FreeCAD Is Fundamentally Broken! - Now what... Help Me Decide...

i didn't want to make this video but it has  to be said freeCAD is currently fundamentally   broken now let me explain as i need your help to  see if and in what direction i should take free   cad next on maker tails it's called the topology  naming problem and yes i know you veteran freecad   users you know all about this and you're probably  sick and tired of hearing it but hear me out   i'm not here to whine and complain and for  those of you who are not aware of this problem   or aren't familiar with cad design itself let me  summarize all of this into a nice little nutshell   cad design relies heavily on a concept called  sketches these sketches are basically 2d drawings   that you can control with numbers to create  accurate 3d models from now as you can imagine   just like reality if you're going to be drawing  on a piece of paper you need a flat surface to do   it on this is the whole idea of a plane in the 3d  space another way of interpreting a plane is just   as a known flat surface in the 3d space so you  would expect that a known surface would be the   flat face of a bit of 3d geometry meaning that you  would be able to reference that face as a plane   to sketch on and that's exactly it it's one of  the fastest simplest and most intuitive workflows   to design things within a cad program you simply  click on a face reference that face as the plane   that you want to make another sketch on and get  on sketching this way you're able to make ever   more complicated designs relatively easily  and considering you are using a cad program   at any point you can go back to a previous sketch  and edit your design well you would think so just   as an example this here is what happens in  fusion 360. and it's what i would expect from   any cad program be it paid free or open source  and this here is what happens in free cad to understand this problem we need to get to know  free cad just a little bit more in the simplest   of terms currently in freecad every body has  sort of a list of faces where each face is named   and when you select a face to create a sketch on  it you are ultimately locking that sketch to the   name of that face so it's like saying i want  to reference the face that is named number 11   as a plane to sketch off it so the question and  the problem is what happens when that named list   of faces to a body changes be it adding or taking  away a face from that list well for instance in   this example an edit is done to the sketch that  is driving body b and coincidentally adds a face   to body b however body c which is driven by a  sketch that was referencing the face named number   11 that just happened to be the top face of body  b now looks like it's referencing a different face   but in free cad reality the sketch of body c  is still referencing the face named number 11   so in other words the list of named faces of  body b changed in some way and the sketch just   followed that name reference to wherever that  name now belongs on body b and that there is the   topology naming problem now personally i would not  call this a problem i would call this a program   breaking bug now don't get me wrong i've already  put in over 100 hours into learning freecad   and i quite enjoy using it especially after you  get over that sheer cliff of a learning curve with   that said here on maker tales i want to share and  teach other makers through my maker journey in the   most digestible way possible so when you encounter  this cliff of a learning curve along with this bug   and yes it is a bug not a problem the learning  curve turns from a cliff into an overhang now   i'm more than aware of the solutions workarounds  and workflows to navigate this topology naming bug   in fact here are some of the most popular ones  that i know of for those of you that aren't versed   in freeCAD i warn you here comes quite a bit of  jargon just for a little bit manually reassign and   recompute the face reference for the sketch every  single time there is a naming list edit don't use   any face references at all and link everything  up with origin reference datum planes along with   mostly simple equations to link them up to your  bodies or don't even use the official release   of freecad but an experimental release by real  thunder who is a sole developer who in my opinion   has nailed it by making his own workable version  of freecad while developing a completely different   part of freecad and now to the point of all of  this i really am excited and thrilled by the   idea of teaching such a great open source program  like freecad with that said i really don't feel   that any of the solutions or workarounds that  i've just mentioned are frankly acceptable and   here are the reasons why manually reassigning  and recomputing face references is frankly a   task that i wouldn't even give my worst enemy only  using origin reference datum planes with equations   yes this creates extremely robust designs and i  would even expect serious engineers to use this   workflow even if there was no bug as this would  give them absolute control over everything in   a model with that said i honestly would never  expect a newcomer to cad design to jump up to   this level of cad understanding to be able to make  a few hobby parametric parts but frankly in my   opinion this is shooting freeCADs popularity and  growth right in the foot as this bug is perfectly   situated at a point where somebody might finally  start to feel comfortable using freecad even just   by messing around and not using any tutorials for  example someone coming from fusion 360 and then   they encounter this bug not to mention the sheer  prerequisite information and cad understanding   that i would have to teach a newcomer to be  able to create a single solid parametric part   and thinking a little bit selfishly here all those  videos that if i do create might be completely   obsolete version 0.2 of freecad i guess what i'm  trying to say here is that i just think it's silly   to have to teach someone like this lastly we have  real thunder's link stage 3 branch of recad i find   it mind boggling that there is currently a version  of freeCAD that pretty much works as intended   and it's not the official release of freeCAD and  yes i'm not so naive not to know that there is so   much more behind everything i just said from the  fact that from what i've read they're currently   committing some of real thunder's developments  but that's going to be into free cad 0.2 which   in reality who really knows when that will come  out yes the road map says the 31st of december but   there can always be setbacks and free cad is free  and open source so there's a whole host of hoops   to go through and so much more overall i like the  idea of teaching freecad in real thunder's branch   having said that it is an experimental version  of freecad and i'm only about 100 or so hours in   so i might not even recognize when i'm looking at  something that is blatantly broken on top of that   i don't know how much and what is different in  real thunder's branch that won't be in freecad   0.2 when it eventually comes out so thinking  a little bit ahead and a little bit selfishly   i would quite like my videos that i make to be  useful for the freecad community com freecad 0.2   i guess what i'm really trying to say here is  come on freeCAD community and devs we are so   close yet we are still dragging this bug along  and it's leaving such a horrible bitter taste   in so many new hopeful users recently we've had  some of the biggest growth in the 3d community   due to the world's current affairs the rise of  open source license changes of other cad programs   and the rise of industry 4.0 it's  literally been the perfect storm   and i'm sure freecad has seen quite a bit of  growth from it however i would have expected   it to have been a lot more explosive and i'm gonna  say it i truly believe in my opinion it's because   of this silly bug so this here is where i'm left  questioning and i need your help what do i do now   should i just wait for freecad 0.2 whenever that  comes out and then start making tutorials that are   going to be digestible to newcomers to the 3d  space or do i make over-complicated tutorials   of cad design using a workflow that i've only  used every now and then because i find it far   too slow and tedious and that's pretty much  going to make my videos obsolete in the future   or do i teach real funders branch of  cad knowing that it might be completely   broken and i might not recognize it i might  even teach features that won't be in there   come the new versions of freecad which are going  to make both my videos and your time obsolete   i would love to hear from all of you be it down in  the comments or in the maker tales discord a huge   thank you to my patrons you guys are absolutely  awesome and it's what makes maker tales possible   if you're enjoying what i'm making here  and you think i'm worthy of your support   i would love to see you there too don't forget  that we have that discord and that is linked   down in the description thank you for watching  keep making and let the quest continue

Channel: Maker Tales

Views: 132,930

Keywords: freecad, free cad, toponaming, topological naming, cad, cad tutorial, cad live, freecad wiki, freecad problem, flowwies corner, tapology naming problem, 3d printing, free cad software, 3d modeling, 3d modeling for beginners, 3d modeling software, freecad 0.19 tutorials for beginners, freecad software tutorial, pad and pocket, broken, bug, does not work, is freecad good, dose freecad work, freecad vs fusion 360, how to fix freecad, help, Fundamentally, opensource, realthunder

Id: QSsVFu929jo

Length: 10min 35sec (635 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 24 2021