Solvespace – parametric 2d/3d CAD
This seems to be more than just a parametric 3D drawing program (at least based on a quick look at a tutorial). The workflow seems to be heavily constraint based. You make a bunch of connected lines of no particular orientation and dimension and then specify a bunch of restrictions on what sort of thing is possible. Eventually you end up with your design based on a bunch of tiny specifications.
Strikes me as different than something more drafting oriented like Freecad. It's more like a type of 3D breadboard.
I've been using this software quite extensively to design a small 25m2 house I'm building earlier this year. It can be a bit rough around the edges, but it's already quite usable and powerful!
IMO the main issue is that the constraint solver recomputes everything whenever you add/move something, even though past additions are already properly constrained. As a result, the software gets less and less responsive as your design gets more complicated. I don't know if the devs adressed that issue (it's a tough one), but I know it was already on the radar a few months ago.
Solvespace is the best open parametric CAD package I've used by far. For people coming from commercial CAD packages like SolidWorks the design process is easy to pick up. The UI is definitely a bit rough, but it's so much more powerful than anything else I've used.
Let me plug qcad, a free and open source cad system that allows you to work parametrically as well using plain javascript.
I've done some pretty complex stuff in it and it hasn't let me down yet.
I'll give solvespace a shot to see how it compares, for me the reason to use parametric CAD is that I'm far more comfortable programming something than editing it in a GUI, and besides it makes changing stuff so much easier.
That looks interesting -- especially the path generator, as most CAM software are non-free and all clunky..
Funny that one of their example of clamps looks exactly the same as the one I've designed to hold the spindle on my CNC! (cut from sheet aluminium https://github.com/buserror/buserror-reprap/blob/master/stl/...)
FreeCAD & OpenSCAD have both been mentioned a lot in this thread. If you like the thought of the scripting power OpenSCAD gives you, but like the convenience of a GUI at times, the cadquery plugin for FreeCAD may be worth a look. It provides a Python scripting environment in FreeCAD that you can use in tandem with GUI operations.
6MB installer free .exe, oldschool. Makes me wanna contribute a lot.
Anyone care to weigh in on how this compares to FreeCAD?
The maintainer, whitequark, has an equally interesting portfolio outside Solvespace: https://lab.whitequark.org
the examples page [http://solvespace.com/examples.pl] is very well thought-out
Is there a product roadmap? Would be interested only if/when some sort of iLogic-like implementation is present. Otherwise, keep up the great work.
I like the concept, and I am sure that I will try it out soon. I do however miss some screenshots on the website of the full application, and asking a user to download a video on a website in 2016 seems a bit off, why not use YouTube or some other service that offers embeds?
How does it it fare against Fusion 360 in terms of quality / being bug-free? :)