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I understand your sentiment and feel it every time I choose to start Fusion, the lock-in is just plastered all over the place. I have used OpenSCAD for a while and coming from a DevOps world I greatly value the Everything-as-code mantra that OpenSCAD enables. But as a hobbyist 3D printer looking for the tool to just get my idea out in an evenings work Fusion is just the best/cheapest out there for me at the moment.

I have now adapted a mentality to not create anything I'm not willing to loose. And if Autodesk ever decides to change their license, which they inevitably will, I'm willing to just take that loss and find something else at that time. Maybe by that time some open source developer has implemented Fusions idea's in sketching/modelling (and hopefully improved on some parts).

For me the choice is just accepting Fusion for what it is now or get sidetracked in all kinds of stuff and never finishing a hobby 3D model anymore. OpenSCAD is nice, but for me it is to easy to lost in perfecting the coding when trying to get the model the way I want. And other 3D modeling tools (eg: Blender) are just not fit for engineering work like Fusion is.

I could almost have written that myself.

What have stopped me from trying Fusion 360 for stuff I'm willing to lose is that, while the vast majority I do for fun I could stand to loose, the idea is that some things that I create I would rather not lose.

And then what? I go learn something entirely different just for that? If so I've invested tons of time in CAD software and own a 3d-printer but I'm unable to create something "real"? That's why I try to learn the alternative now, and get the time I would otherwise have invested in fusion 360 for free.

I'm betting on a sibling to this comment - that after the initial hurdle, when you get proficient enough the clunkyness of the alternatives are easily overcome. I'm convinced that is the case, but the real question is whether it is worth the time to get to that level. And that is a very hard question, especially for something as a hobby that is dependent on it being fun and/or rewarding.

I truly understand the fear of getting sidetracked. I battle with that every time I open FreeCAD or attempt something in OpenSCAD.

I get why any individual would chose Fusion 360. But I'm completely heartbroken that the community as a whole gives up so much without apparent thought, and see people advertise it "because it is free" on a thread about an open source alternative is sad.

And I'm not talking about freedom as in open source (but I really do value that too). If I could buy fusion 360 for $1000 (only the modelling part of it - without the cloud). I would have much fewer issues with it (even though I qualify for the free version now) - that cost is easy to reason about. And there would have been a recourse for when autodesk decide utilize its monopoly. But that's of course also the reason that they won't offer that.

> I get why any individual would chose Fusion 360. But I'm completely heartbroken that the community as a whole gives up so much without apparent thought, and see people advertise it "because it is free" on a thread about an open source alternative is sad.

I'm just hoping that Fusion will such a great example that the day Autodesk decides to change it enough people will know what it is and whenever you say: we're building Fusion but then opensource without the cloud stuff, it will be an easy pitch and everyone will get on board with an aligned mindset.

>If I could buy fusion 360 for $1000

Why would it be that cheap? Fusion 360 is competing with SolidWorks. A standalone license for SolidWorks probably starts at $4000.

For any comparable commercial 3D parametric mechanical CAD system just the B-rep modeling kernel alone represents several hundred person years of commercial development going back 30 to 40 years, and academic research going back 50 years.

The Fusion 360 kernel is ShapeManager [0], forked from ACIS 7.0 in November 2001.

Work on ACIS [1] started in 1985 after the 3 founders (Ian Braid, Charles Lang, Alan Grayer) left ShapeData having worked on Romulus.

Romulus [2] was released in 1978 and was based on BUILD 2.

BUILD 2 and before that BUILD were created by Ian Braid during his PhD thesis started in 1969 and supervised by Charles Lang. [3]

Now, what about SolidWorks?

The SolidWorks kernel is Parasolid [4], dating from 1987, which was a C dialect rewrite of Romulus, which was written in Fortran. ACIS, by the way, was written in C++, so was one of the first commercial systems written in C++.

How do I know the above? I worked on Parasolid 1989 to 1995. We had 20+ devs then - department head count was 40+. The still have lots of devs working 30 years later.

There's only one comparable open-source B-rep modeling kernel - Open CASCADE, that powers FreeCAD. But quality wise, IMO comparing it with Parasolid, ACIS or ShapeManager is a bit like comparing Lucene with Google or Bing.

CGAL that powers OpenSCAD is high quality - but it's a very different beast, and not something you could use to power Fusion etc.

Why is B-rep modeling so much work? Here are some reasons:

* B-rep models are inherently complicated graph based data-structures with many different node types (geometry and topology). Just keeping the model consistent is a lot of work.

* Lots of surface and curve types means lots of combinations for surface X surface, surface X curve, curve X curve intersection/distance/... algorithms.

* Tolerant modeling.

* Topology case analysis from hell for blending.

* Hybrid b-rep modeling with other approaches, meshes, volumetric etc. and make it work properly.

* Feature-based history modeling layered on top of b-rep modeling means that your b-rep operations must replay EXACTLY the same, even when you upgrade the kernel.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShapeManager

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACIS

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romulus_(b-rep_solid_modeler)

[3] http://solidmodeling.org/awards/bezier-award/i-braid-a-graye...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasolid

> Why would it be that cheap?

* It is still quite expensive for a hobby software. And that's a market that autodesk targets with fusion 360.

* It is free now for low volume + hobbyists.

I get what you are saying. But with fusion 360 autodesk made a different call. CAD products are usually niche but fusion 360 is one of the few that hopes to sell in large quantities. That is why it can be cheaper.

Currently for me fusion 360 would be free but for $1000 I would get two years of subscription. And fusion 360 is massive, I'm asking for a subset of it.

But yes, maybe even that is not enough, even if autodesk targets a broad audience. Great, then don't pretend that it is and start charging for it.

>Why would it be that cheap? Fusion 360 is competing with SolidWorks.

I wouldn't really say that's true. Inventor is really Autodesk's competitor to Solidworks. Fusion seems like it's competing more with hobbyist tools like Sketch-Up, and maybe open source tools like FreeCAD & OpenSCAD.

FreeCAD is nowhere close to the quality level of Fusion.

Sketch-Up and OpenSCAD are just very different from Fusion.

The closest cloud competitor is OnShape: starts at $1500 per year - only free option is public storage.

https://www.onshape.com/cad-pricing

For $1000 you can get a perpetual Rhino license.

I can also highly recommend Rhino, especially if you want to try parametric modelling. The Grasshopper plugin (which comes bundled with Rhino) is pretty much the industry gold standard when it comes to parametric modelling and has a massive eco system of third party tools. Both Rhino and Grasshopper are also easy to script in Python or C#

After using OpenSCAD for several years, the more you use it the faster you get with it. I can easily whip out quite complex designs in a few hours. Visual CAD tools eventually start to feel very limiting.

I've hit some real walls with OpenSCAD though. Trying to create a 1000x1000 point mesh for example will blow up pretty much any machine. That's not an outrageous size for a large textured surface.

What sorts of things do you model with OpenSCAD?

I love the "WYSIWYM" paradigm for the lack of surprises. You know what you can and can't change without having to mess things up, and you know what you need to come back to and adjust manually if you break things. And since there's no hidden state, you never find yourself wanting to just CTRL+Z back to the last "good" state, without knowing why.

But all that said, I really wouldn't know where to start modeling something like this in OpenSCAD.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/BTXktw5yJfw/maxresdefault.jpg

Out of curiosity why is something like Blender not a valid choice ? It can be used by the film industry to create photoreal 3d assets, what are the limitations for real world that you speak of ?

Blender is (primarily) a direct mesh modelling software. A mesh is made up only of triangles of points. Circles or arcs do not exist, only approximations. This makes it unsuitable for making precise parts.

With direct modelling the history of an object is not modifiable. So if you need to change something you did (because of change in requirements etc), you will need to undo and then manually redo all the following steps. Or to try to wing it by tweaking the end model directly. And then pray that everything was correct... In a parametric model (FreeCAD,Fusion360) you select the operation that is responsible for that feature, make the change, and the rest of the model updates to match automatically.

In manufacturing 0.1 mm error for a single feature can be the difference between perfect fit and unusable part. How good the model looks is mostly irrelevant. Very different requirements from producing an animation or render, so the tools are quite different.

s/loose/lose/

I've tried to like Fusion 360, but the login screen the first time you boot it up turns me off. It's also slow as hell on a top of the line iMac, and that's with very small projects.

I like OpenSCAD a lot, but being productive there outside of very simple (squarish) designs is hard.

We accept it because it's pretty much the only choice for a hobbyist. Even OnShape (which is even more proprietary) has closed its free tier, as far as I can see, and any FOSS alternative is just light years away from Fusion.

Yes, OnShape did exactly the crazy thing that no one wants to think of. And in response people flock to fusion 360? OnShape should have been a deterrent.

You keep decrying how proprietary and horrible Fusion360 is, but you propose no viable alternative. OpenSCAD is much, much harder to use, SolveSpace is very good but nowhere close to Fusion (or even OnShape), last I used FreeCAD I couldn't make heads or tails of it and it liked to crash a lot, and those are the best options.

What would you suggest? Complaining is easy.

> OpenSCAD is much, much harder to use,

> What would you suggest? Complaining is easy.

What are the complaints about OpenSCAD? If it's the language itself, then there's some similar projects using Racket[0] and JavaScript[1] respectively.

[0]: https://docs.racket-lang.org/ruckus/Ruckus_Language_Referenc...

[1]: https://openjscad.org/

Mainly the language and the lack of immediate feedback, along with the fact that it's more verbose than the point-and-click interface of Fusion. I will try out the Python version, though, it sounds interesting.

> I will try out the Python version,

I don't think there's a Python version, unless you count using Ruckus via Python on Racket[0].

> lack of immediate feedback

When "Automatic Reload and Preview" is enabled, OpenSCAD re-renders the shape whenever the text file is saved, so there's hardly any time delay, although there is arguably a spacial remoteness due to the text being separate from the shape.

> along with the fact that it's more verbose than the point-and-click interface of Fusion.

I personally find it difficult manipulating 3D objects by with a 2D cursor. I've spent a fair amount of time on the point-and-click editor in Blender, and I find it less confusing to have a textual expression of the shapes at hand.

Perhaps the one (possibly accidental) killer-feature about OpenSCAD is that it works well with external editors, such as vim.

[0]: https://github.com/pedropramos/PyonR

Have you tried SketchUp[1]? I moved off of it to OpenSCAD awhile back, but it seemed to work ok for what I needed.

[1] https://www.sketchup.com/

Yes, unfortunately SketchUp isn't parametric, which I definitely need, and it tends not to produced closed solids, which creates problems for 3D printing.

Check out BricsCAD. Bricsys recently released shape for free, to compete with Sketchup I guess. It's a reskinned and (greatly) simplified version of their CAD product. https://www.bricsys.com/en-intl/shape/

The higher tier packages have a 3d constraint system. Imagine Sketchup and AutoCAD had a baby with some parametrics thrown in.

I personally own Sketchup, TurboCAD and BricsCAD. BricsCAD is the one I use the most, it obsoletes Sketchup for me totally. I much prefer it to the AutoCAD OEM I use at work and I possibly would pick it over SolidWorks. Although my SolidWorks experience is much more limited.

It's still proprietary but one of the few CAD packages I found that runs on linux and you can own without paying a monthly fee.

Fusion 360 is excellent, but I feel people don't recognize the true cost of it. I have a long post (not more than 3 cm under yours currently) in this very thread about alternatives.

But yes, one will have to make compromises.

> I feel people don't recognize the true cost of it

That's a bit patronizing.

> I have a long post in this very thread about alternatives.

I did read that post, and it comes to much the same conclusions as mine. For the two-hour hobbyist projects I dabble with, the cost is acceptable.

I just signed up for a free OnShape account a month ago. Has something changed since then?

I think so, I couldn't find the "sign up" link anywhere, there was only a "request a demo" one.

https://www.onshape.com/products/free

Thank you, how did you find that link? I can't find it from either the pricing page or the plan types... Even the call-to-action is misleadingly titled "get started" while the button next to the login says "request a trial".

I found it via a web search. Although the "Get Started" link takes you to the same signup form as "Request Trial". I think if you list yourself as a hobbyist you automatically get the free license.

Ah, I'm not sure, IIRC when I tried it I got a "don't call us, we'll call you" page. I'll have to try again.

Lock in AND provide a low friction way to generate models.

As a developer the learning curve and life cycle of OpenSCAD sang to me and I picked it up very quickly. I have still modeled more things with OpenSCAD than I have with Fusion.

But...

Fusion is the better tool in a lot of places. Meshes being the most obvious, then CAM.

I still find Fusion weird to work with. Not only did I have to spend hours learning the basics (as opposed to minutes with OpenSCAD and Sketch-up) it falls out of my head faster than Ruby AND I found the only way to be really productive with it was to invest in a 3D mouse (which is a lot of fun).

Because the workflow CAD -> CAM is very very good in Fusion 360, people just take it for granted.

Sometimes locked(in) software is just better than open alternatives.

It's like Photoshop vs Gimp. Yes, Gimp can do most of what Photoshop does but it will take you more than double the time to do it.

I don't mind paying for software. And though I prefer open source software I don't mind closed source.

What I do mind is lock-in.

My comment was a little unclear. But I think sometimes people just take lock-in for granted.

As for Fusion 360: once your producted is manufactured you can just export the 3D data. This will loose all steps to create the model but I think people think this is a nice trade-off for the lock-in.

That's like keeping the binary but removing the source code. I don't find that acceptable.

Because for a hobbyist, that just wants to get things done, there sadly aren't really any alternatives. Otherwise could you reccommend any?

It is similar to the old days of piracy and photoshop. Every kid had photoshop. Which killed the market for the software that was actually aimed at regular people. Autodesk had excellent timing in capturing the market before it had time to mature.

OpenSCAD is great, but a bit limited. Also latest release is almost 4 years old, could do with some further development.

FreeCAD is very capable, but it is a bit buggy and not very user friendly.

Solvespace looks really neat, but also a bit limited and from the looks of it isn't actively being developed. Those two points make me hesitate to invest too much time in it but someday I think I will play around with it some more.

Blender isn't CAD software, but it is the gold standard in my opinion. Sacrificing nothing and a really good UI. But it is more free-form than architecture and technical modelling. So wouldn't recommend it if that doesn't align with your purpose (look up blenderguru donut tutorial for an excellent start).

All the mentioned applications are pretty odd in how they behave though. It requires that you commit to learning it.

Personally I've used OpenSCAD quite a bit and I've now committed to learn FreeCAD. I had trouble creating maintainable code for OpenSCAD for anything but small projects, and also it takes some effort to create visually pleasing parts with it.

It is hard to find good material on all the software above (except for blender), I really liked this (hard to find) 3-part tutorial for FreeCAD. I have had huge help from it and it is what helped me to grok enough of FreeCAD to start actually attempting to do anything on my own. If you are curious about FreeCAD maybe it will give you a better idea of it than only playing around with it yourself.

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dJEPg06G-o

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PESZxM_eSqY

Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkNkpPxb8W0

> Also latest release is almost 4 years old, could do with some further development.

There's a "2019.01-RC1" tag on github, so we can probably expect a new release soon.

FreeCAD is quite workable, I've constructed some 100 parts for 3d-printing, lasercutting and CNC in it. There are some warts in the UI for sure, but once you get to know them not that hard to deal with. Quite a bit fewer learning resources online compared to Fusion360, but enough videos on Youtube to get started, and the FreeCAD Forum is pretty helpful.

For programmers, one can also use Python to define more complex parts or workflows.

Rhino 3D looks to be similarly priced.

If there's an option which is as good and user-friendly I wouldn't have any problem using it.

Fusion 360 has the better pricing model, it's that simple. 500$ is not too expensive even for a hobbist: you'll likely spend more on consumables in a single year. And there's simply nothing else of that value for that price point. There are no OSS solutions that can offer reasonable CAD design yet.

I'm not a fan of Fusion: it's UI is not really well designed. It's slow and clunky. It forces "cloud" on your throat for ABSOLUTELY NO GOOD REASON. Seriously: wtf? I frequently need to work offline, and Fusion doesn't really seem to get out of my way.

Onshape, which is 100% web based, is better is several ways: it's actually faster to booth, which is scary! (not in everything, but for most things it is!). Starts in a 1/10 of the time. The interface is much more streamlined and efficient to work with. For my purposes, Onshape is only lacking in "variable" management (there's no substitute for a simple spreadsheet here -- even FreeCAD is superior in this regard).

Am I recommending Onshape? No. I hate cloud-based solutions. The lock-in is absolutely obvious here: if you're offline you're doomed. Import/export is read-only.

However, for ~500$ a year, with Fusion you get a complete CAD/CAM solution with decent CFD. Onshape starts at 1000$+ and only gets you a (good) CAD system, and you still need $$$ more for CAM.

If you're starting, Fusion is the better deal. It's that simple.

I'm not sure why Onshape is squandering the opportunity here to provide a slightly cheaper offering to promote their solution. Their CAD is good, but not good enough for the fusion offer. They could capture a nice maker segment if they provided a slightly cheaper solution.

Now, why not FreeCAD? The problem I see is that FreeCAD is quite a bit behind to be usable for day-to-day work. I use it for toy projects, and it's pretty limiting by itself. I wrote and recommended before that FreeCAD starts to really shine only when combined with Cadquery or OpenSCAD. With parametric sketching, "visual" interfaces only get you so far. Cadquery gives FreeCAD a considerable edge for complex designs.

The problem though still stands: even if you just start with 3D printing you realize consumables and electricity are not a zero cost anymore. 3D printing and hardware design in general is expensive. Investing some money into 3D design tools is logical, but you want something that works reasonably for your hardware. It's a chicken-and-egg problem. I'm a developer, there's no way I could work on a 3D CAD in the size of FreeCAD in my spare time and get anywhere useful.

All being said, FreeCAD 0.17 passed SolveSpace for all my purposes this year, which is a great achievement. At some point FreeCAD will become viable enough and will in turn start to attract enough money to staff full-time people.