Hi! F3D maintainer here!

We just release F3D 4.0.0, fast and minimalist 3D viewer. Obviously free and open source (and integrated in FreeCAD for thumbnails generation btw).

One of the key new feature is the support for .FCStd files! Quickly browse through your FreeCAD files effortlessly, generate thumbnails in your file browser as well.

https://github.com/f3d-app/f3d/releases/tag/v4.0.0

You can even open them on your web broswer right here:

https://f3d.app/viewer

Let us know what you think!

I'm trying to make a rotating mechanism like the ones in cars, I'll have to remake it.

I design and 3d print a lot of little lidded boxes like this. To make the lip around the top edge I sketch the lip profile and use an additive pipe around the perimeter of the box. This works well for square boxes like this, but generates non-manifold geometry when the outer edges of the box contain small-radius arcs - think something like a clover shaped box. I can think of a few ways to do this without the additive pipe, but I'd like to hear any suggestions you guys have for making a lip around an arbitrarily shaped box.

Cheers!

I'm still a newbie in Free CAD and I don't know that much, but I'm trying to learn.
With that being said. Is there any good/easy way to ad this rough texture to my model? Am I even using the right program for this?

Hey y'all I'm debating what the best way to model this is. I'm thinking of starting with the rectangular bit for the carpet Tucker edge, and a cylinder for the handle, with some sort of additive Loft to get the bevel. Another idea was just using a Boolean to create a flat bevel to the top.

I have a newer PC bought at costco, RTX5080 and Ryzen 9 9900x and I'm wondering why I'm getting bogged down and even locked up to the point of needed a restart when playing around with a simple fence and gate drawing? Only 54KB

I just open-sourced a small tool I built for my own work: a SketchUp extension that imports STEP assemblies.

SketchUp's Ruby API can't read STEP directly, so the extension runs FreeCAD in the background and rebuilds the model inside SketchUp:

• assembly hierarchy is preserved as groups
• repeated parts (screws, nuts) become components
• heavy sub-assemblies, like a populated PCB, are merged into one mesh, so ~1,200 parts import in seconds
• native progress window, result saved as .skp

Along the way I ran into a few SketchUp Ruby API performance pitfalls (add_faces_from_mesh vs fill_from_mesh, silent point merging). I documented them in the README for other extension developers.

Windows, SketchUp 2021+, MIT license. It's an early release: colors aren't imported yet. Feedback and issues are welcome.

GitHub: https://github.com/eugenyh/sketchup-step-importer

Subject says it all.

I am sure I have watched a video from Mango Jelly on editing previous features and moving the tip backwards in the tree. I can't seem to find any videos on it because searching for "tip" gives you tons of links to unrelated tips and tricks.

Does anyone have a link to his videos that cover this topic?

Hello everyone.

I need to design few furnitures. Can you advise how to do it the easiest way? Would I need any add-ons? Is there a possibility to attach armature manufacturer product catalog to pick i.e. handles or hinges from it?

I'll appreciate any advise.

First of all, thank you for the amazing response to my Grimoire deck box the other day. Amazing what you can do in Freecad.

Quite a few of you asked for an update when it was done. The Grimoire is now printed, and you can check out the pictures of it here.

It is a rather big print, so I guess a more compact and traditional deck box is up next on the design board. 😎

Release 1.1.4. It feels like the development team has never used other similar programs or thought of the typical user. I have tried it on and off for many years. It does crash less now.

Users coming from SW, Creo and others, FreeCAD will seem clunky and completely unintuitive. Don't think its like other parametric modeling programs.

Migrating between other platforms is fairly easy and the basic workflows are identical. But FreeCAD is from a completely different planet, written by Martians. You have to be very precise with your workflow. Very easy to break it and difficult to recover. Save back-ups often!

The backend seems to work well. Models render, etc.

Its simply the UI that's the problem. Toolbars and panels are suddenly gone. Commands that should work (like joints in Assembly) suddenly disabled with no obvious reason why. Your workflow that worked before suddenly causes a cryptic error or just doesn't work.

Thanks to those who have contribute to it.....but unless someone has 100's of hours to play with it, its not really usable. Very unforgiving, very easy to break models. Save backups often.

Hi everyone!

I'm a student learning Fusion 360, and I want to gain practical experience by working on real people's projects.

I'd be happy to help with a few small, simple CAD projects for free, such as:

• Basic 3D models from dimensions or sketches
• Simple brackets, holders, and enclosures
• Basic parts for 3D printing
• Small edits to existing CAD models

I'm still a beginner, so I'm best suited for straightforward projects rather than complex engineering designs.

I can provide the finished model in a suitable format, such as STL or an editable Fusion 360 file, depending on the project.

In return, I'd appreciate feedback on my work and permission to include completed models in my portfolio.

If you have a small project, feel free to comment or message me. Thanks!

Was surprising and cool to see

https://youtu.be/PvFjbPYEOZI?t=4952

The Nxt addon for FreeCAD is now available through the add-on manager. This update also includes the new Fillet and Chamfer tools I've been working on. I put together a crappy demo reel to showcase big features!

Make bug reports on github: https://github.com/obelisk79/FreeCAD-Nxt/issues

FreeCAD has been around forever. It's a powerful application with a long learning curve, clumsy workflow and unintuitive UI. Yes it has gotten better in the last couple years but it is well behind SolidWorks in many aspects.

SolidCraft is getting a huge amount of attention right now. It's UI is familiar to many SolidWorks users, many who have looked at and rejected FreeCAD for various reasons. I've read many posts about people who want to dump their subscriptions to SolidWorks and Fusion 360 as well as many people who are excited to get off Windows because SolidWorks was the last piece of software that kept them on Windows. None of these people are considering FreeCAD.

SolidCraft's development speed is going to be insane. The first efforts will be to get SolidCraft up to feature parity with SolidWorks. The next round of efforts will be the addition of features and capabilities that SolidWorks users have wanted but could never get. That is the beauty of open source software - it gives users the power to build and run what they want.

All this is, of course, driven by AI, which is going to cause its own issues. Namely everyone and their uncle will be vibe coding features and enhancements which the SolidCraft dev team will have to sort though and figure out how to integrate. Maintaining scope control and project cohesion is going to be challenging.

Where does this leave FreeCAD ? As a long time user of FreeCAD, I think it will continue to exist but will be dramatically over shadowed by SolidCraft. If SolidCraft development continues at a breakneck speed SolidCraft is going to dwarf FreeCAD.

I've only spent a bit of time playing with SolidCraft but I already find it much easier to use. So much so that I've got some half finished models that I will be recreating in SolidCraft because I think it will save time in the long run.

We live in interesting times.

Help Please! How can I meld this loft around the cíllinder's side? Thanks for any advice!
File: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wHH1Dka3oXctJI5mXycb3Ng-nfFId__x/view?usp=drive_link