BluewingFreeCAD 1.1 is out
I’ve been learning CAD for printing. I really want to use FreeCAD, but every time I try to do anything, I sink 2 hours into reading wiki’s and watching videos. When I apply what I’ve learned, I end up with a cube (sometimes a cylinder!) and a wall of errors. Then I hop into tinkerCAD/fusion360 and create what I need in 15 minutes.
I’m looking forward to the day that FreeCAD is intuitive enough for me to hop in and do what I need in 15 mins without feeling like I’m manually programming a lunar landing. It’s not there yet, but I’m happy to see the update.
But it’s one of those really complex programs that require some knowledge of the problem field and familiarity with UI how can it be made intuitive? Never used fusion, but tinkercad isn’t intuitive or simple.
Fusion is okayish, but definitely not something you can just jump into without going through some explainer tutorials. Especially when it comes to the time line.
I taught myself Autocad and even with that knowledge, fusion was kinda unintuative when starting out. It didn’t take long to get into it though
TinkerCAD has a low enough learning curve that it is successfully used to teach elementary school students how to model. I disagree with your “but it’s a complex program, so it can’t be easy to pick up.”
Something being inaccessible to the masses shouldn’t be a badge of pride. Make the basics relatively easy to learn, and design the complex elements in a way that builds on the knowledge used for whatever was needed to get to that point. If we want to increase usership of FOSS products, we need the barrier to entry to be at least on par with the commercial products, if not lower. In fact, dedicating a few dev cycles towards new user onboarding to walk people through sketches, extruding, etc. to make it as accessible as possible would make such a difference.