just different menu locations or different names or icons buttons. Finding ways to leverage existing efforts too. The Opencascade kernel uses a B-REP structure while brl-cad uses CSG as its basis. For example, I can follow some of the tutorials for CATIA originally by using FreeCAD instead of CATIA and end up finishing with the same result. A major difference between OpenCascade-related apps and brl-cad is the data representation and modeling algorithms. It may be better for you to start with FreeCAD first, and then learn python programming when you need to write some macro or move to CADquery later on.Īn addition remark: I found that many operating procedures of FreeCAD is very similar to CATIA. But if you don't know python or any other programming language, then the procedure is completely different than Onshape. If you already know the python programming language, then learning CADquery is wonderful and straight forward. Other options such as BrlCAD, OpenSCAD, gCad3D generally require some scripts writing that is somewhat similar to computer programming.Īs another poster pointed out, CADquery is a great option. If you just want to make parametric models and don't care about any of that, you're probably best off with something else.Īs far as I know, there are no better option than FreeCAD if you are coming from a Onshape operating knowledge background. More users and feedback would help FreeCAD immensely, so it'd be great if you're willing to learn its somewhat-different UI and controls (and also to save frequently!). That all makes me able to tolerate FreeCAD's very noticeable wrinkles. I also strongly dislike the vendor lock-in business model that "free" options like Fusion 360 use. OpenSCAD/CADquery) doesn't really appeal to me, which surprises me since I write code for a living. I prefer using open source software and am very understanding that this project is still in a very early stage and has very few contributors. They did provide migration tools, but they didn't work perfectly in my experience. In some cases, I've recreated models from scratch in the latest version. I hold onto a copy of FreeCAD 0.16 to make sure I can open files I created years ago. The lack of built-in assemblies is probably the biggest pain point for me.Īlso, the file format changed significantly enough to break accessing older files once in the 5 years I've been using it. However, I feel like it's been in the experimental phase for long enough: it's time to pick the best one and collaborate to add any missing features/functionality that the other ones have. That's a good initial approach because it allows several developers (or teams) to experiment with different approaches. That means it'll sometimes crash and many of the features are still evolving.įor instance, there are several competing implementations for assemblies of multiple parts, which you can install as plugins. LibreCAD is licensed under the GPL and you can find its complete source code on GitHub.It's great if you consider that it's only at version 0.18. LibreCAD is 2D only, though, so it makes more sense if your intended use is a site plan or something similarly, err, flat. A fork of QCAD (mentioned below), LibreCAD has an interface that will look familiar to AutoCAD users, and by default it uses the AutoCAD DXF format for importing and saving, though it can use other formats as well. LibreCAD is another CAD program that is designed to work across Windows, Mac, and Linux alike. Originally developed by Mike Muuss at the Army Research Laboratory, BRL-CAD is been used for decades by the United States military for modeling weapon systems, but it also has been used for much more everyday design tasks, from academic to industrial design to health applications. In fact, BRL-CAD is so old that it has been credited with being the oldest source code repository of an application currently in active development. OpenSCAD is available for Windows, Linux and OS X.īRL-CAD is a cross-platform CAD tool that dates back to 1979, although it would take 25 years for the source code to be released under an open source license. As such, the program does constructive solid geometry (CSG). An OpenSCAD script specifies geometric primitives (such as spheres, boxes, cylinders, etc.) and defines how they are modified and combined (for instance by intersection, difference, envelope combination and Minkowski sums) to render a 3D model. It is a script-only based modeller that uses its own description language parts can be previewed, but it cannot be interactively selected or modified by mouse in the 3D view. OpenSCAD is a free software application for creating solid 3D CAD (computer-aided design) objects.
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