@@sniperwolf50 Probably because the software is made by engineers rather than designers. Hopefully the two disciplines can learn to work together better in software, like they do in web-dev, architecture, and automotive.
A bit out of topic but I'd like to share my gripe about Linux. Despite having UX in its name, the Linux gatekeeper still insist on using command line to do basic stuff. UX is how you get new people to adopt the thing and I hope Ondsel proves it.
Please, PLEASE make sure any and all cloud features can be disabled (and managed by administrators, eg. via GPOs) for environments that require the security and protection from exfiltration, accidental or otherwise.
@@cfgosnell There's a difference between telemetry and a cloud option. If you don't use the cloud and the program doesn't collect sensitive information it's a nonissue.
Awesome! I’m a huge open source advocate and I love FreeCAD. It’s about time someone commercialized FreeCAD with a support model. This will put FreeCAD on the radar of many more companies, growing the open source community and bettering CAD for all. Thank you Ondsel ❤
Do you also love ironing your hands in the oven and other masochistic activities? Or do you have a neurodivergence that makes it more usable for you than the rest of us? Asking sincerely, not as an insult.
This reminds me of Blender's 2.8 UI rework, or when KiCad fundamentally changed it's schematic editing paradigm in version 6. I bet this project will experience a similar boost in popularity. I am so excited to try this out!
This is super exciting!! I have been on open-source software for years, and have specifically taught FreeCAD for CNC, 3D Print, and Laser at our community makerspace to hundreds of people. People go directly from design to producing their physical prototypes. I'm very happy to see this effort. Thank you.
Very excited about this. Freecad had lacked aui/UX focus forever. As soon as I'm at my desk I'm grabbing the app image. So pleased your playing so well with the oss world as well. So important to me. Hope you can make the commercial side a massive success!
Thanks for contributing!!! UX/UI improvements make total difference to new users and giving new and fresh air to those that already support open-source.
So excited for some sane UI defaults and the integrated assembly workbench. I tried FreeCAD about a year and a half ago and the part design tools were fine, but it took too long to set up the UI, and the assembly abilities were a joke compared to Solidworks or Fusion. Very excited to have my mind changed!
More than anything its just surprising to see them actually willing to upstream their UI changes given that that's normally the driving factor that keeps people using their product over the original open source project. I just hope it stays an amicable relationship and not a buyout/hostile takeover.
This is brilliant!... You make a better version of Freecad and give it away for free in true FOSS fashion, but then you provide the service that any serious professional would end up using anyway. Thus realistically there is no reason for me to not use the services should I need them because by using the services I'm indirectly supporting FOSS development. This is the prefect way to monetize open source development!
Just found out that I do not have to install the software on a computer (on which I don't have permission to install a software) but I can still work on FreeCAD using the Ondsel package. Great! Need to find out what else is new on this package. I have high hopes for the assembly workbench.
Have no idea what I do wrong but I don't have any tools in the browser in either sketchers or part design. I have uninstalled and re installed to no avail.
Edit: I tried it out and, besides UI improvements, its not any better. In fact, it feels much worse in terms of model stability. All of my drawings completely randomly teleport whenever I make any change, on a relatively simple part, mostly boxes and a single cylinder. The dimension tool is neat. Like seriously, I just change one dimension with a simple box, and another drawing somewhere else just turned 45 degrees! How is that even possible, I dont have anything at that angle on this part! Old unedited comment: Looking forward to better model stability. Two major issues I have with freeCAD are: 1. When my part randomly has features invert, change direction, etc. 2. Having to re-define every constraint every time I change a base feature's dimensions. For example, changing a cylinder's length forces me to re-define relations of the plane of drawings made at the end of thar cylinder. Hopefully your CAD won't have these issues / will have them to a lesses extent. And maybe, you could fix that in FreeCAD I looked at your website and the features seem cool! Good job.
Made a couple of simple multi-body assemblies, seems to be all clear and usable. Is there a tool for explosion of schemes planned in the future? I know there is a workbench for this, but it is not supported for a long time
excited to see a project that might end up being and alternate to fusion 360 but you guys need more tutorials on RUclips as i am struggling to make the crossover (as a beginer), I cant even seem to google answers to basic questions like where can i save my measurements/parameters for quick future use in design?
Whoa! I love what you are doing. Surprised I've only heard of Ondsel now! Gotta be careful to ensure your business is sustainable and you are contributing back upstream. Tricky but totally doable. Good luck!
This kind of software and business should be the future! I don't know why I just really like this form of software, provide extra function and support for business users for a price and in the meantime releases the source code of the software (I know FreeCAD is under GPL but still!!!) and releases the software for free!
facinating. i never got into freecad since it seems unintuitive but i will certanly be trying this. who knows, mabe i've finally found my new CAD software.
I hate people that kiss butt. Here I am though, trying to dodge kissing yours. Nice work and glad to see you're remaining witb the upstream and not going for a fork
Good stuffs. Thanks for the contribution. I think the Assembly needed a clearer tutorial, though. Thanks. For example, how do one link an external part to the assembly file.
Thank you! We didn't mean this video to be a tutorial for assemblies. There's an earlier post with the video that is a walk through the workbench: ondsel.com/blog/assembly-wb-prerelease/. It doesn't cover linking, but essentially you open FCStd file that you want to link, then from the document where you assembly is you click the Insert Link button on the toolbar, left click on parts you need, and click ok to finish linking.
Likewise, I jumped ship during the last Autodesk purge of hobbyists and I am pretty sure there are going be many more. Fusion 360 does not allow non-paying users to create more than one page in any file in the drawing environment which frankly is an insult, FreeCAD's Techdraw workbench is miles better that Fusion 360's drawing environment and plays fairly nicely with the ever improving Inkscape. Once you understand what you are working with, FreeCAD (particularly the dev builds like Ondsel's) are really productive.
While FreeCAD is there but it isn't very user friendly. I am extremely glad to see a more promising alternative. As a civil engineering student, I would also really appreciate a version or features that can work as a full alternative to AutoCAD.
I hope they follow the same path as Blender with corporate sponsors. Maybe even go for an Epic megagrant. I'm a product designer and we often translate for example our CAD models into something to view in Unreal (mostly twinmotion)
Sounds cool. I tried to get fusion 360 to change text in a 3d print based on the version of the model. Couldn't get it to work but it seemed like it should be easy. Maybe the open file format would be conducive to that type of thing
Coming from Fusion 360 on my educational license, this seems great. However, the UI is kinda wonky. It feels like I keep running into walls trying to do things. I hope you folks keep improving this because it is looking good.
Nope, not true. We are contributing heavily to core FreeCAD. We are leading the development of the new integrated assembly workbench. This release includes the workbench which has not been merged to upstream FreeCAD yet.
Im definitively testing it! But to really use it, I am one of the people who mainly work in catia shape design. If you could integrate a workbench that focuses on aerodynamics design, that would be great. The feature most CAD systems are missing is the option to build tangential supports for your surfaces.
@@Ondsel Well yes, but actually no... In catia shape design you create surfaces and thicken them afterwards. (Only outer shell is created with offset for thickening) I can do this in inventor, but it starts getting difficult when I want to place e.g.: A true 3D spline and create a surface with 4 of them (like a 2d surface fill but 3d). In catia I now have the option to create smooth transitions between multiple such "fills" through supports that dictate an exact orientation at a certain point. If you want I can make a video and send it to you.
This makes me really happy. I am learning CAD right now, but hate that I am stuck with Fusion 360 to do the things I want to do. Please don't gather a substantial user base, then turn evil, okay?
I have been a user/manager of CAD and manager of software development projects for about 40years. I currently use at least 4 CAD products. Just recently started learning/using FreeCAD. All of that previous CAD experience leads only to frustration with FreeCAD. I know what I want to do and how to do it, but knowing the commands in FreeCAD is not that helpful. It is necessary to know the work flow. I have already completely wrecked drawings by deviating slightly from the undefined workflow. Overall UI/UX in FreeCAD is poor and would explain why so many who try it give up. FreeCAD really needs a dedicated UI/UX development team. Hard to do with all volunteers. If the only thing that Ondsel does is fix the UI/UX, it will be a winner.
We're focusing on the three big problems in FreeCAD right now. Toponaming mitigation, assembly, and UI/UX. UI/UX isn't a 'one and done' problem. It's going to take a long time to make the workflow smooth and consistent but that shouldn't stop real users from getting value from it immediately.
Out of those 3 priorities, the one that affects all users and does not have a workaround is the UI/UX. The other two are important, but less so.@@Ondsel
I really want to adopt the use of 3D software, I love sketchUp and how I can give freedom to my ideas, what I hate about sketchUp and the monthly fee with all software companies are doing.... could you implement some tool in this I don't know any software that works exactly like sketchUp, I'll see if I can install it, it could be a plugin.... What's fascinating about sketchUp is the direct and simple way to do 3D... I'm making a CNC Router myself and all 3D It's done using Corel and sketchUp, I do the 2D in Corel, I export it to DXF and I do the 3D in sketchUp.... I'm trying to learn Blender, but it's very different, Blender is very focused on organic drawing, I can even do drawing Geometric but not thinking about it like sketchUp. SketchUp should be a free and universal tool that Google should have sold to Timble.
Not much in this release (better sanity reports, bugfixes), but there's ongoing work to improve the tool library's UX. There's vastly more things to do than that, of course. We'll get there :)
@Ondsel you're making such a great changes. I'd like to support this work but 10/m for me, as a DIY user who uses it occasionally, is a bit too much. I wonder if it's possible to make a smaller patreon or similar donation/subscription without any additional `Peer` benefits.
We suggest donating to the FreeCAD Project Association - FreeCAD's own non-profit. The money goes into things like the grant program where developers make useful changes and get paid for doing that.
It is what FreeCAD was missing all the time for me. While also beeing able to search for freecad tutorials and use them for Ondsel. Pretty good so far.
I was super excited about this until I saw that it's built off FreeCad. I'm no engineer or CAD designer, just a hobbyist and frankly, the fact that FreeCad can't even do an offset of a sketch is just insane to me. I've tried it so many times over the years and it's just WAY too difficult to learn lol.
Totally understand, the learning curve is steep. But that’s precisely the problem this project is trying to address, and they’ve made big changes to the sketcher, including adding offsets. ;)😊
It really isn't that bad, the problem is that the in the stable release the UI is unorganised and there is very little in the way of comprehensive instruction for use. Ondsel is an attempt to deal with this problem, in particular things like the sketcher offset which is now in both the Ondsel build and the FC dev builds. I think this was one of the things Ondsel were able to improve and share with the main branch, the next stable version of FreeCAD is going to be a huge improvement and it is likely to improve pretty steadily after.
It is only at the beginning. You later will do like any other company does it looks. Because, you can't download it like other open source or home usage applications. The bureaucratic problems already started.
As long as I can have my rhino 3d style command line I'm in.
6 месяцев назад
This is apparently based on FreeCAD, right? I'm curious if we'll see features upstreamed back to FreeCAD, which would be incredible 👏 EDIT: Aah okay they were already mentioning that in the video...
I'm not trying to do anything fancy - just model parts for 3d printing but the vanilla Freecad experience sucks. You can tell there is a decent cad software lurking under the surface, but the profusion of buttons, lack of context sensitivity, lack of forgiving controls, lack of intuitiveness just kills the experience. I *want* to use it, but the experience of OnShape or Fusion360 is so much better because they declutter the screen and use labels on buttons and meaningful icons to make things as simple as possible. e.g. when sketching I can't get over how many constraints Freecad slaps in my face vs those other tools and how all the icons are the same. Hide some of the constaints, label the common ones. It's little things like that which add up. So I'll be definitely be giving Ondsel a go, but it definitely needs to beat that usability into shape.
1:43 in the top menu I see a download link but this link isn't available when I browse to the website. On the homepage there is a big Download button but it brings to a Sign up page. This is confusing. How to download Ondsel ?
Interesting. Glad to see new options come out. Currently using fusion 360 which I do enjoy quite a bit but wish their app was usable, especially for designing parts and not just a mediocre viewer. Any plans for an app?
@@Ondsel ya, kind of like shaper3d or I think you can somewhat do it with onshape. But I understand, this is still early and that would be probably not essential for a while. Definitely focus on the native software first
sketchup's format is proprietary so there's not much we can do. Step file import is very well supported. STL is a mesh format. They can be imported into ondsel/FreeCAD and conversion is possible but any time you try to convert from a mesh to a solid, the results will be less than satisfactory.
Rarely heard of serious open-source concept in the world mechanical engineering, I switched to software engineering for the lack of opportunity to contribute/use CAD software.
It's worth asking how this is financed. It's a commercial company so they are looking to make money. Are they going to start charging for the app later? From what I can gather, they have pricing plans now that only monetize the cloud and collaborative features. I think that is a good approach. FreeCAD is promising but has really struggledto develop, it does takes time and money to develop this stuff. They state: "The source code of Ondsel ES is public and available under the same license as upstream FreeCAD, which is LGPLv2+. The same applies to the Lens addon." They also state that Ondsel files can be opened with FreeCAD. I'm cautiously optimistic. It seems similar to how MuseScore operates, which so far is a good model. The sheet music editing app is free and open source, while they charge a sub for full access to the online score sharing service. It works for me anyway, and my musician friends, many of whom subscribe. And MuseScore has developed into a very deep and capable tool. I would compare this to blender but I still don't know how they pay for that development! Blender is astounding. Go Ondsel and may the FOSS be with you!
@@sliptonic Wasn't there a free-cad branch that already fixed the issue? How close is RealThunder from solving the issue? Is it a matter of caution or does the RealThunder solution have deep issues I am unaware of?
@@SilentShiba Kinda. Realthunder implemented a solution and it formed the basis of his linkstage fork. The code is unmergable. The changes are too large and too widespread. The work that has been going on for the last year is to reimplement his solution piece by piece into the the core. The reimplementation bring with it a huge number of unit tests to prevent regression bugs and other kinds of nastiness. We're going to get there but this has to be done right.
@@sliptonic I respect that. I think this project could make some honest and substantial money if the team is able to solve this issue. I sincerely mean it when I say I would be willing to pay a subscription if its like FreeCAD with enhanced support, back compatibility to base FreeCAD and the naming problem is mitigated. And I am a cheap dude when it comes to software!
Only been installing software since 1977 for loads of people. this is not at all easy to install no clear instuctions. Do I have to install freecad first?
OpenDark theme, a custom preference pack. The new integrated workbench code which has not been merged to FreeCAD yet. Also a handful of sketcher improvements which have also been submitted to upstream FreeCAD but not yet merged.
Could someone please explain in simple terms how to install Ondsel? I downloaded the file and it is in a format I am not familiar with nor are there any instructions on the Ondsel site explaining what to do next. Thank you.
Assuming you're on windows, you'll unzip the file with a recent version of 7zip. The binary file is in the /bin directory and is called freecad.exe. The next version of Ondsel will have a proper installer and signed binaries but these things take time.
@@rony7751 Life in an early-stage startup. A million things to do and not enough people/money/time to do them all. We're doing the best we can and we'll get better! Thanks for bearing with us.
First I heard of this... I've been playing with 0.22.0 for the last week or so. How much of the latest improvements are incorporated into Ondsel ES right now?
You can choose not to use the lens service at all. The lens addon in the desktop software is entirely coded in Python. That means the source is available to you to inspect.
It’s so often overlooked how important ux is… Blender really accelerated when they also began to focus on this. I’m really stoked about this.
This! So true! As a general rule, engineering software has horrendous UI/UX, no matter the field.
@@sniperwolf50 Probably because the software is made by engineers rather than designers. Hopefully the two disciplines can learn to work together better in software, like they do in web-dev, architecture, and automotive.
Agreed, alot of people was turned off by Blender prior to 2.8 coming out cause of how bad the UI was to navigate.
It´s the FreeCad ux. Maybe, it´s FreeCad with another name.
A bit out of topic but I'd like to share my gripe about Linux. Despite having UX in its name, the Linux gatekeeper still insist on using command line to do basic stuff. UX is how you get new people to adopt the thing and I hope Ondsel proves it.
Please, PLEASE make sure any and all cloud features can be disabled (and managed by administrators, eg. via GPOs) for environments that require the security and protection from exfiltration, accidental or otherwise.
It's an interesting request, thank you!
Was about to watch this video, but now I see the cloud is involved, won't waste my time.
@@solasauto A much better UX and commercial support at the cost of an extra button you won't use. Not sure why that's a deal breaker...
@@Caellyan Knowing exactly where your data goes is very important, not only for ITAR sensitive projects, but others as well.
@@cfgosnell There's a difference between telemetry and a cloud option. If you don't use the cloud and the program doesn't collect sensitive information it's a nonissue.
Yes please !
I see Angus therefore it must be good ;)
Awesome! I’m a huge open source advocate and I love FreeCAD. It’s about time someone commercialized FreeCAD with a support model. This will put FreeCAD on the radar of many more companies, growing the open source community and bettering CAD for all. Thank you Ondsel ❤
Do you also love ironing your hands in the oven and other masochistic activities? Or do you have a neurodivergence that makes it more usable for you than the rest of us? Asking sincerely, not as an insult.
This reminds me of Blender's 2.8 UI rework, or when KiCad fundamentally changed it's schematic editing paradigm in version 6. I bet this project will experience a similar boost in popularity. I am so excited to try this out!
This is super exciting!! I have been on open-source software for years, and have specifically taught FreeCAD for CNC, 3D Print, and Laser at our community makerspace to hundreds of people. People go directly from design to producing their physical prototypes. I'm very happy to see this effort. Thank you.
Very excited about this. Freecad had lacked aui/UX focus forever. As soon as I'm at my desk I'm grabbing the app image.
So pleased your playing so well with the oss world as well. So important to me. Hope you can make the commercial side a massive success!
Thanks for contributing!!!
UX/UI improvements make total difference to new users and giving new and fresh air to those that already support open-source.
So excited for some sane UI defaults and the integrated assembly workbench. I tried FreeCAD about a year and a half ago and the part design tools were fine, but it took too long to set up the UI, and the assembly abilities were a joke compared to Solidworks or Fusion. Very excited to have my mind changed!
Nice! The UX/UI improvements make this much more intuitive for an old school CAD jockey like me. Keep up the good work.
Great! Topological naming problem gets solved, finally a general working assembly, and the UI looks modern. That will boost FreeCAD like blender.
Looks great! Love everything about this, the UI/UX improvements, the online vault, and of course the contributions back to freecad. Stoked about this!
More than anything its just surprising to see them actually willing to upstream their UI changes given that that's normally the driving factor that keeps people using their product over the original open source project. I just hope it stays an amicable relationship and not a buyout/hostile takeover.
This is brilliant!... You make a better version of Freecad and give it away for free in true FOSS fashion, but then you provide the service that any serious professional would end up using anyway. Thus realistically there is no reason for me to not use the services should I need them because by using the services I'm indirectly supporting FOSS development. This is the prefect way to monetize open source development!
I'll be giving it a shot this week! Looks very promising.
Pleased to discover this just now. Installing the linux version now
Looks awesome, I really hope this product will catch on.
Just found out that I do not have to install the software on a computer (on which I don't have permission to install a software) but I can still work on FreeCAD using the Ondsel package. Great! Need to find out what else is new on this package. I have high hopes for the assembly workbench.
Have no idea what I do wrong but I don't have any tools in the browser in either sketchers or part design. I have uninstalled and re installed to no avail.
Remind me in a month. I need this for a project.
been 1/3 of a month
@@dimm__ Still can't afford the project. But thx for the reminder.
A little late, but, hey.
@@gentronicus better late than never
doing a project now, but doesn't need this atm. thx
This looks very promising! I’ll try it out the next chance I get.
First I've heard of Ondsel, I'm going to check this out!
Oh interesting ! Please make this as intuitive as Fusion 360. Right now FreeCAD so far had felt like an unintuitive mess. Will try this !
That's the plan :)
Edit: I tried it out and, besides UI improvements, its not any better. In fact, it feels much worse in terms of model stability. All of my drawings completely randomly teleport whenever I make any change, on a relatively simple part, mostly boxes and a single cylinder. The dimension tool is neat.
Like seriously, I just change one dimension with a simple box, and another drawing somewhere else just turned 45 degrees! How is that even possible, I dont have anything at that angle on this part!
Old unedited comment:
Looking forward to better model stability. Two major issues I have with freeCAD are:
1. When my part randomly has features invert, change direction, etc.
2. Having to re-define every constraint every time I change a base feature's dimensions. For example, changing a cylinder's length forces me to re-define relations of the plane of drawings made at the end of thar cylinder.
Hopefully your CAD won't have these issues / will have them to a lesses extent. And maybe, you could fix that in FreeCAD
I looked at your website and the features seem cool! Good job.
Just downloaded it, looks very usable. I'm so excited for this! Please add more shortcuts!
Never mind, the shortcuts are actually very sound.
Made a couple of simple multi-body assemblies, seems to be all clear and usable. Is there a tool for explosion of schemes planned in the future? I know there is a workbench for this, but it is not supported for a long time
That seems very promising!
I'd love to be able to setup my own cloud storage for my projects, using a plugin for Synology, OwnCloud or OMV!
This is such a great idea. I hope the software itself is as good as it looks and sounds 😎🍻
excited to see a project that might end up being and alternate to fusion 360 but you guys need more tutorials on RUclips as i am struggling to make the crossover (as a beginer), I cant even seem to google answers to basic questions like where can i save my measurements/parameters for quick future use in design?
Whoa! I love what you are doing. Surprised I've only heard of Ondsel now!
Gotta be careful to ensure your business is sustainable and you are contributing back upstream. Tricky but totally doable. Good luck!
Looks amazing I’m don’t use cad often but the next time I do, this is what I’ll use
This kind of software and business should be the future! I don't know why I just really like this form of software, provide extra function and support for business users for a price and in the meantime releases the source code of the software (I know FreeCAD is under GPL but still!!!) and releases the software for free!
Wow I avoided freecad cause the UI and work flow is obtuse, but this looks really user friendly, I'll have to give it a try now.
OMFG, this is waaaay better than the FreeCAD.
facinating. i never got into freecad since it seems unintuitive but i will certanly be trying this. who knows, mabe i've finally found my new CAD software.
Can't wait to try this out, glad you guys are helping drive freecad forward. Interested to see the python scripting stuff you have planned
I hate people that kiss butt.
Here I am though, trying to dodge kissing yours.
Nice work and glad to see you're remaining witb the upstream and not going for a fork
Made FreeCAD even better?! I'll be spreading the word.
You have my attention. Will follow
FreeCAD needs this UI/UX upstreamed so badly.
Good stuffs. Thanks for the contribution.
I think the Assembly needed a clearer tutorial, though. Thanks. For example, how do one link an external part to the assembly file.
Thank you! We didn't mean this video to be a tutorial for assemblies. There's an earlier post with the video that is a walk through the workbench: ondsel.com/blog/assembly-wb-prerelease/. It doesn't cover linking, but essentially you open FCStd file that you want to link, then from the document where you assembly is you click the Insert Link button on the toolbar, left click on parts you need, and click ok to finish linking.
@@Ondsel Thanks !
As hobbiest who has used fusion for 7+ years but is getting tired of the extortion autodesk does, this seems promising.
Likewise, I jumped ship during the last Autodesk purge of hobbyists and I am pretty sure there are going be many more. Fusion 360 does not allow non-paying users to create more than one page in any file in the drawing environment which frankly is an insult, FreeCAD's Techdraw workbench is miles better that Fusion 360's drawing environment and plays fairly nicely with the ever improving Inkscape. Once you understand what you are working with, FreeCAD (particularly the dev builds like Ondsel's) are really productive.
Does onsel fix the cad experience to be more like hmm say Soildworks.. as it feels a bit cumbersome right now
We work on UX/UI, but there's no goal to make it SolidWorks-like specifically. Just removing hurdles.
I've been looking for a good alternative to FreeCad, I cannot wait to give this a shot, and its opensource🤯! CAD options for Linux are so limited...
Для LINUX есть безграничный) Siemens NX.
By pointing out assembly do you mean you are using RealThunder's branch with added assemblies or did you create your own assembly branch?
It's new, with brand new solver. IMO much easier to use and stable.
@@kwahoo5746 Cool, I'll give it a try.
I want to test, I want to help doing videos in brazilian portuguese
FreeCAD with a decent UI? Hell yeah
Won't be long before subscriptions start.
Check out the pricing. There is a free option and a team subscription. The price is extremely reasonable.
While FreeCAD is there but it isn't very user friendly. I am extremely glad to see a more promising alternative. As a civil engineering student, I would also really appreciate a version or features that can work as a full alternative to AutoCAD.
I'm willing to donate to projects like this. Thank you for contributing to FOSS
I hope they follow the same path as Blender with corporate sponsors. Maybe even go for an Epic megagrant. I'm a product designer and we often translate for example our CAD models into something to view in Unreal (mostly twinmotion)
I just tried it and i like it, i just hope it stays free to use (offline at least)
Sounds cool. I tried to get fusion 360 to change text in a 3d print based on the version of the model. Couldn't get it to work but it seemed like it should be easy. Maybe the open file format would be conducive to that type of thing
Coming from Fusion 360 on my educational license, this seems great. However, the UI is kinda wonky. It feels like I keep running into walls trying to do things. I hope you folks keep improving this because it is looking good.
Glad FreeCAD is getting a big update. Never mind, it's just a UI update with a monthly fee.
Nope, not true. We are contributing heavily to core FreeCAD. We are leading the development of the new integrated assembly workbench. This release includes the workbench which has not been merged to upstream FreeCAD yet.
Im definitively testing it! But to really use it, I am one of the people who mainly work in catia shape design.
If you could integrate a workbench that focuses on aerodynamics design, that would be great.
The feature most CAD systems are missing is the option to build tangential supports for your surfaces.
Interesting, so... Would it be like adjusting geometry based on CFD analysis?
@@Ondsel Well yes, but actually no...
In catia shape design you create surfaces and thicken them afterwards. (Only outer shell is created with offset for thickening)
I can do this in inventor, but it starts getting difficult when I want to place e.g.: A true 3D spline and create a surface with 4 of them (like a 2d surface fill but 3d). In catia I now have the option to create smooth transitions between multiple such "fills" through supports that dictate an exact orientation at a certain point.
If you want I can make a video and send it to you.
Looks promising, I got to try it. 😊
Will try it out.
This makes me really happy. I am learning CAD right now, but hate that I am stuck with Fusion 360 to do the things I want to do. Please don't gather a substantial user base, then turn evil, okay?
Okay! :)
I hope this becomes something like Blender in the long run.
I have been a user/manager of CAD and manager of software development projects for about 40years. I currently use at least 4 CAD products. Just recently started learning/using FreeCAD. All of that previous CAD experience leads only to frustration with FreeCAD. I know what I want to do and how to do it, but knowing the commands in FreeCAD is not that helpful. It is necessary to know the work flow. I have already completely wrecked drawings by deviating slightly from the undefined workflow. Overall UI/UX in FreeCAD is poor and would explain why so many who try it give up. FreeCAD really needs a dedicated UI/UX development team. Hard to do with all volunteers. If the only thing that Ondsel does is fix the UI/UX, it will be a winner.
We're focusing on the three big problems in FreeCAD right now. Toponaming mitigation, assembly, and UI/UX.
UI/UX isn't a 'one and done' problem. It's going to take a long time to make the workflow smooth and consistent but that shouldn't stop real users from getting value from it immediately.
Out of those 3 priorities, the one that affects all users and does not have a workaround is the UI/UX. The other two are important, but less so.@@Ondsel
....cannot find how to show/hide planes.
Approx. how many Linux users do you and FreeCAD have? Any ideas as to the number of Linux downloads of Ondsel?
I really want to adopt the use of 3D software, I love sketchUp and how I can give freedom to my ideas, what I hate about sketchUp and the monthly fee with all software companies are doing.... could you implement some tool in this I don't know any software that works exactly like sketchUp, I'll see if I can install it, it could be a plugin.... What's fascinating about sketchUp is the direct and simple way to do 3D... I'm making a CNC Router myself and all 3D It's done using Corel and sketchUp, I do the 2D in Corel, I export it to DXF and I do the 3D in sketchUp.... I'm trying to learn Blender, but it's very different, Blender is very focused on organic drawing, I can even do drawing Geometric but not thinking about it like sketchUp. SketchUp should be a free and universal tool that Google should have sold to Timble.
Any improvements to the path workbench? I use freecad for my cnc machines.
Not much in this release (better sanity reports, bugfixes), but there's ongoing work to improve the tool library's UX. There's vastly more things to do than that, of course. We'll get there :)
@Ondsel you're making such a great changes. I'd like to support this work but 10/m for me, as a DIY user who uses it occasionally, is a bit too much. I wonder if it's possible to make a smaller patreon or similar donation/subscription without any additional `Peer` benefits.
We suggest donating to the FreeCAD Project Association - FreeCAD's own non-profit. The money goes into things like the grant program where developers make useful changes and get paid for doing that.
looks to good to be true.
downloading.
It is what FreeCAD was missing all the time for me. While also beeing able to search for freecad tutorials and use them for Ondsel. Pretty good so far.
i just hope to have a cad on the phone ...or linux
I was super excited about this until I saw that it's built off FreeCad. I'm no engineer or CAD designer, just a hobbyist and frankly, the fact that FreeCad can't even do an offset of a sketch is just insane to me. I've tried it so many times over the years and it's just WAY too difficult to learn lol.
Totally understand, the learning curve is steep. But that’s precisely the problem this project is trying to address, and they’ve made big changes to the sketcher, including adding offsets. ;)😊
It really isn't that bad, the problem is that the in the stable release the UI is unorganised and there is very little in the way of comprehensive instruction for use. Ondsel is an attempt to deal with this problem, in particular things like the sketcher offset which is now in both the Ondsel build and the FC dev builds. I think this was one of the things Ondsel were able to improve and share with the main branch, the next stable version of FreeCAD is going to be a huge improvement and it is likely to improve pretty steadily after.
Ondsel ES has an offset tool in Sketcher :)
If I'm used to Fusion 360, will I have a hard time adapting to this? What are some major differences?
(I mainly design for 3D printing)
It is only at the beginning. You later will do like any other company does it looks. Because, you can't download it like other open source or home usage applications. The bureaucratic problems already started.
i hope this comes to android so i can finally create stuff on the go
As long as I can have my rhino 3d style command line I'm in.
This is apparently based on FreeCAD, right? I'm curious if we'll see features upstreamed back to FreeCAD, which would be incredible 👏
EDIT: Aah okay they were already mentioning that in the video...
Correct on both accounts :)
I'm not trying to do anything fancy - just model parts for 3d printing but the vanilla Freecad experience sucks. You can tell there is a decent cad software lurking under the surface, but the profusion of buttons, lack of context sensitivity, lack of forgiving controls, lack of intuitiveness just kills the experience. I *want* to use it, but the experience of OnShape or Fusion360 is so much better because they declutter the screen and use labels on buttons and meaningful icons to make things as simple as possible. e.g. when sketching I can't get over how many constraints Freecad slaps in my face vs those other tools and how all the icons are the same. Hide some of the constaints, label the common ones. It's little things like that which add up. So I'll be definitely be giving Ondsel a go, but it definitely needs to beat that usability into shape.
That's one of our major goals!
Good. Open Source projects all need to level up with some good UX and good practices from serious commercial use.
1:43 in the top menu I see a download link but this link isn't available when I browse to the website.
On the homepage there is a big Download button but it brings to a Sign up page. This is confusing.
How to download Ondsel ?
Download process has changed. Create an account. It's free. At the end of the signup process there's a link to download.
So this doesn't run in windows 7
Interesting. Glad to see new options come out. Currently using fusion 360 which I do enjoy quite a bit but wish their app was usable, especially for designing parts and not just a mediocre viewer. Any plans for an app?
'App' as in 'mobile app'? No immediate plans.
@@Ondsel ya, kind of like shaper3d or I think you can somewhat do it with onshape. But I understand, this is still early and that would be probably not essential for a while. Definitely focus on the native software first
HELL YEAH FREECAD WOOOOOO
Can you use the created model commercially??
Yes, absolutely!
Wow! This is exciting!
I only using 2D unfortunately, but is it possible to draw 2D also?
If it is, I would gladly use this!
Yes, you can draft 2D designs too
one word: nice.
Can it open or import sketchup , step files or other stl's ? as i don't feel like remaking some of my projects from scratch
sketchup's format is proprietary so there's not much we can do. Step file import is very well supported. STL is a mesh format. They can be imported into ondsel/FreeCAD and conversion is possible but any time you try to convert from a mesh to a solid, the results will be less than satisfactory.
so the topologic name problem isnt fixed yet?
Not yet. It's not a trivial task.
Can this be used for building?
Any CAM support?
Yes, there are CAM tools for 2D/2.5D machining
Rarely heard of serious open-source concept in the world mechanical engineering, I switched to software engineering for the lack of opportunity to contribute/use CAD software.
There are many places to contribute to FreeCAD/Ondsel. Simulation, CAM, Robotics, sheet metal, etc. Welcome!
Can we use it for free for non-comercial stuff? What about for commercial things but without the cloud feature?
It's open source, use whatever you want
The desktop CAD software is free for any purpose. In fact, if you make money using it, come to tell us, and we'll feature you :)
It's worth asking how this is financed. It's a commercial company so they are looking to make money. Are they going to start charging for the app later? From what I can gather, they have pricing plans now that only monetize the cloud and collaborative features. I think that is a good approach. FreeCAD is promising but has really struggledto develop, it does takes time and money to develop this stuff. They state: "The source code of Ondsel ES is public and available under the same license as upstream FreeCAD, which is LGPLv2+. The same applies to the Lens addon." They also state that Ondsel files can be opened with FreeCAD. I'm cautiously optimistic. It seems similar to how MuseScore operates, which so far is a good model. The sheet music editing app is free and open source, while they charge a sub for full access to the online score sharing service. It works for me anyway, and my musician friends, many of whom subscribe. And MuseScore has developed into a very deep and capable tool. I would compare this to blender but I still don't know how they pay for that development! Blender is astounding. Go Ondsel and may the FOSS be with you!
So it is based in freecad code. It will always be a couple of releases behind freecad
right now it's a release ahead
I hope this takes down the Autode$k monopoly on CAD
OMFG you fixed the topological Namin problem, I'll pay some for it
Not yet fixed. Work is ongoing.
@@sliptonic Wasn't there a free-cad branch that already fixed the issue? How close is RealThunder from solving the issue? Is it a matter of caution or does the RealThunder solution have deep issues I am unaware of?
@@SilentShiba Kinda. Realthunder implemented a solution and it formed the basis of his linkstage fork. The code is unmergable. The changes are too large and too widespread. The work that has been going on for the last year is to reimplement his solution piece by piece into the the core. The reimplementation bring with it a huge number of unit tests to prevent regression bugs and other kinds of nastiness. We're going to get there but this has to be done right.
@@sliptonic I respect that.
I think this project could make some honest and substantial money if the team is able to solve this issue. I sincerely mean it when I say I would be willing to pay a subscription if its like FreeCAD with enhanced support, back compatibility to base FreeCAD and the naming problem is mitigated. And I am a cheap dude when it comes to software!
Anyone knows where the download link could be found to download it on windows devices?
Hi, it's accessible right from the homepage, downloads require registration
@@OndselHello, and thank you.
Nice!
Only been installing software since 1977 for loads of people. this is not at all easy to install no clear instuctions. Do I have to install freecad first?
Hi, this is temporary until we start making installers. Please see ondsel.com/support/ for a guide
Is it a FreeCAD with dark theme? What are improvements over FreeCAD?
OpenDark theme, a custom preference pack. The new integrated workbench code which has not been merged to FreeCAD yet. Also a handful of sketcher improvements which have also been submitted to upstream FreeCAD but not yet merged.
Could someone please explain in simple terms how to install Ondsel? I downloaded the file and it is in a format I am not familiar with nor are there any instructions on the Ondsel site explaining what to do next. Thank you.
Assuming you're on windows, you'll unzip the file with a recent version of 7zip. The binary file is in the /bin directory and is called freecad.exe. The next version of Ondsel will have a proper installer and signed binaries but these things take time.
Thank you. Now why couldn't Ondsel just put that on their website? Strike one right off the bat. Thanks again.@@sliptonic
@@rony7751 Life in an early-stage startup. A million things to do and not enough people/money/time to do them all. We're doing the best we can and we'll get better! Thanks for bearing with us.
I have been waiting for a good FOSS CAD software other than freecad... Which always has been less than ideal in terms of UX
well it's still freecad just there providing development and money for it's improvement (like what happened to blender)
First I heard of this... I've been playing with 0.22.0 for the last week or so. How much of the latest improvements are incorporated into Ondsel ES right now?
The build is based on 0.22dev from roughly two weeks ago.
@@Ondsel Thanks, I'll give her a go!
If I can't turn off cloud access (and verify it) I'm simply not interested in trying this. My data stays on MY servers!
You can choose not to use the lens service at all. The lens addon in the desktop software is entirely coded in Python. That means the source is available to you to inspect.
so, will it work without an account? if it integrates freecad somehow, so i don't have to learn a whole new method, i'll chekkit.
Yes. Will work exactly like FreeCAD without an account