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realthunder
FreeCAD_assembly3
Python2018–2024
realthunder / FreeCAD_assembly3

FreeCAD_assembly3

Experimental attempt for the next generation assembly workbench for FreeCAD

CAD & Manufacturing
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
8Distinct people
13Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
906GitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Experimental attempt for the next generation assembly workbench for FreeCAD

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 5:04:57 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year13 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2018-04-09 11:01:50 UTC to 2024-05-21 19:29:18 UTC.

012342018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments20182019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments20212022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2024

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101

What Hacker News says

13 sources
slabity·May 21, 2024
FreeCAD has improved immensely over the past 2-3 years in terms of stability and features. A decade ago it was not uncommon for me to experience crashes from it randomly losing its GLX context or the constraint solver segfaulting for some reason. Now it's rare for it to crash at all for me, though I still run into a lot of constraint solver errors that are a pain to deal with. However, despite the recent improvements, I still cannot recommend it for new users compared to commercial solutions for the sole reason of the Topological Naming Issues: https://wiki.freecad.org/Topological_naming_problem This issue has been probably the #1 problem I've had with FreeCAD since I started using it. And though I've learned how to design parts to get around the problem in most situations, it's a huge hurdle for newcomers to understand and get around. Lu
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ckily there's a fork that fixes a significant number of the issues: https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3 and https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD I've also heard of Ondsel, which is supposedly a much more user friendly version of FreeCAD that also includes some fixes to the issue: https://ondsel.com/ EDIT: Here's actually a better read of the topological naming issue, what's being done about it, and why it's difficult to fix: https://ondsel.com/blog/freecad-topological-naming/
In Ask HN: How does modern FreeCAD compare with Solidworks?
mgdlbp·Mar 10, 2022
FreeCAD's stable release is somewhat painful to use, but I'd say that when using a development build (I've personally had no trouble) and having gone through the preferences, customization options, and list of addons (altogether not too much effort ⇒ would recommend), it becomes truly competitive with the other major alternative, the free-as-in-beer tier of less-than-industry-standard Fusion 360. AutoDesk made an effective move, though, and Fusion's capture of the hobbyist market has stifled FOSS development. FreeCAD's most serious drawback, the topological naming problem (TNP), is remedied in RealThunder's branch [0] (confusingly also called the RT branch, assembly3 branch, Link Branch, and LinkStage3). Many of the smaller features it includes will also be in the imminent upcoming release (0.20); sadly, the TNP fix has only been weakly p
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romised for 0.21. FreeCAD's other crucial issue is the lack of official assembly support. There are four competing addons; RealThunder's branch includes his, Assembly3. I often feel that 'bad' UI (especially in free software) is perfectly productive once the user is familiar, but I will admit that difference in aesthetics in FreeCAD from switching themes, tweaking settings, and rearranging toolbars/panels is not small. I'm not sure of the authorship of each, but UI improvements in RealThunder's branch include animated camera snapping and panel autohide/transparency. A FreeCAD idiosyncrasy is the drop-down list for workbench switching, which is not ideal. It is a good example of the flexibility often seen in FOSS software: replace the list with the tab bar addon, custom keyboard shortcuts, or one of two compatible pie menu implementations. The Pie Menu addon can contextually vary from the types of selected objects; the pie menu in RealThunder's branch can be both global and per-workbench. FreeCAD's keyboard shortcuts are standard, though I'll express a peeve I have with almost all software where one hand goes on the keyboard and another on the mouse: shortcuts arranged mnemonically and thus spread across the keyboard ease learning but are terrible for skilled use. I mean, if I have to hunt with one hand for a key under my desk, I might as well use the toolbar/menustrip/ribbon! Blender does seem to be an exception, though. Seems like the otherscould take a hint from PC games (notably MOBAs). [0] https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3/releases Seems to require a side-by-side release installation for dependencies. I also had to fiddle with MSVC.
In Blender 3.1
bb88·Feb 4, 2022
OpenSCAD is very lisp like. It's basically just a series of functions that operate on primitives. I tried it out and didn't like it very much. Mostly because debugging your model this way isn't super efficient. CadQuery should be better, but they refuse to just release a standalone pip library, instead everything is distributed through anaconda which just breaks my existing library setup. Technically you can use miniconda I guess, but in reality if I'm going through that much trouble to set up software, it's probably just best to move on. I found FreeCad easier to install and use frankly -- especially the RealThunder AppImage version. https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3/releases
In FreeCAD: Open-source 3D parametric modeler
app4soft·Sep 18, 2021
> Geometry Sketcher allows to create precise 2D shapes by defining a set of geometric constraints like tangent, distance, angle and more. Sketches stay editable and support a fully non-destructive workflow.[0,video] This add-on uses `py-slvs`[1] - a Python binding to fork of the `libslvs` (SolveSpace[2] geometry constraint solver). `py-slvs` is part of Assembly3 workbench in LinkStage3 (FreeCAD fork).[3] FTR, There are no official Python wrapper/binding SolveSpace or `libslvs`, but its WIP project.[4] As for 3rd party bindings, beside `py-slvs`, there is also `python-solvespace`[5]. [0] https://twitter.com/hlorus1/status/1434186997514522629 [video] https://twitter.com/hlorus1/status/1434187037800902658 [video] https://twitter.com/hlorus1/status/1438913270098939904 [1] https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace [2] https://pypi.org/project/p
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y-slvs/ [3] https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3/wiki/Constr... [4] https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace/issues/292#issuecom... [5] https://pypi.org/project/python-solvespace/
In Constraint-Based Geometry Sketcher for Blender
justinclift·Jun 11, 2020
The purpose I was looking at FreeCAD for, was to publish some reference designs that would be useful both personally, and potentially externally for many years from now. I tried the 3 current assembly workbenches: * https://github.com/kbwbe/A2plus * https://github.com/Zolko-123/FreeCAD_Assembly4 * https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3 As they're all incompatible with each other, and none of them is the official "blessed" choice that's guaranteed to be part of FreeCAD for the next [decades], I just dropped FreeCAD as not yet being suitable for purpose. :( Hopefully these separate efforts converge into a single system at some point, which would let FreeCAD compete with the commercial systems. :) The rest of FreeCAD seems to be good enough (from my PoV), apart from that one critical blocker.
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