Raglan Niall  

Based on how pleasant using the FOSS PrePoMax FEA software was I thought I'd give the FOSS FreeCAD a go.

I'm skilled at 3D CAD, been using SolidWorks for years and before that ProEngineer (Shout out to an OG..renamed Wildfire now CREO). I can use other stuff and I don't think I'm desperately set in my ways but this sad effort took me 1.5hrs following a sketchy tutorial....

I'm not gonna bag it yet but I have found it unintuitive, finicky and with lots of things to trip you up. The hardwork of making the software seems to have been done well but the UX isn't nice and (to me, a user not a developer) could easily be improved.

That said, maybe I'll get used to it, its early days yet. And it is FOSS instead of contributing to large corps (Solidworks & CATIA is Dassault, known for their killing machines)

#FOSS #FreeCAD #PrePoMax

Jun 29, 2025 at 11:25amWeb
Show threadJörn FrankeJun 29, 2025
@Niall I guess the people @FreeCAD are happy to receive feedback. Even better if you can develop some improvements
Show threadRaglan Niall  Jun 29, 2025

@jornfranke
When appropriate I will give feedback. What has been created is very impressive & I'm still very fresh. Maybe It'll get easier as I spend more time. It would be arrogant of me to suggest changes immediately.
As stated, I'm not a developer. If I get good I could possibly do tutorials, these are not presently not great and I have done a little CAD teaching previously.

@FreeCAD

Show threadJeff PummillJun 29, 2025
@Niall As a user of Unigraphics, Catia, and I-DEAS for many years, I’m also interested to see what FreeCAD can do…including its FEM component! Soon…
Show threadSergiJun 29, 2025
@Niall what tutorial did you follow? I highly recommend the YouTube videos from MangoJelly.
Show threadRaglan Niall  Jun 29, 2025
@sergi I used a couple from the freecad website including one on 'attachment'. This concept is handled/ interacted with quite differently to any system I'm familiar with and the tutorial really didn't help much.
I will check out MangoJelly next time I'm trying. Thank you.