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Comment by vincnetas | Hacker News Reader

tangential : I still can't get over the idea that shapr3d license is subscription only. You cannot buy the software. This means that your whole work/workflows ceases to exist if you not continuing to pay. No fallback option.

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Unfortunately, the printing industry rolled over for Adobe and set a precedent.

An alternative to Shapr3D might be: https://www.plasticity.xyz/ which has an interesting license and licensing model (I bought a Studio license at launch, but haven't used it since).

Fortunately, FreeCAD is markedly improved, and for folks who want something light-weight and intuitive, I would recommend trying: Dune 3D as discussed here previously:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37979758

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40228068

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40228257

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41975958

When I saw this thread I wanted to toss a comment in: If you used FreeCAD prior to 1.0 and abandoned it because editing past operations was an exercise in frustration-- give it a try. It now seems to be as robust in editing as solidworks or onshape is.. and is now quite usable.

I just started using CAD last week, but as I understand:

- Plasticity is so expensive because it uses one of the major kernels (SIEMENS Parasolid). Most of the licensing fee actually goes to them. You can find the Show HN post with a much cheaper price before he changed kernels.

- There was a firm called Ondsel that was trying to improve the UX of FreeCAD by selling a fork. It recently folded. One of their employees is trying the same as AstoCAD. The idea is that you fund the development of FreeCAD, and you get the improved binaries before the work lands upstream.

In the world of CAD, Plasticity is only expensive when compared with free tools. The “Indie” version is $149USD, and yes a lot of that cost apparently goes to paying Siemens for a Parasolid license. Shapr3D is also Parasolid based, along with NX, Solidworks, Onshape and a bunch of others.

That is my understanding as well.

Curious what CAD program (programs?) you are using and what sort of work you are doing and how you are approaching it.

I'm using Fusion 360. It seems to have the best community support.

I work at a big company that likes to claim ownership of anything I create while I'm on contract. Fusion is free until you earn more than $1k from your making, but I don't expect to earn anything from it while I'm employed.

This video is a little slow, but it does give you an overview of the UI:

https://youtu.be/8VFOVxdi4Qs

And this one teaches you enough to start making things:

https://youtu.be/xJihYVwkCqw

I used 3ds Max in high school and have been a lifelong user of the Adobe suite, so I just needed enough to know where the buttons are and what the core workflow looks like.

I've got a few projects going.

I just moved into a new apartment, and I'd like to sculpt some hangers - one to mount a speaker on the TV, and a pair to hang my old Rock Band guitars on the wall. I think I'm gonna do the engineering in Fusion and then sculpt the aesthetics in Tilt Brush.

Speaking of Rock Band, I've discovered a graveyard of neglected plastic instruments in the game room at work, as well as an open source Arduino/Raspberry Pi firmware that will allow them to work with any game, donglefree. I'm designing a new USB faceplate and brackets to make the new boards fit the existing standoffs, so I can refurbish them.

https://santroller.tangentmc.net

Finally, my new kitchen island has a frustratingly short drawer. I cut the back off it and bought longer rails. I'm designing spacers and jigs to help me keep it square and level as I reinstall the extended version.

Have you considered how Autodesk arrived at that level of community support and how the license for Fusion 360 has changed over the years? (and is subject to change in the future).

My comment from a Reddit discussion on Fusion 360 license changes:

>Translation:

>We have extracted all the beta-testing which we wanted for free out of naïve users

>and are now taking our game over to the other field where we can charge admission.

https://old.reddit.com/r/hobbycnc/comments/itw4d7/autodesk_i...

None of those events have had any impact on me as a hobby user of Fusion 360. Sure, it's subject to change. The software is a business for them. I know a lot of people got worked up over this. I do not see any alternative that is as cost-effective and functional.

Honestly, I'm more interested in getting these projects made than in "what if"ing the future. I have a hard time imagining my needs exceeding what I expect to remain in the hobbyist sphere, and I have the ability to transfer my skillset to another tool when the time comes.

I'd rather spend a month trying things out with the free thing with lots of reference material than go off on my own path spending hundreds on some indie software that I might only use a few times.

They have a neat program, but its really hard to defend their pricing model. I gave it a shot and its just way too expensive given the functionality. Yes, they are constantly improving, but the price for me is just too much considering alternatives.

Read through this discourse topic: https://discourse.shapr3d.com/t/why-there-is-no-plan-for-hob...

I don't understand why they do what they do when it comes to pricing.

There's an interesting cultural divide here. Probably a majority of mechanical and electrical designers still think it's risky and weird to use software that doesn't come from a vendor. Even though they experience occasional outages when something goes wrong with the license billing and payment. The electricals are a bit further along, I think because they're closer to the programming world.

I think it’s more that management in this space is very traditional and from a business perspective there’s not much downside to a subscription. The individual engineers don’t really have a choice in cad package anyway and frankly, the alternatives still suck in mechanical space.

Not to mention, file formats between packages are sort of interoperable, but often the design history cannot be transferred. It’s not like software land where if a vendor goes down (and the code is reasonably structured), an organization can mostly replace it with substitutes.

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