I love OpenSCAD. I've been using it for about 10 months now, and I can say that I'm probably past kindergarten and first grade and I am at about 2nd grade level. But... Frustrated with some of the limitations of OpenSCAD, (specifically, the convoluted steps needed to make chamfers and fillets, and the inability to generate mechanical drawings) I decided to take a look at drawing based CAD programs, finally deciding to dive into FreeCAD since its documentation promised integration. I'm about 8 hours in and have here are a couple of observations: 1.The learning curve is steep, very steep. Even very simple parts can turn into disasters if one does not pay attention to the Topological Naming Problem. And when one starts to use parametric modelling, things get clumsy and tedious. 2. The documented integration via the OpenSCAD workbench... doesn't work. My hope was to do 99% of a model design in OpenSCAD and then drop it into FreeCAD for the fillets and chamfers. However, I tried to import several non-trivial OpenSCAD models, none of them were even close. So, my question today is: Are there other drawing-based programs that I should look at? My only requirements are that they cannot be cloud-based, should be relatively inexpensive (<$500), and should run on Linux. Thanks!

FreeCAD drove me nuts too, so I gave up on it. The fillet/chamfer issue is the #1 reason I use anything other than OpenSCAD. (The #2 reason is that there are times when I really do need a smooth curve on a large part, and OpenSCAD's rendering speed on these is painful.) That said, I do use cloud-based solutions when I'm not in OpenSCAD. I tried Alibre but didn't like it, and it won't run under WINE anyhow. But I've got my eyes open for any suggestions you get. On Sun, Aug 29, 2021 at 8:36 PM Leonard Martin Struttmann < lenstruttmann@gmail.com> wrote: > I love OpenSCAD. I've been using it for about 10 months now, and I can > say that I'm probably past kindergarten and first grade and I am at about > 2nd grade level. But... > > Frustrated with some of the limitations of OpenSCAD, (specifically, the > convoluted steps needed to make chamfers and fillets, and the inability to > generate mechanical drawings) I decided to take a look at drawing based CAD > programs, finally deciding to dive into FreeCAD since its documentation > promised integration. I'm about 8 hours in and have here are a couple of > observations: > > 1.The learning curve is steep, very steep. Even very simple parts can turn > into disasters if one does not pay attention to the Topological Naming > Problem. And when one starts to use parametric modelling, things get > clumsy and tedious. > > 2. The documented integration via the OpenSCAD workbench... doesn't > work. My hope was to do 99% of a model design in OpenSCAD and then drop it > into FreeCAD for the fillets and chamfers. However, I tried to import > several non-trivial OpenSCAD models, none of them were even close. > > So, my question today is: Are there other drawing-based programs that I > should look at? My only requirements are that they cannot be cloud-based, > should be relatively inexpensive (<$500), and should run on Linux. > > Thanks! > _______________________________________________ > OpenSCAD mailing list > To unsubscribe send an email to discuss-leave@lists.openscad.org >