FreeCAD

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Your own 3D parametric modeler.

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FreeCAD is an open-source parametric 3D modeler made primarily to design real-life objects of any size. Parametric modeling allows you to easily modify your design by going back into your model history and changing its parameters.

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[SOLVED] Why is FreeCAD symmetry-stupid? (lemmy.sdf.org)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Maybe there's something I don't understand here. I'd love it if someone told me how to do the following.

Let's say I have some really complex shape in a sketch left of the Y axis: it takes me forever to get it just right. Then I need to mirror it on the right side of the Y axis and connect the two halves.

In SolidWorks, it's trivial: mirror the stuff, done. If you change the master shape on the left, the change is reflected on the right.

In FreeCAD, the best you can do is make a mirror copy of the left-hand side elements - which also makes copies of the constraints which are completely independent from the original constraints on the left-hand side - delete the stupid new right-hand side constraints and slowly, painfully constrain the right-hand side copies to the original left-hand side elements, trying to dodge the dreaded orange over-constraints all the time. It's long, it's painful, and the end-result is usually so fragile that if you change anything significant on the left-hand side, the sketch turns orange and then it's back to hunting broken constraints again.

Surely it can't be that painful. Am I missing something obvious?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

You didn’t select “Create Symmetry Constraints”.

Oh...

Damn I feel stupid. I totally missed that somehow.

Thanks a lot, you rock! I learned something new today. I guess it was worth asking the question after all 🙂

Are you making sunglasses?

No, I'm making regular frames for a friend because he saw the ones I made for myself a couple days ago and he asked whether I could print him new frames to reuse his old lenses.

One thing I see that may come back to bite you later: You can create sketches that make multiple bodies when padded

I just used that sketch for the example.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Ah, I see. I imagined your use of that sketch differently. Looks good!