FreeCAD 3D CAD/CAM software in development

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KW1252
LQFP112 - Up with the play
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Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2008 5:31 pm

FreeCAD 3D CAD/CAM software in development

Post by KW1252 »

Here's a promising little CAD start-up I found some time ago and kept in tabs with the development:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/free-cad/

The software is still in 0.10, not even in a beta stage. However, it's showing (IMO) great promise, and from the 0.07 to the 0.10 the development has been pretty good, with solid improvements. However, it's still a long way from being a really usable software, so anyone wanting just load it and start engineering stuff will be disappointed.

The geometry export doesn't seem to work too well yet, even though it loads a wide bunch of different files, it doesn't seem to output them too well; also, manipulating the objects is pretty difficult. However, once those little issues are dealt with, it would make a good kluge for the STEP <--> VRML conversion problem going on with KICAD. (The real solution by KICAD team would be adherence to ISO 10303 standard - STEP among friends. Unfortunately ISO wants a lot of money for the copies of those papers.)
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jharvey
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Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2008 5:17 pm

Re: FreeCAD 3D CAD/CAM software in development

Post by jharvey »

Another of interested might be HeeksCAD. Which oddly enough, was used in HeeksCNC. Just like FreeCAD, it's promising, but currently limited.

http://code.google.com/p/heekscnc/
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