Opinions on software, please...

[RegB]

Trench coat and ray bans ?
Might as well double down on the offenses, save $50 and buy their liquor for the favor instead.

Hey Kid, want beer ?
Gimme your money and a copy of your student ID - also a few personal details about the classes you are in and your DoB.

Yeah,Right...

[GPriv]

I'm not a big fan of direct cad solutions, I find making small dimensional adjustment hideously painful in comparison the parametric packages, maybe if I learned to measure better it would be less of an issue.

Sorry to say: I have no idea what this means. I'm a total newby to all this. I have yet to even open (or download) a program to "test the waters".

In parametric CAD you specify contraints on dimensions to position things, so I might specify that 2 holes are 100mm apart, on the same line and symetric about some construction line.

In direct CAD you generally model by dragging stuff around and specifying relative positions often with constraints, but the constraints don't tend to remain part of the build history.

In parametric cad ideally though not always the model is entirely constrained, and if I change one of those constraints everything should update to reflect it, i.e. if I decide the holes should have been 110mm apart, they are still meet all the other constraints.

They require very different ways to think about modeling, I just prefer parametric, there are plenty of other people who feel direct cad is the only way to go.

Thanx, Polyg.

Still haven't had time to dive in.
That work thing keeps getting in the way of real life.

[artexmg]

Any one had used Moments of Inspirations (MoI)? it looks appealing, and similar to Cubify Design ($300 vs $200, though), but not sure how they would compare.

Any one?

Thanks

[artexmg]

Any one had used Moments of Inspirations (MoI)? it looks appealing, and similar to Cubify Design ($300 vs $200, though), but not sure how they would compare.

Any one?

Thanks

Well, I had been testing Cubify Design and Moments of Inspirations (MoI), they are similar in several ways, but I am starting to like more MoI, bit more expensive than Cubify ($100), but really very interesting and fresh UI. Also, the creator of it (which happens to be the one who create Rinho!) is very responsive. They have a 30 days trial.

Ahh ... better, it works in Mac and Win. Cubify Design works only in Windows

[Renha]

I prefer OpenSCAD. It's free and have good interface. I think it's best choose if you don't need sculpting or hardness calculations.

[Captain Starfish]

Having some joy with FreeCAD at the moment, but I do keep looking at the dev stream which has some assembly stuff that would come in handy.

[geneb]

I prefer OpenSCAD. It's free and have good interface. I think it's best choose if you don't need sculpting or hardness calculations.

OpenSCAD is a horrible programming language masquerading as a worse parametric design tool.

g.

[Nylocke]

Why you disliking OpenSCAD gene?

[Captain Starfish]

I'm only guessing here, but maybe the hating comes because it is a horrible programming language masquerading as a worse parametric design tool?

[Nylocke]

I got the opinion, now where's the evidence/personal experience to back it up. I thought OpenSCAD was alright, so what's the deal?

[teoman]

Solidworks has an api for c#

I would invest time in that for commercial reasons. If i really wanted to type my designs. But i am happy with my mouse. Using freecad currently. Being an engineer parametric cad makes sense. Sketchup etc just doesnt do what i want. I endup fighting it.

[Renha]

I prefer OpenSCAD. It's free and have good interface. I think it's best choose if you don't need sculpting or hardness calculations.

OpenSCAD is a horrible programming language masquerading as a worse parametric design tool.

g.

I disagree, it's ok. If you are dislike it's syntax, you could use SolidPython to fix this

[Eaglezsoar]

I have always felt that you should use what ever works for you if you are good at designing with your selected program.
I also do not like Openscad so I use something else but the users of Openscad have a right to use it. Think of how boring
this world would be if everyone used the same software, ate the same food or thought the same thoughts. Enjoy using whatever
you like and whatever you create don't forget to share with the forum members. Freebies are nice and are a great way to show
off what you have done and help people like me who can't draw a straight line in any cad software.

[geneb]

The problem is that you're required to write a program in order to create a part. That's NOT how design is done.

OpenSCAD is a means to an end, but probably the worst means I've seen. Others swear by it, people like me that do a lot of CAD work swear AT it. I suspect there may be situations where OpenSCAD is the right tool for the job. I seriously doubt I will ever find myself in that situation for as long as I live.

If you're really into OpenSCAD, don't let my hating on it stop you from using it. If that's your thing and you get the results you want out of it, run with it!

I would suggest that you check out both FreeCAD and DesignSpark Mechanical. (DSM is essentially the full commercial version of SpaceClaim, but has been restricted to only exporting STL files.)

Cubify Design is a good, low cost choice from what I've been told. If memory serves, it was originally Alibre, then became GeoMagic and is now Cubify Design.

If you're using a Mac...I got nothing for you, sorry. (FreeCAD might work...)

g.

[Nylocke]

I generally use Inventor Pro/Fusion. I have freeCAD, didn't know it could do 3D though. I was using OpenSCAD a bit because Fusion had an issue where it would crash when I tried to dimension anything, and I didn't want to restart into Windows to use Pro.

[Captain Starfish]

FreeCAD works fine on the macs, geneb. Inventor Fusion was available for a while for free, now I think you might have to do the whole subscribe-to-the-cloud circus act to be able to use the newer versions. DSM no fly on OSX, I think apart from those two it's either off to torrentland, learn to program so you can draw (wtf, right?) or time to whip out the credit card.

[Nylocke]

I got mixed up on what FreeCAD was, oops. I had something else thats good at 2D CAD, forgot what its called though..

[geneb]

DraftSight is a good, AutoCAD compatible 2D CAD program for MacOS.

The problem with finding good parametric CAD tools on MacOS is the fact that there's just not enough of a market out there for companies like Autodesk & Dassault Systemes to spend the development effort on the platform. I suspect the Inventor Fusion product wasn't developed in house -they probably bought it.

If you're going to do serious 3D design work, your only real option is a Windows platform. You can cobble together a respectable windows machine for about $300, not including the OS. DO NOT BUY WINDOWS 8 OR 8.1! Use Windows 7 Pro.

Here's a good example: http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Z200-Worksta ... 43d061822e

The price is $200 with no bids and comes with everything you need except a display. It's not the fastest beast on the block, but it'll certainly get the job done.

g.

[Captain Starfish]

Between AutoCAD and now FreeCAD I'm doing ok on the mac.

Anything more complicated than they can handle and I'll probably flick it to the Pro-E gun at work

Has anyone gotten further with BRL-CAD than download/install/open/holycow/close/delete/go-get-a-stiff-drink?

[Renha]

DO NOT BUY WINDOWS 8 OR 8.1! Use Windows 7 Pro.

But why? Is there some specific troubles with CAD on W8? If not, 8 and 8.1 are much better than that DOS... sorry, I mean W7Pro, that looks like has come from same century as DOS

[geneb]

Windows 8 bites ass.

Even installing Classic Shell doesn't make the pain any less.

g.

[Eaglezsoar]

Windows 8 bites ass.

Even installing Classic Shell doesn't make the pain any less.

g.

Windows 10 has been released to the Microsoft Beta testers, and from what I have heard it is supposed to be more Corporate friendly.
We shall see!

[Aurora900]

Windows 8 bites ass.

Even installing Classic Shell doesn't make the pain any less.

g.

Windows 10 has been released to the Microsoft Beta testers, and from what I have heard it is supposed to be more Corporate friendly.
We shall see!

That's my biggest problem with 8... its just not a good fit for a business... the things it accentuates and the features it obscures just make it a terrible choice. Windows 10 is pretty cool, they brought back the start menu and even included virtual desktops (which is super useful people who like to have tons of stuff open at once for work). The tech preview is available to anyone who wants it. I just installed it on a second drive in my work PC to check it out.

As a tech, I think I will be much more willing to give my clients windows 10 than 8. It comes out next october and I can't wait to see what else they improve. For now I am using windows 8 for my personal pc because I need to know it well enough to support the people who are running it... after disabling metro and giving myself a start menu back and disabling all the crappy isolated apps that want to be your default programs for media its pretty decent. I like the fact that it natively can view TIFF files now and can also mount virtual drives with no additional software. Those two things are very useful to me.

Oh and that's another thing they fixed... windows apps are no longer isolated... you can still have your desktop while using apps in windows 10

[geneb]

Windows 8's worst thing was to try to push the tablet interface on to desktop users. Nobody in their right mind is going to spend all day reaching out and touching their display. It's just nuts from an ergonomic standpoint. Win8 is pretty usable from a phablet perspective, but that monstrosity has no business anywhere near a desktop.

Can you imagine the horrorshow Win 8 would make of this:
[img]http://www.geneb.org/images/big-desktop.jpg[/img]

I'd lose my mind.

g.

[Nylocke]

Pardon my ignorance, but I haven't ever used Windows 8. Are you saying that every application you open takes up the full screen? And there aren't any actual windows on the desktop?