So, a couple years ago, somebody published the 2017 free desktop client of SketchUp on the chocolatey repos, and I managed to snag it before it got taken down. I use it primarily to make woodworking plans.
I’m wrapping up my transition plan to Linux, but I’m not really up to date on SketchUp alternatives. The only ones I know of are Blender (afaik more for animation and 3D printing) and FreeCAD (CAD seems like overkill, since I’m just doing simple cuts and joinery).
Are there good Linux/FOSS alternatives to SketchUp that have similar features, or is the web client the only reasonable option?
If you’re looking for something Foss the closest things I know are FreeCAD, and apparently there’s a blender addon that adds parametric cad functionality. I’ve found FreeCAD frustrating, but I’ve not tried the blender addon/extension or whatever
Thanks! I’ll look at both (somebody suggested a workbench for FreeCAD).
Get the weekly version of freecad, it’s like a month or two away from full release and changes a lot. As in gets rid of a ton of frustrations.
It’s worth knowing that the new versions of FreeCAD are apparently way better, but that those improvements haven’t made it into the stable release yet (I think…). Also there’s a fork maintained by a company that apparently makes some improvements but has some tradeoffs like cloud saves or something
There was a ton of useful info in this video, if you’re considering free cad it’s probably worth checking out :)
https://youtu.be/p8Pk1ayx6LQ