/r/flossCAD
A place to talk about anything related to Free, Libre, and Open-Source CAD/CAE Software (FLOSS). Ask questions about CAD software, drawing standards or just show off your latest project. Discord server https://discord.gg/NeZEBZn
A place to talk about anything related to Free, Libre, and Open-Source CAD/CAE Software (FLOSS). Ask questions about CAD software, drawing standards or just show off your latest project.
/r/flossCAD
423 Subscribers
Stage 1 of the B-spline project is complete!
07:32 UTC
Looking for recommendations for specific workflows
Hi. Newcomer to both CAD and this subreddit. I'm usually a Blender guy but I'm widening my skill set. I'm making a Babylon 5 Starfury and figured, what the heck, let's avoid the plugin-heavy hard ops approach and head straight for the real deal.
The Starfury is both for 3D-printing and importing into Blender for further polishing the look for a short film, and of I want to show off the strengths of FLOSS throughout, so I'll only use FLOSS software: Krita, Natron, and a few others. However, I'm also in this for the long-term. I also want general CAD skills to create custom parts and for precise architectural visualization.
So I've learned a bit and done a bit of the homework already, but I can see that there are many options available: SolveSpace, FreeCAD, BRL-CAD, gCAD3D, SALOME, etc. I'm looking for software recommendations and perspectives from experience. I don't mind steep learning curves.
18:45 UTC
I'm working on furthering FreeCAD Sketcher B-spline constraint support and I'm looking for sponsors
09:38 UTC
Where is the best place to discuss SolveSpace issues/questions?
Sadly SolveSpace, like many other FLOSS projects, has a fragmented community:
The best place to start is their official forum. Though it might seem extremely underwhelming nowadays!
There is also their official GitHub issue tracker, where you can submit bugs, request features, and maybe ask questions
If you are interested in chat-based communication:
- Internet Relay Chat (IRC): " #solvespace at web.libera.chat
- Dedicated Discord server for SolveSpace here
- #solvespace channel on Elmer's Discord server
- this subreddit also has a chatroom which you can use
SolveSpace group on Thingiverse here
SolveSpace has its own dedicated subreddit r/SolveSpace
Here on this subreddit you may use the
SolveSpaceflair, or not! it is not mandatory to use one.
12:06 UTC
SALOME 9.6.0 output license question
Hey all. Can someone help me clarify the license of Salome? I want to make a game in Unreal Engine 4 and use Salome to make my hard surface assets. However, I am not sure if I can use what I make in Salome commercially, this part in the Salome release documentation confuses me https://gyazo.com/300a0f63e58ab337471f2ce0d730d2f6 because it says "If you plan using SALOME for commercial purposes please consider obtaining a commercial license for PyQt from Riverbank Computing Ltd." (Here's a link to the notes SALOME version 9.6.0 Release Notes (salome-platform.org) ) So I have two questions:
- What is the license of exported meshes, and .stl or other format files that I export and are made with Salome, can I put any license I want on them or are they bound to a certain license? Do I own what I make in the app?
- Can I use Salome for commercial purposes (make assets for my game) without buying that PqQt thing? If yes, then why is that noted in the documentation?
I'm new in CAD overall, I come from Blender, I tried both FreeCAD and SALOME and so far Salome seems better to me because I don't have to deal with the topological renaming thingy, I can change sketches and everything just works, and I can input parameters right on the go, also it seems to have a powerful remeshing tool. The upside of FreeCAD is that it has a better community and more tutorials, it's also easier to navigate in the viewport, but having to deal with datum planes just seems to slow down the workflow, and the way parameters are inputed seems slow. But mainly it's the topological naming error that puts me off, because it slows down the workflow.
Anyway, I'm scared about the output license of SALOME, I need to know I own what I output and that the license won't come back to bite me later on.
22:45 UTC
Draftsight
How good is the open source cad software compared to something like Draftsight? We've used Draftsight for a long time, but there's maybe some floss which is as good?
09:00 UTC
Ultimaker people on FreeCAD Discord channel, willing to collaborate on the path Workbench
11:28 UTC
What FLOSS CAD program do you like the most? why?
To have a general understanding of the FLOSS CAd community, please let me know which one of the below FLOSS CAD software you like the most and why. If your favorite FLOSS CAD is not listed below please mention it in the comments.
P.S. If this post is archived you may reply to this Tweet.
15:45 UTC
whitequark stepping down as SolveSpace maintainer
14:56 UTC
Discord channel for Gmsh
19:50 UTC
Give me a part to replicate!
I recently live streamed CADing up parts in OpenSCAD, of course almost no one watched, but I enjoyed it anyway. The second time I stream, I didn't even make a part that was useful to me, just a random STL I found on github.
Send me example parts, particularly ones you think might be tricky to do in OpenSCAD and I'll pick one to try and replicate.
I made a timelapse of one of the streams. Because CAD work is so visual I think they make for good time-lapses.
https://twitter.com/IrevDev/status/1292945044647731201
10:55 UTC
How-To Video: Perform a Linear Transient Dynamic Analysis with Code_Aster
23:32 UTC
Recommended GUI for CADquery is now a Workbench in FreeCAD
This makes installation much easier --- just add it via Tools | Addon Manager
04:27 UTC
[ShowCase] NoteCAD: holder (Discord channel in the comments)
09:05 UTC
Salome easy install?
Hi, I'm looking for a easy way to install Salome on Arch Linux, anything goes, flatpak, appimage, docker, generic tarball, whatever. I can't find but outdated suggestions. How can I do that?
20:33 UTC
NoteCAD has a Discord channel
16:30 UTC
In order to demonstrate its geometric modeling capabilities @open_cascade decided to come up with a sample of parametric CAD modeler – CAD Builder. It is derived from SHAPER, which is a module of SALOME Platform.
10:49 UTC
What are some of the best practices you wish more FLOSS would adopt?
13:03 UTC
My adventure with flossCAD: The design of a board game Hexidor
My adventure with flossCAD
In the summer of 2019 we went on a trip with a bunch of friends where we played a lot of games. One of my favorite games was Quoridor.
The problem with this game is that it can only be played by 2 or 4 players.
I was wondering how much the game would change if the rectangles were replaced by hexagons. This would allow for 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 players. And the bended walls would make for an interesting new player experience.
I fiddled with OpenSCAD and FreeCAD in the past. And I'm the guy who wants to make everything parametric (it's stronger than myself).
Freecad!
Link: https://www.freecadweb.org/
First I started experimenting with FreeCAD but with my limited FreeCAD skills this quickly came to a stop as my computer was hanging and calculating a lot.
Fortunately FreeCAD has a very helpful and dedicated community at their forum.
I asked for help on their forum and I received a lot of suggestions on how to perform the task I was trying to accomplish.
As I was in a very enthusiastic mood I couldn't wait for their feedback and I already moved on to another program.
OpenSCAD
Link: https://www.openscad.org/
I worked with OpenSCAD a very long time ago but I figured that if I only found the calculations to make the HEX-Pattern I would be finished in a short time with OpenSCAD.
I was able to create the desired pattern. But I did encounter a few problems with OpenSCAD when I wanted to continue with my design. The big disadvantage for me was the weird way of "Coding" in OpenSCAD the way it handled "Variables". Another drag was it didn't work with NURBS but it works with segmented surfaces.
You can generate smaller facets and add more segments but this incredibly increases the rendering time.
My design maybe wasn't the most optimal written for generation in OpenSCAD.
But I was stuck again as I mentioned earlier by the way it handled "variables" and I wasn't able to find a solution to my problem.
But in the end OpenSCAD was able to give me my first 3D printable file to test this game. We managed to test my game for the first time. We were able to play it with 6 players but we did need tweezers to move the walls and pawns. :smiley:
Bigger better
So the obvious next step was to make the board bigger and add some slots to place the unused walls into:
this one was the biggest I could print with my 3D printer
More bigger more better
Next step was obviously going even bigger. The file was still generated by OpenSCAD but I needed to get a Vector export of the outline at several heights to be able to laser cut my design.
This was possible with the OpenSCAD projection functionality. Or another way of doing this, is by importing the design in FreeCAD and taking a cross section.
This DXF was imported in Inkscape to do some finishing touches (mainly adding text).
Laser cutting
Gluing all the hexagons
Result
Summary
I was able to design a very nice playable version of the game I had in mind. But I wanted to improve on the design I had. Around the playing field of hexagons was a straight line, but I wanted the board edge to be parallel to the hexagons. My code in OpenSCAD was becoming so unreadable by the way OpenSCAD works and also the way I made my program there is always a person who can make this very elegantly with a simple formula and clean line of code. But for OpenSCAD I'm not that person.
So I moved on to the next program in this list.
OpenJSCAD
Link: https://openjscad.org/
Designing in OpenJSCAD was a breeze compared to OpenSCAD this behaved completely as a normal programming language. One problem not all functionality of OpenSCAD has been implemented yet. Features I was relying on I'm not sure anymore what functions they were.
Then I stumbled on a very promising design by code package.
CadQuery
Link: https://github.com/CadQuery/cadquery
It is very powerful, it works with NURBS. But: it was the hardest one to get started with. But it was able to do everything I wished for. There is a lot of documentation some of which is hard to understand but just as with FreeCAD there is an amazing community behind this project as well.
If I remember correctly there was also something weird going on with the projection function of CadQuery to slice this in SVG/DXF. So I did the slicing again in FreeCAD and did the finishing touches in Inkscape.
results
I made two versions of this board:
Laser cut as a present:
CNC milled as a present to myself:
I wasn't able to get the Path Workbench in FreeCAD working with my file. But with the help of some InkScape magic I was able to use JScut for the CAM part of this project.
Giving back
My goal with this game is that as much as possible people are able to play this game.
I was wondering about two options:
1. Open sourcing my design files
This could be a good solution but the threshold to make this game would be too high for most people instead of just buying it off the shelf for €20-30.
Almost everybody should have access to a Fab Lab take a workshop or two and be able to laser cut something. This takes a lot of engagement before you can get playing.
2. Contacting a game publisher
Another option would be to offer my idea to a game publisher to mass manufacture this game and sell it around the world for a cheaper price than you could make it yourself.
That way my game would reach out to many more people.
3. ?
I'm open for your thoughts and suggestions on this part. I've spent many months trying, testing and improving on this game. So it would be fantastic if I can transfer all this joy to other people also. Especially now in Covid-19 lock down.
Maybe I could release a paper cut-out version?
All above is information from my own limited experience, bugs may be fixed and features may be completed.
12:56 UTC