/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>1991436
pirated solidworks 20XX, why would you use anything else

>>1991436
Yeah, I love it. Glad I picked it to learn instead of AutoDesk. Hyped for 0.19 and all the interface, and internal improvements.

>>1991436
Nah, I use pirated Inventor with Inventor Cam.
Free as in freedom isnt worth it if you are using trash when trying to get work done

>>1991482
That's what people said when I was learning blender and now they want to learn blender.

>>1991436
I'm trying but I'm a fusion baby and having a hard time

>>1991436
Just getting started with it although I haven't used any other CAD software before. It's annoying when I need to change a dimension and have to dive into a nest of cuts and merges to change it.

>>1991511
Nobody said FOSS is bad
There is some stuff out there that is amazing.
Look at OBS for example, its the best software on the market and its FOSS

Too bad FreeCad is fucking trash

>>1991511
Blender is a fully featured pro level program that happens to be FOSS, FreeCUNT is a mess that is all over the place with the features and the workflow is broken AF. Any CAD suite that can crash when you try to change the workspace is not to be trusted.

And to be clear: i would like to used FC as a main thing, but it's pretty horrible to work with and even worse to have anything practical done in. FC feels to me like a very barebone core that people started nailing and screwing features to without taking time to properly integrate them.

>>1991436
No because it sucks and I'm too lazy to learn anything new.

My friend got caught using pirated SolidWorks and had to buy a license.

>>1991559
By whom?

>>1991559
Did the software phone home or did another company rat him out? This is why you should air gap the computer it's on if you can. I heard any file made by solidworks has a digital signature and is traceable but I have no clue if it's true.

>>1991525
But it is not? It just has a sligthly longer learning curve and the interface is not super mega duper like autocad shit.

>>1991566
probably he clicked one of the help menus and a red alert started ringing at AutoDesk HQ

>>1991530
>FC feels to me like a very barebone core that people started nailing and screwing features to without taking time to properly integrate them.
It is exactly that. And it is still is version 0.2 or something. Some of the packages are almost complete in regards to fundamental features tho. (drafting, 3d etc)

>>1991573
Solidworks is not autodesk

I've heard solidworks goes hard after pirates.

>>1991436
I just use this shit when I move files from autocad to 3d coat

>>1991575
I use FreeCAD as my hobby 3D printing program. I also use it at work for the one off 3D prints or making quick drafts to send to the machine shop for simple fixturing.

Frustratingly awful learning curve and some truly awful bug-like workflow required.

But I like it and it is super free and can run on my work laptop uninstalled so I never had to have corporate IT force me to bill my department $10000 for a single license of Solidworks that is never available.

>>1991573
The learning curve should not be learning to work around bugs. 18 years old, still has major bugs almost as old, still has the same awkward work flow, nah. It has a very long ways to go.

>>1991600
>>1991592
yeah but it is still going. In some time after companies like solidworks and autocad push their subscription based shit, even programs like freecad are our last hope.

OpenSCAD is nice for basic stuff

>>1991654
If you have a von Neuman class brain at your disposal there's also the BRL CAD but... well, that is for the "particular individuals".

>>1991658
First time hearing about it, it looks really interesting ! But it seems to be way more than just plain CAD software.

>>1991671
It is, it was designed by and for the "blow people up" crowd and it reflects it well, for example with it's capabilities to model elecromagnetic (and other kinds) of radiation

>>1991436
Waste of time. I pirate and run in VMs (after making a clean snapshot) then if I add an application I snapshot the previous success first.

You can always convert to some freefaggot format etc to ditch any watermarks but unless you're subbing out work that doesn't matter.

>>1991623
Still going but it pretty much died twice already where it went quite long periods with little to no work. I am not going to use a program just because it might someday be good. If they had just maintained focus on making a good solid cad program before adding in all of the extra shit like hull design, which even FreeShip blows out of the water, they would likely have a great program now, but they went and started adding in all sorts of features before the core features were even stable. The worst part is that it is just a front end to OpenSCAD, all of their issues are just interface and they can not even manage that.

>>1991654
OpenSCAD can do very complex things, you just need to get used to thinking differently. The thing which confuses me is why someone does not just write a tool to convert povray files to what ever 3d print fags need, has a great syntax and can do very high complexity with ease.

>>1991658
BRL CAD is not that bad, just ignore the ballistics/em shit and it becomes a fairly standard CSG modeler with b-rep added on.

Freecad I try once every year, hoping that it will get better. Here's my history:

High school:
>Autocad/Autodesk inventor--learned basics of 2d/3d, these were my foundations
Late high school:
>Solidworks, easy transition from inventor, picked up pretty quickly
College:
>Solid edge--didn't like some of the weird behaviors of synchronous features, didn't use those too much. But otherwise perfectly functional
>Tried FreeCAD, couldn't get around the workflow and interface, sketcher was trash
>Solidworks, same as before and no issues (school switched away from solid edge)
Work:
>PTC Creo (what our company uses)--You can do things, yes, but every now and then the obvious shitshow of legacy code rears its ugly head with terrible workflow and UI. At this point it feels like stockholm syndrome, but you can do just about anything you want if you would like to suffer through it. One of the best sketchers I've used. Absolutely abysmal default hotkeys
>Tried FreeCAD, couldn't get around the workflow and interface, sketcher was trash
>Fusion 360 for personal projects, it was functional but didn't like how features were defined in the timeline, awkward assembly process, but otherwise functional and used this for a while. Not happy about cloud storage/licensing, but suffered through it until they changed their license details not too long ago
>Tried FreeCAD, couldn't get around the workflow and interface, sketcher was improved slightly, assembly is a fucking joke
>Onshape, user interface, sketching, and modeling are easily my favorite so far. The design exploration branching feature is a godsend. Assembly process could be better, but is acceptable. This is what I'm using now for personal projects. Licensing and cloud storage doesn't make me think this is a long-term solution though.

I want FreeCAD to succeed, but it needs backing by a major company to introduce software updates. Compare this to KiCad, which had CERN money to pay for active development and has become great

>>1991458
I often see my whole body disappear when I try to make some construction operations like a pocket or a fillet. Why am I doing wrong?

>>1991436
Oi FCadfags, gimme a tutorial series. Google keeps bringing me back to the same jew

>>1991566
A law firm.

>>1991654
h-how do you export to .step?

>>1991828
Most of the time when that happens you're making multiple solids in a body in an operation, look at the tree and if anything is red or has an exclamation point it's breaking the model, check the error and fix.

>>1991530
That's what people said WHEN I was learning blender too.

>>1991436
pirated unigraphics in a VM respects my freedom plenty

>>1991885
I started by going to the part workspace and composing models out of primitives.

Learn the sketcher and constraint system. it's stupid and painful but whatever, this opens part design and technical drawing for you.

Move to the part design workbench and learn how to compose models out of pads and pockets.

Once you can build parts (and surpass the limitations of the body system) install one of the assembly workbenches and use that to build multipart designs. Which one you pick is going to be based on whether you're using a release version or git.

This thread has the rundown on the state of assembly.
https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=34583

I agree that it's weird that finite element analysis was written before assembly, but physics is a way simpler problem than data-structures and it was contributed complete buy a random Australian that was building a Lotus Clubman chassis.

>>1991600
Don't be a wanker, the project was an academic exercise until 2012, and was more or less unusable until version 0.15, but after it got over that bump, and became more common in hobby and 3d printing groups it's gone from strength to strength. The fusion 360 debacle has increased the pace of development to a fever pitch (losing all your shit and having your business threatened overnight is a big motivator and openhw projects have mostly migrated away). It's slowly been gaining attractive features like interoperability with blender and KiCAD, that just don't happen in commercial projects with patented file formats and bullshit red tape.

It's going to be on par with commercial offerings in the next few years mark my words.

>>1992069
>he doesn't know about the Four Freedoms!

>>1992211
>It's going to be on par with commercial offerings in the next few years mark my words.
Autodesk underestimates the amount of latent hatred there is out there for them, most other cad companies are no better with regards to how they treat their customer base. They will be stuck turning the screws on legacy shops that refuse to move on from their corporate standards. I saw the same shit with blender.

>>1991581

Depends on the county. Here they wont bother unless it is on company computer. ADESK and Solid works are also way more relaxed whey buying volume licenses. You can always get some freebies with them especially with solid works.
I heard Creo/ PTC are way more strict PITA to deal with when it comes to licences.

All I want is a NASTRAN.

What did Fusion 360 do?

>>1992470
>using cloud based programming

>>1992493
Say no more, I am guessing they cancelled existing free licenses, locked out everybody's cloud saves, and forced people to pay for a full account to get them back?

>>1992121
Thanks Anon, see you in a month or two!

I just started using Fusion360 today
All the youtubes on tutorials are worthless because I guess they radically change it every update
I'm finding it extremely unintuitive
is this true or am I just a retard?
I've never used any CAD program before

I watch a 8 minute tutorial of a guy modeling a simple thing in it and it takes me like 30 minutes to monkey it
it feels like my mouse button is constantly clicked on and its difficult to tell if I am in a process or not and it seems like everything is stuck on and I can't just stop what I'm doing, IE i want to make a line, after I've made the line instead of stopping, the program wants me to make more lines and I can't click out of it, or press delete to stop the procedure, I have to go to the menu and select a different process or switch between sketch and the default or whatever the fuck is going on. At this rate it will take me 3 months to model the super simple things I need to model, and I haven't even looked at the CAM shit

>>1992614
>Never used CAD before

Bad news, man. You gotta learn like the best of us. That shit takes TIME. You have to learn the muscle memory to use these things and actually know how they work.

>>1992211
And it keeps gaining attractive features and not fixing bugs thats the problem, interoperability with KiCAD is pretty much industry standard since KiCAD uses the industry standards. At best FreeCad will be a decently solid application for 3d printing, if they were smart they would just cull the rest until that is sorted.

>>1992238
They do not underestimate it at all, Autodesk's customer base is not threatened in the slightest, industry is not going to switch to FreeCAD anytime in the near future, if ever. The amateur and small business market is not of great concern to them and that hunk of their business is likely subsidized by those few which develop into larger companies and utilize AutoDesks extensive resources and knowledge in this area, something which FreeCAD has zero.

>>1992741
"The Rebar market is of not of great concern to them." thought the steel industry.

Then Nucor happened.

Don't underestimate market disruption. (FreeCAD would probably need a miracle to be the Best Free Alternative™ over some other projects, though)

>>1992741
>cull the rest
Literally why? Just because commercial projects lock off beta features? Lopping off klunky parts to form a cohesive product is antithetical to the goal of the project which is to create an open and extensible CAD kernel with open modules. Even if something doesn't work or is incomplete it is documented and open source to provide a reference for other developers.

If the goal was to just make a parametric modeller for 3d printing they'd be done already.

>>1992762
The amateur market is a tiny portion of their business and no one is going to use FreeCAD to design that skyscraper they are going to build, this is simple fact. Even if FreeCAD had all the features of AutoCAD and was rock solid, industry would not use it because FreeCAD does not have the money to back it up. If your multi-billion dollar project has to be redesigned half way through because of what turns out to be a software glitch, what would FreeCAD do? Nothing beyond fixing the bug and saying sorry, that is all they can do. AutoDesk is just as dependent upon its customer base as its customers are dependent upon them and they have the money to send a team of specialists anywhere in the world to help keep the project as on time and budget as is possible, this is something FreeCAD will likely always lack, they could not even afford the insurance premiums required.

>>1992789
Because it turns off more people than it attracts? It also is not a cohesive project, their half assed hull design makes little sense within the project.

>If the goal was to just make a parametric modeller for 3d printing they'd be done already.
That is the point, they would have a rock solid application which people would love and use. as well as a stable base to build upon for new features, something they still lack.

>>1992633
i made some progress last night
i need to make dies for pressing a guitar pickup cover
is this good progress for using CAD for one day?

>>1991436
Rhino + Grasshopper master race desu

>>1991436
I want to like FreeCAD but unfortunately it simply cannot do complex geometry without bugging out/crashing. The geometry engine needs upgrading.

Download a pirated copy of CorelCAD 20xx. Full native DWG support for AutoCAD files. It's basically a reskinned version of Graebert's ARES Commander with a few extra features and is totally crossplatform (Win/Mac/Linux).

>>1993354
Not bad man, looks like you've got some natural skill.

>>1991436 (OP) #

Download a pirated copy of CorelCAD 20xx. Full toolset with native DWG support for AutoCAD files. It's basically a reskinned version of Graebert's ARES Commander with a few extra features and is totally crossplatform (Win/Mac/Linux). They're also not very active in chasing pirates.

>>1992796
But the point isn't to limit scope it's to build a solid core. Sure, not everything in the default package is perfect and maybe they need to rejig what's in there and what's in the addon library but honestly get fucked. Aiming high is how free software works.

>>1993971
Most successful free software is smart enough to keep the poorly working aspects out of the release where it just pisses of users and causes them to give up on the software. Keep the poorly functioning shit in the dev branch.

>>1993987
it's at version 0.18, they literally tell you you're downloading beta software under heavy development.

>>1993997
And yet most successful software manages to keep poorly working features in the dev branch. This is the purpose of a dev branch, those who want to bug hunt and play with new features can install it, those who do not can install a release that is stable and works as expected. Even bleeding edge obsessed arch understands this and puts such software in the aur.

>>1994001
I'm sure they'll change their development model when they are feature complete and leave beta.

You're also overstating how unstable freecad is, I've had 3 crashes on 0.18 and managed to recover my files from all of them.

>>1994004
I never said anything about crashes, features that barely function and certainly not reliably, as I said, POORLY WORKING FEATURES. You brought in crashes to make yourself sound more reasonable and not like the standard obsessed open source fan.

As this thread shows, half the posters are people that have more or less given up on FreeCAD because their development model is idiotic. There is good reason for development and release branches and most open source software realizes this despite having not hit version 1 yet and being in either the alpha or beta stage, they still have both branches and keep things out of the release branch until it is functioning reasonably well.

>>1994013
When your user base is willing to use all these features why hide them away? I think you don't understand THEIR devlopment model.

>>1994013
>>1994013
>to make yourself sound more reasonable and not like the standard obsessed open source fan

To be honest people shouldn't be reasonable with you, you're lying through your teeth about nearly everything. there's a development branch and development and stable releases are clearly marked: 0.18 is stable and 0.19 is currently unstable but undergoing stabilization for release.

What a stupid thing to lie about. That takes all of 20s to google and debunk.

>>1994016
They have alienated a huge number of people because of this, people that may never return to it. I understand their development model perfectly, many opensource programs have followed the exact same one over they years, most of those are forgotten. Everything about their path says they just lack a project leader with a clue.

Also, I have been active in open source development since the 90s and have exclusively used opensource since 2000, I am not just talking out of my ass here.

>>1994024
I did not say they did not have different branches, I said they should keep poorly working features in the dev branch, implying that they do have different branches. Learn to read.

NUUUU U CAN'T JUST USE AND ENJOY LIBRE SOFTWARE THAT DOESN'T MEET MY ARBITRARY AND MOVING STANDARDS OF PROFESSIONALISM.

IT NEEDS TO BE COMPLETE AND HAVE INSTITUTIONAL BUY-IN LIKE 40 YEAR OLD PROPRIETARY.

>>1994063
Cope. FreeCAD is shit. Most free software is shit, I don't care about the four freedoms, I only care that my program works.

>>1994067
LMAO when freecad deletes my files and IP it doesn't send me an invoice to buy them back.

>>1994074
I'm not dumb enough to use F360.

>>1994074
I love that you respond to the obvious trolls but ignore those which make valid points.

>>1991436
yep.
freecad is great.
there are some features that i wish it had (pushing and pulling faces, midpoint snapping, etc...) but i love that it exists and works.
i use freecad pretty much exclusively to do my design work these days.

>>1991511
Yes, Blender is better but how do you import .step and other cad files to Blender?

>>1994085
whats wrong with fusion360?

>>1994932
Always online, cloud base service. Used to be "free" but they gimped it basically forcing you to pay for a subscription for most features and unlimited saves.

>>1991568
VMs are great for testing cracked soft as you can revert to a clean snapshot from when you first install Windows, then snapshot after every successful install, and if something barfs revert to last successful state. No need for an internet connection since you can used shared folders for transferring files and you can copy the whole virtual machine for backup or to run on other computers too.

>>1993501
What’s the deal with the $99 licenses sold on the bay, aside from paying fir them?

>>1991693
I’ve been using onshape and really like it, cloud based so concerned they’ll pull access at some point.

>>1994961
$99 solid works that is

>>1994961
Probs reselling high volume commercial licences the same way those steam key sites work.

You don't know the terms of the licence or the guy selling it so if he goes down in a civil suit it's pot luck whether or not your licence is revoked in the middle of a job.

>>1994986
So, fine for casual use, not production...

>>1994964
>$99 solid works that is
Could be a student license, they're ~$100 direct from dassault systems.
>>1994999
I wouldn't mess with ebay license since solidworks guys are cunts when it comes to licensing and pirated software as mentioned in the thread, you could get an angry letter in the mail.

Freecad good enough for making things for 3d printing? don't believe i'll ever do anything extremely intricate cad.

>>1995009
To add to this, I've read on reddit that solidworks goes after people who buy used licenses of older version of solidworks. Licenses are registered to a person/company and they monitor that shit. Also, its legal to sell used software licenses in Europe however i don't know how that would apply here in North America if you buy used from Europe.

>>1995013
absolutely. the pain points are all in higher level functions than simple geometry, like object model used by scripters or idiots that mix workbenches or the simulation modules.

But even those are getting better.

>>1995018
Solidworks goes on LinkedIn and other job hunting sites, looks for people who say they have experience in Solidworks, yet have never registered their name for a license, then audits them.

I can't understand why they needed to add the body system, I was able to make parts just fine before it, and now it just complicates things
What benefits am I not understanding

>>1994727
Blender isn't a CAD program, so without plugins you probably can't. There used to be a blender fork that attempted to add parametric CAD functionality, but it went nowhere unfortunately.

>>1995173
If you advertise you do CAD work professionally, often CAD suppliers will act like a potential customer and check the license info on the returned file/ when you open a given file.

Newer variants of solidworks and AutoDesk stuff have provisions for reporting when certain files are opened, and store a lot of individualized info on every file you save.

moral? If you can, only work with non-proprietary file types like DXF and STEP.

what is so great about AutoCAD that the subscription is about 1700 bucks a year vs Fusion's 360?

>>1995238
Object system is the precursor to assembly modeling, it lets you do fancy things like model complete applications with cool stuff like an asset library for things like fasteners, mcu devkits, and motors, it also provides a system for passing parametric values into systems and affect the placement of multiple parts.

consider like a cnc laser where you set the bed dimensions and all the extrusions and brackets get calculated for you.

>>1995249
Depends on what CAD, it's got a really nice architectural system because they want fancy renders. It does take a lot of fiddling because it's a creative program first. It's cool that you can stream geometry into it from freecad: it means they can completely 86 the shitty renderer in freecad.

>>1995173
>>1995306
the absolute judaism of this behaviour.

>>1991436
I use solvespace

>>1995350
AutoCAD is a design and engineering suite and can do things like modeling to show how your designs react to changes, design a house in it and then delete a major structural element and you can watch it collapse, you can step through it's collapse and see exactly how the structure would fail if that wall just ceased to exist. It is overkill for just 3d printing, if you are designing a larger and highly engineered product which will use some 3d printed parts it is pretty handy.

Fusion360 is a manufacturing suite aimed towards integrating with things like CNCs and 3d printers.

>>1991686
>The worst part is that it is just a front end to OpenSCAD

Wtf? FreeCAD can kind of wrap OpenSCAD but OpenSCAD is based on CGAL while FreeCAD is based on Open CASCADE which are completely different things.

You do understand that all these features are coming from people that have absolutely no connection to the development of the CAD parts? If you don't like them, don't use them.

OpenSCAD is fun to play around with for a few minutes but i can do much more complicated things and all things much faster in FreeCAD. Also if you like the way OpenSCAD works you can do the same thing in FreeCAD which is a giant plus for me. I use it very often.

I understand why people kind of get confused between the different methods/workflows but i love the freedom it gives me. You can even simply choose whatever navigation style you like. Since i saw that feature every software which doesn't allow me to do such a simple thing but with such a huge impact on usability is garbage to me.

It is definitely not a refined CAD system but i see it kind of like Word vs Open/Libre-Office. I use it everyday from idea to cad to cam and drawings. And for the most parts (in my case all parts!) it just works. I don't understand how people trying to print simple 3D parts have such a lot of problems with it.

It's worth it to always update to the newest version though as there is a lot of change going on.

I dislike a lot of stuff like how assembly and dimensions works, how difficult it is to model real threads, a lot of stuff is really inconvenient to use etc. but it gets the work done. I rarely experience crashes. At least way less than my windows PC. And 99% it's because i did stupid shit where the Kernel can't cope and not FreeCAD is at fault. Which is unfortunate because there is no alternative.

PS: Plz gib example

>>1996731
It kind of drains me to see this thread pop back up. OpenSCAD instead of OpenCASCAD is an obvious typo, I was already thinking of OpenSCAD since it had been mentioned and I was going to also respond to that post. My point still stands and is unchanged by the brain fart.

You do understand that the bugs in those features are not the fault of the underlying CAD system and FreeCAD does not need to stuff unworking code by people who do not know what they are doing into the release branch? But I have already stated this.

OpenSCAD can do very complex things and very quickly once you learn it, a few minutes is not enough. I am sure they have a gallery on their website with some complex models of all sorts.

Either way, I am done with this unless people give up the ad hominem and sophistry and address my points. This thread is a good example of why I have given up most of my activity in contributing to open source software, it is just not worth the headaches.

PS: I don't even know what you want examples of, all you did was preach

>>1996745
>OpenSCAD can do very complex things and very quickly once you learn it, a few minutes is not enough.

I know what OpenSCAD can do and how to use it. And i know there's no way i would choose OpenSCAD over FreeCAD. If i design stuff i really need to script, which happens from time to time, i'd much rather script in versatile python (and have access to way more possibilities to design stuff) than in some one trick pony language. CAD is supposed to take the math of my shoulders and make stuff easier, not more complicated.

I understand your critique about the questionable compilation of addons in the standard releases but if that is your main point that's a very weak reason not to use FreeCAD. All you have to do is not look at some weird workbench maybe 5 people on earth are using. Yes some barely functioning specialized boat hull design tools make very little sense in a general purpose cad system. There are a lot more relevant problems (i mentioned a few) but still none which would keep me from drawing up any of the projects in the OpenSCAD gallery and in probably most cases a lot faster too.

I'm not sure where i am preaching. I'm not trying to hide that FreeCAD has a lot of issues. I'm just tired of reading that FreeCAD is unusable and not worth a try when that is very clearly not the case. Most arguments seem to be the same as from the people who get super angry when they have to deal with libre office at work because MS Office is obviously much more reliable, much prettier, easier to use, has a lot more functions but all they do is write a letter a day and keep track of shared lunch costs.

I wanted to get some examples where FreeCAD is not suitable or impossible to use especially in a hobby/3d printing setting. Sentence got somehow lost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj4wPcLNQmk

>>1991658
God damn I tried to learn BRL-cad once as a teenager.
Fucking rocket science compared to POVray that I was using.

>>1991559
imagine not blocking every pirated software networking via your firewall

>>1991600
Autocad is the Emacs of drawing programs: layers upon alternating layers of autism and cope.

>>1996805
BRL-CAD is not much more difficult than POVRAY to learn, in many ways it is easier since it is interactive, just type 'make mysphere sph' and a sphere pops up in the graphics window. Once you learn the basic command structures, the mged command reference gives you the bulk of everything else. It does have a standard menu driven sort of interface as well, but it is not much more intuitive than FreeCADs and mainly comes in handy for those commands you never remember because you rarely use them. BRL-CAD really shines when it comes to scripting, it integrates fully with most any interpreted language so you can use what you know and use the language best suited for the object you wish to create be it Bash, Perl, Python, lisp, or some of each.

Main thing to remember is that the online documentation is just a crash course, the full docs come with the program. An you can always type help/help command name, or right click on something to pull up its help file.

I made a triangle and added those 2 points on the right, how do I remove the line segment between those to points? The trim thing didn't do anything.

>>1999057
Trimming is used for overlapping lines.

If you cut a line like that there is no constraint holding both remaining pieces on the original triangle side so you can just draw two new lines coming from the triangle points instead of points.

If you want them to be aligned to that original line you use it as a construction line and constrain the new lines on it.

>>1991445
This. Once you get used to a modern workflow, there's no going back. Life's too fucking short for wasting time on clunky tools.

>>1991581
I use my pirated copy of SW2017 for several years now on my home computer and didn't get any attention via mail.

>>1999509
https://www.vondranlegal.com/does-solidworks-file-lawsuits-for-copyright-infringement

>>1991436
I use Designspark mecha, looks like it works nice, but there is lack of simpleness of 123D.
Yet for some reason there is lack of scaling part in specific direction. Which is retarded.

>>1999520
They can not file a lawsuit unless they have some proof that you have financially harmed them or you have financially gained by the theft. Pirating the software on its own is not enough to show financial loss since you just say, I would never have bought even if I did not pirate it, so you suffered no loss. For personal use it is safe as long as you are not distributing pirated copies since you most likely can not prove that those people who got it from you would not have bought it if you did not provide them with an illegal copy.

If you make money with the software things can turn ugly quickly, they can find all kinds of ways to inflate the amount you made because of it, like saying that since you have used it from the start you built your company/brand with it, it's entire value is due your theft and ill gotten at our expense and we are going to add that value on to the lawsuit. They won't get all that even if you are stupid enough defend yourself in court, scare tactics to try and just get you to settle out of court, but it will make things very difficult in court for you if you do not settle and unless you have a good lawyer they will probably get a decent bit of cash out of you.

>>2000230
That's cute but not how this stuff works.
In the US they get to pick the judge and the laws are written specifically to fuck you.

>>2000271
No, that is how it works in the US. You can not even get into court for copyright violation unless you can make a viable claim that you have been damaged by it. Courts would be flooded otherwise. Also, you won't get fucked by the laws if you don't break them.

>>2000317
>nah, I was never gonna buy it, so it doesn't matter.
>oh, ok, case dismissed

have fun when the french stick the feds up your ass kid. You have no fucking clue.

>>2000324
Seeing as I have the legal right to use solidworks I do not see why they would bother with me.

Rhino is fucking good. It's a bit of a pain in the ass to learn but you can model in it really fast

>>2000417
Not free for commercial use

I use OpenSCAD.

I am a slave to Tekla.

Any SolveSpace chads in here?