FreeCAD

Having difficulty having a personal copy of the well-known 3D CAD softwares such as Siemens NX and Dassault Systèmes CATIA V5 which are currently used by automotive and aerospace industry? Well, maybe others can buy those expensive licenses for both Siemens NX and CATIA V5 but I'm pretty sure it may be a handful or maybe cracked copies. Ever heard of FreeCAD?

FreeCAD is an open source 3D CAD modelling software, see official FreeCAD Github Repository and for the information of it's license, you can refer to it's README.md.

Before I make my review for this open source 3D CAD software, allow me to share my experience as a mechanical design engineer/designer in one of the leading automotive suppliers in the world. Basically, when doing CAD designs, we use either Siemens NX or the CATIA V5. Those two are good, but as for me, I worked on projects wherein the preferable CAD software was SIEMENS NX, version 9.0 to be specific. Both softwares had its own pros and cons.

So moving back to FreeCAD, I heard it when I started contributing to @utopian-io's Translations category and that time the project was already localized into Filipino. It was during the month of April that I downloaded this software, for the very reason that I wanted to have my own tolerance stack ups or practice Stack Up Analysis.

And with that here are the pros and cons that I encountered using FreeCAD.

Pros:

• Of course it is free to download since it is an open source one.
• UI is more like of CATIA V5, the functions are very similar to CATIA V5, such these key functions like "PAD" and "POCKET".
• Since the UI is more like of CATIA V5, I'm pretty sure this software is very good when doing surface design, which the Siemens NX as per experience don't have.
• Can extract files like STEP (generic file extensions which can be read by other CAD softwares), STL (file type which is good for 3D printing), DXF (based on experience suitable for doing models for the components and doing assembly in PCBs).

Cons:

• As for me having an intermediate knowledge on Siemens NX, though I have a basic training in CATIA V5 from the Sketching, Part Design, Asssembly and Drafting, at first I'm having trouble adjusting to the environment of CATIA V5 and the same way as FreeCAD which has a UI that is very similar to CATIA V5, with that I can say, this software needs prior experience to softwares like Siemens NX and Autodesk Inventor, and the more advanced software like CATIA V5.
• Well this is just a thought of mine, if FreeCAD doesn't have "Synchronous Modeling" features such the one being experienced by my colleague who is the one handling projects using CATIA V5 software, that would be a downside, in Siemens NX, Synchronous Modeling makes the design and modification way better and saves lots of time, you can just directly edit the face, delete faces, extend the faces and etc.