Hopefully one day it'll get an easier ui for fusion 360 and Solid Edge users (like myself). I really want to use free cad but every time I try it's super frustrating to do even basic things and often takes so many extra steps I just end up cading it up in solid edge instead
this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2024
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I don't know why Solid Edge doesn't get more love. IMO it's comparable to Fusion for basic part design, and it's fully local.
I actually got a license for Alibre, so I'll keep using that until my hair finishes turning gray.
I was running into some errors with the FreeCAD Appimage in Linux, but the Windows version is running fairly smoothly, and it's finally getting enough helper prompts and heuristic interface things to be less unwieldy, but it's still FreeCAD. For instance, I'm still trying to find the easiest of three or four kludgey ways to project a face onto a sketch, and none of them are as easy as the purpose-built tool for that in Alibre.
Yeah I wish Solid Edge got more attention! It's absolutely comparable to Fusion, just the slightest bit more convoluted. I love it because I don't have to deal with the cloud garbage, and constant sign outs on fusion.
I'll have to give Alibre a try it looks nice from what I saw on their website! Do you know by chance if it supports 3mf's?
Alibre is nice. I find the workflow pretty sensible, even if (like Solid Edge) it feels like there are sometimes extra clicks. The Atom version is super cheap and still has a proper parametric history, but is nerfed in ways that might feel limiting ( e.g. no Boolean operations, which makes mold-making and some other complex work quite difficult). When I was getting frustrated with FreeCAD, I was starting to look around at subscriptions and realized if I just waited for a sale on a permanent license for their Professional version (I also did payments), it would become a better deal than Fusion or Shapr3D within about two years.
Before that I was using a copy of "BeckerCAD 14 3D Pro" that I got from its German distributor for EUR20 with some reasonable success, but in addition to some truly aged and awkward camera controls and design choices, it also lacks a parametric history.
Best I can tell, Alibre does NOT support 3mf. It supports STL, STEP, and some other single part formats though.
Oh shit, I didn't know Solid Edge existed. I thought fusion was the only free commercial 3D cad software. Thanks for the heads up, I'll check it out.
Edit: Just had a look at Alibre Atom3D, I think I'll give that a try too, the price is reasonable to own forever.
It's, oh jeez, six months old by now, but back in the spring I went through all the ones I'd tried. I ultimately settled on the middle tier for Alibre, with a permanent license. Pricier than Atom, to be sure, but feature complete for any needs I can imagine for myself as an utter amateur.
Oh wow, that's awesome! Thank you so much
I don’t know why Solid Edge doesn’t get more love.
~~No free hobby license like Autodesk does for fusion360.~~
There is a free hobby version.
AFAIK at launch they didn't and now the tutorials and people have firmly settled into Fusion360. Unless Autodesk screws up or removes the hobby license it won't change. People are lazy and learning that fusion360 exists is so much easier.
I've really been looking forward to this! This announcement post is really sweet, and makes me glad for all the folks who worked on it.
Just tried it out, there have definitely improvements been made since I last tried it, I'm happy to see it get better.