I am not a design draftsman, I’m not an engineer. My workflow is usually: I put something on the scanner, load the calibrated scan, trace the outline, throw a few sketches on various planes in there, round a few edges, print it and I’m done.

Fusion 360 scratches that itch very well but requires me to keep a Windows VM and also their free model felt more and more unusable. OnShape is a nice substitute that works fine for me, but I don’t like the “free or 1500€/year” approach. Without a middle ground subscription for makers it feels that I could lose anything the second their energy prices for servers go up or something.

The list of CAD software is exhaustive, so I am looking for recommendations that fit my “eh, click, click, click, good enough” workflow. FreeCAD is way too unintiuitive for that. I have tried getting into it, but 3D printing is a tool for me and the learning curve quickly made using it another hobby.

So. Suggestions welcome. Scalding criticism about my lack of enthusiasm and consumer mentality not so much, but I guess that comes bundled with useful advice, so, eh, I’ll take it.

  • noni@feddit.orgEnglish
    8·
    5 months ago

    You could try Ondsel, the trimmed UI makes it easier to use than Freecad in my opinion, the learning curve is still steep tho. No account needed if you get it on GitHub: https://github.com/Ondsel-Development/FreeCAD/releases

    You could also take a look at Plasticity, seems very intuitive to use and should work well with your clicky workflow, it’s a one time payment and has a Linux version. I don’t have any personal experience with it, but there is a trial version so you can try it before investing any money. https://www.plasticity.xyz

    • MrAnderson@feddit.nlEnglish
      2·
      5 months ago

      Plasticity is a pretty cool application that’s growing pretty quickly and offers perpetual licenses, so you retain access to the program once your maintenance period expires. I think it has a ton of potential to become very useful for the 3d printing space that doesn’t necessarily require the full power of a pure CAD application but needs more than something purely art-focused like 3d modeling software.

      One of the greatest things is the dev takes a lot of input from the community when deciding what features are added. There’s a whole website for suggesting and voting on features to be added and several of them have already been put into development and implemented already. And on top of all that it’s, comparatively, affordable. I’m still learning it so I don’t know the full limitations of it’s usefulness for 3d printing but to me it seems very capable.