Plasticity 3D

[Zeb]

This looks like an interesting modeler for entry level folks. It'll likely cost money but currently in development.



https://github.com/nkallen/plasticity

 

[lee webster]

It looks to be a very powerful add on to Blender. If it outputs STL and DXF files then it could be worth buying, depending on the price. Personally, I would only be interested in a one off purchase, not paying for the programme each year as with the big named cad's

 

[ddmckee54]

I would only add one thing to lee webster's reply, a license file that is sent to you - not something that you have to "phone home" periodically to renew.

 

[lee webster]

ddmckee54
Good point. My CAD computer is meant to connect to the net at regular intervals to keep my CAD programme valid. But because the computer isn't connected to the net I just change the date to the date I first installed the programme 18 months ago. No biggie, just a few seconds work.

 

[ddmckee54]

Lee:

I got bit in the butt by Autodesk. I tried F360 a couple of years ago and thoroughly hated it, I've been using 2D Autocad for over 30 years and F360 just didn't "feel" right. A month or so ago I decided to bite the bullet and actually "learn" F360. It wouldn't load, my license had expired. I knew F360 had been updated, so I downloaded the latest and greatest - I couldn't get it to launch.

Finally I just said "Screw it, I gonna learn FreeCad". Autodesk has already dumbed down the hobbyist version of F360, and I fully expect them to pull the plug on the hobby version in the future. Just like Dassault did with Draftsight.

Don

 

[lee webster]

I tried F360 a few times, couldn't get on with it. I also had the student copy of Solidworks. I wish I still had it now, but I felt they were going to knobble the license somehow so I stuck to the really free stuff. Solidedge is good, but I prefer Designspark mechanical. There is no parametric type tree to wind things back, but it produces great results. My Ender 3 is running at this moment printing out a cylinder head (single cylinder) just so I can look at it in the flesh before doing any more work. FreeCAD is great, but it can be very poor. After using SE and DS I wouldn't rely on FreeCAD for anything important. I haven't tried FreeCAD 0.20 yet, but I will give it a try when it is released.
Lee

 

[skyline1]

I got bit in the butt by Autodesk. I tried F360 a couple of years ago and thoroughly hated it, I've been using 2D Autocad for over 30 years and F360 just didn't "feel" right. A month or so ago I decided to bite the bullet and actually "learn" F360. It wouldn't load, my license had expired. I knew F360 had been updated, so I downloaded the latest and greatest - I couldn't get it to launch.

You, me, and many others I suspect This is typical of Autodesk, They pulled the same stunt with EAGLE their EDA package. While Cadsoft owned it things were great, But once Autodesk bought it everything changed.

I had an Educational license which covered most if the Autodesk products but now they have tightened the restrictions so private study for non commercial purposes is no longer allowed. So no more Autodesk for me I can't afford their crazy prices.

Plasticity for Blender looks interesting but is still in beta and it will eventually boil down to the usual thing, how much will it cost ? time will tell I guess. I may well download the beta to have a play with though

The new web based version of Solidworks is an option and at $99 a year it's relatively inexpensive and you get some really nice web based modelling tools as well, but as always there is a catch, it's files cannot be opened by Regular Solidworks. I believe that the reverse is also true but I may be wrong about that.

I have used FreeCAD a few times and it's not bad if a little "disjointed" with all it's many " Workbenches". It's gears workbench is great and very easy to use, there are a number of others for special jobs that are also really good.

The major drawback is the infamous *topological naming problem" which users have been complaining about for years and working around or avoiding it makes using FreeCAD more difficult than it should be. Hopefully this will be resolved in V0.20 and there is already a fork of FreeCAD which partially addresses the problem,

Once this is addressed and the many third party workbenches can be made a bit more consistent and "joined up" I think FreeCAD will be a real winner for us hobbyists, I too am eagerly "watching this space"

Best Regards Mark

 

[Shopgeezer]

I put some work into trying to learn Fusion 360 last winter and got to the point where I could draw a few simple shapes but I really don't like the way the program works. The sketching drives me crazy. I am also unwilling to put many long hours into learning it if Autodesk is going to pull the plug on the hobbiest version. I want to embark on an engine project and need to settle on the CAD program I am going to use. I have been using Sketchup for years but they have dumped the Maker version and want more money all the time. How good is the $99 version of Solidworks? I don't need crazy complex CAD, just a decent 3D program I can use for engine design and blueprinting. Is Solidworks going to be any more dependable than Autodesk in the future? Some executive can decide that they could make $10 more per year getting rid of the cheap version and write it off in a memo.

 

[ddmckee54]

Lee:

DesignSpark Mechanical is my primary 3D cad software, there's just so much that it doesn't do - or at least doesn't do easily. I would like to find something either Open Source, or a free download that more powerful. I was watching a tutorial last night about parametric circular text on a curved surface in FreeCad, it was impressive. It did require the use of more than one workbench though. But ANY text in Designspark, to me, is still a struggle - and the fonts seem to be limited.

I was playing with FreeCad last night starting on a future project. (On the job training as it were.) I'm working on a 3D model of a 1/14 scale RC truck that will use a lot of 3D printed parts. I was working on linking some constraints to a spreadsheet to simplify future modifications. I screwed it up and lost the sketch I was working on. I don't know what I did, but apparently it was an unrecoverable goof - I couldn't Undo to get it back. That was it for the night, I THINK I saved the file previously.

Designspark is good and relatively easy to use, I've been using it for about 6 years. But you get what you pay for with Designspark. Don't get me wrong, I like Designspark - it "feels" much better to me than F360. Still being able to mirror a 3D object WOULD be a nice function to have.

Don

 

[lee webster]

Don,
I don't miss the mirror function as much as I thought I would, but it would be nice to have it. Text is messy, but doable in DS, I have 3D printed some very nice oval plaques, name plates, with curved extruded text with draft. Mind you, I had to use Inkscape to produce the basic design, export that to FreeCAD (The stable versionFreeCAD .20 is supposed to be released this weekend) and then export that to DS. Solidedge can do all that in one go, I just don't get on with it. DS is fine with just straight text and I think all the windows fonts are available, I will check the next time I fire up DS.
I have lost count of the number of times I have fallen foul of FreeCAD crashing! When I have upset DS and it doesn't want to play anymore I usually find pressing the esc key will stop whats going on and I can carry on.

 

[Peter Twissell]

I use F360 commercially. The licence is very reasonable by comparison to other commercial CAD and I like the system by which I can use the licence points to use the add-ons for just the time that I need them.
Coming from a background of professional CAD systems (CATIA and Unigraphics) I found Fusion easy to learn and use.
I think it depends very much on what you're used to and what you are expecting.

 

[Shopgeezer]

I think your professional background is a universe away from home hobbyists struggling to understand enough of the program to do something useful. I would like to know which of the many free or cheap programs make sense to invest a lot of learning time in.

 

[lee webster]

I can understand commercial use of F360, but as a hobbyist with a dedicated (cheap!) cad computer not connected to the internet, I can't run it. I have to use software where internet connection is either not required or I can get round it. My free cad program would like to connect to the web regularly, but I just change my system date to the date I installed the programme and it thinks it's Groundhog day. The computer I use for all other work, this one, is old and slow. F360 would take several minutes to load. Not a realistic option. But I have to admit, F360 has a lot of useful features.

 

[Shopgeezer]

My main concerns are the comments above that the hobbyist version of F360 will no longer be offered. I don’t want to invest my rapidly diminishing puddle of brain power in learning the program only to be presented with a bill for further use. And I don’t really like this whole push to cloud computing. We live in the country and internet is not dependable. I would much rather have a local install.

 

[lee webster]

I can't comment on Blender as I have never used it. I use DesignSpark Mechanical for 95% of my CAD work, FreeCAD for the other 5% and SolidEdge very rarely. They are all free to use, but I think there might be some restrictions creeping in with the latest version of SolidEdge. I have the previous version I downloaded last year and it seems to have no restrictions.

 

[Peter Twissell]

I completely understand that most of those on this group would rather have a stand-alone, free to use or at least one-time purchase CAD system.
With regards to learning, I have taught several people to use CAD. With the benefit of an instructor familiar with CAD, it takes only a few hours to learn all that is needed for hobby work.
If you can find a friendly CAD user, it makes learning very much quicker and easier.

 

[Zeb]

My main concerns are the comments above that the hobbyist version of F360 will no longer be offered. I don’t want to invest my rapidly diminishing puddle of brain power in learning the program only to be presented with a bill for further use. And I don’t really like this whole push to cloud computing. We live in the country and internet is not dependable. I would much rather have a local install.

Unless you're a business moving along, F360 isn't ideal. Something to note is that if you learn it, you should be able to translate your knowledge to most other CAD applications. I think it's a really nice program for learning CAD.

From other's comments, I don't think plasticity is a Blender addon, rather, a standalone software with what looks like its own geometric modeling kernel. Blender uses meshes (and some nurbs) to plot points, lines, and triangles. Under the hood it is completely different from parametric CAD solvers.

 

[skyline1]

yes it is stand alone. I too made the mistake of thinking it was a Blender plug-in.

I found precompiled versions here Releases · nkallen/plasticity
for those interested.

Best Regards Mark

 

[L98fiero]

I can understand commercial use of F360, but as a hobbyist with a dedicated (cheap!) cad computer not connected to the internet, I can't run it. I have to use software where internet connection is either not required or I can get round it. My free cad program would like to connect to the web regularly, but I just change my system date to the date I installed the programme and it thinks it's Groundhog day. The computer I use for all other work, this one, is old and slow. F360 would take several minutes to load. Not a realistic option. But I have to admit, F360 has a lot of useful features.

I know that Alibre has off line licensing options for the higher end product, maybe for Atom as well. It might be worth the time to ask.

 

[lee webster]

I was mistaken in thinking Plasticity was a Blender plug-in, it isn't. I will keep an eye on its development, and price!
L98fiero, I liked the free trial of Atom, but it was too short to get a real feel of the programme. I might be mistaken, but I don't think there is a rotate function. I can just about live without a mirror function (missing in Designspark) but I use rotate all the time.