CAD Sketcher 0.24.0 Update | CAD Modeling In Blender 3.2

Learn how to do and see how I do CAD-like modeling in blender 3.2 using CAD Sketcher. This is pretty much a brand new parametric precision modelling workflow for blender. CAD Sketcher is very much still in early development but things are looking very promising and growing quickly.

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Time Stamps: (Coming Soon)

0:01 -

[Niyachelowick]

It's still in development, and it's actually easier to learn than other cad softwares that I've tested.

[OwenIverson]

This is just mind-blowing to me. As an Autodesk hater, I can't praise this enough. At some point, I'll have to donate some cash, but I really can't stand CAD (I'm a CAD Manager for 20 years now).

[mjss]

Pretty slick tool!

That is the kind of add-on that will scalp people from using pure cad that are using to precise modeling with constraints and editable dimensional control.

Hats off to the people behind CAD Sketcher

[andrewkelley]

One of these things I have found in a cad program that made things so much more convenient was a spreadsheet reference. Free cad has one. With it you can change all the things you have referenced by just changing the sheet. You do have to reset the parent of the sketch but it is still easier when your part switches barrings or the size of a rod your using.

[rendra]

it's really cool addons, finally a CAD for blender

[raphaelrichter]

I just discovered your addon. Blender was missing that. I bought it straight away and I'm thrilled. Many Thanks.

[EatRawGarlic]

I'm impressed by the speed of the development! The cut/extrude operations still look a bit convoluted, but in this pace, I'm sure someone will develop a more elegant solution for it in no time.

[MihaiDesigns]

Wow lots of progress right there, congrats! 🥳

[Space-O-]

Look forward to getting to the point where clicking on a RAD for example (or any element) prompts entering a dimension for it. Also, contextual menus based on selection so you don't have to remember yet more keyboard shortcuts. Coming along well!

[etopowertwon]

Downloaded the drawing and tried doing it (successfully, yay). The thoughts
1) Don't like hotkeys. It forgot it's a blender and not a solverspace. 'x' is delete, not del. It was nbd in 0.1, but considering additions of hotkeys, it doesn't seem it will be fixed.
2) Speaking of hotkeys. It's frustrating that distance is Alt-something, all others are Shift-something.
3) No copy paste. I did left bottom thingy first (the one looks like ▛▜ ), Copying it manually was an exercise in a frustration and hiding constraints. I never hid constraints in other CADs. I suspect here I do it because in the theme lines are black, barely visible over gray background, and constraints are pink, much more visible
4) Escape cancels too little. I constantly added geometry because I finished a line, pressed escape and clicked on a point to move.
5) Several times I wanted "Split line by point" operation, instead I had to delete a line, add two new lines and make of them construction. [ETA -- seems trim tool will do the job, I didn't know about it when was doing the model]
6) Delete is not strong enough. Several times I wanted to box select and delete large amount of entities. It was impossible. Instead I had to delete them one by one in specific order.
7) Operation cancelling is too strong: if I select two points and 'L'ine them, it creates a line. If I click anywhere after that, the line is deleted I have to press escape additionally.
8) You can't change several lines to construction lines, at least with mouse; if you select 4 lines of rectangle, click right click - construction, only one will change, under the cursor, not all selected.
9) I can't tell what's not being constrained. For all I know there is a accidentally added point floating somewhere with 2 degree of freedom,
10) Since it's 3d view, sometimes it confuses sketch's Horizontal and Vertical: my horizontal is solver space's vertical and vice versa.

Overall I did it in ~1 hour and had 0 crashes. I had one Exception error when I first time selected two circles and made them Equal, but it went away and I couldn't reproduce it.

ETA: The trim looks fantastic! Arcing without it was a pain

[snilloconator]

You have made me love blender! Thank you for the amazing tutorials. They are easy to follow along and you have a great attitude! TKs.

[galdocstutorials]

Woah. Dude, this is amazing. I had no idea this even existed. Thank you so much for this! I just started going through and learning a bunch from your videos. Very helpful!

[j.m]

Oh man, I love you guys! It's a shame you can only give videos one 'like'!

[Xraller]

I use Fusion 360 professionally for manufacturing....I have to say this is coming along nicely.

[NC_]

i have been wanting this for a time. hopefully, the development will be even further at the end of this year when i hopefully get a new 3D printer instead of the crappy Creality i had.

[YaroslaffFedin]

Great progress so far! It's really interesting to be able to do sketch drawing in Blender. Although non-destructible workflow In blender leaves a lot to be desired in Blender unfortunately, it is a little bit hard for me to see if the gap between this state and something like basic Solidworks features can ever be closed having Blender as a foundation. It does look pretty amazing already though. Great job!

[oootoob]

Would like to see the option to reuse parts of sketches that have already been used - in the example in the video, creating a hole from the centre circle of the pipe should be possible without making a new sketch referencing the first one.

[DraftID]

Amazing development progress. I need to put some time into this.

[Gameplayer]

Finally CAD without reactoe control panel like interface

[detrix]

making holes is very easy with HardOp/Boxcutter plug-ins. HardOps with some CAD sketches is very useful.