I Have it! FreeCAD Exclusive! First Look at 0.22 topological naming issue fix. Side by Side Compare 

Dang.... Ralph Bacon is here, one of the Arduino jedi's..... 😁😁

I've been using the LinkStage version of FreeCad for that reason (and sponsoring it a bit, the toponaming solution is created by LinkStage's authon, RealThunder. But recently, the main FreeCad is making a lot of progress, so it is good the mainstream has this very good functional base really soon now.

It's not really a bug, using faces as references is just a fundamentally bad idea. But because people find it intuitive, CAD software is expected to have complex code in the background that tries to guess what the user actually wanted. A better solution is to make more robust models. Instead of building a tall tower of features that is easy to topple, build a wide pyramid that is much more stable. For example define the sketch plane using an offset plane, with the offset linked to the height of the pad. This workflow seems tedious at first, but it saves you a lot of time since you almost never have to fix broken features.

​@@Bruno-cb5gkIf that's the intended workflow it should be designed to make that easy. I'd love a feature that lets me select a face and pick one of a list of equations for that face's position (which update when the constituent values are changed). The good workflows should have good UX. I agree with you about avoiding overcomplicated dependency graphs for 3d models being a good thing, I don't think it's a "fundamentally bad idea" to make it work in slightly nontrivial cases (such as the one shown in this video).

@@reddragonflyxx657 imo the issue is the use of linear histories, when in reality many features are unconnected. An actual visualisation of the interconnectedness would be very helpful in showing the difference between good and bad workflows.

INDEED !!!😎, Thanks Darren

Ahh thank you so much :) :) :) very kind of you.

And let's not forget to mention RealThunder, who has single handedly developed and maintained the linkstage3 branch that is now being merged. I honestly thought no one used the official FreeCAD, because why would you over RealThunder's build.

@@ookamiueru Let's keep in mind that while Link Branch has many cool features, it can't keep up with the main development. Many users were also not sure if it was stable enough.

Lets also not forget to thank the guy who actually made the fix! (it wasn't them)

Yes I feel creating a sketch on a face is needed while you are a beginner. It has really been awesome now to understand how to get around in 3D space. I can now envision my part in 3D. Understand to move forward with the next sketch, which plane do you need to be on and the height the face you are building off of is how far above or below the origin, and offset your the new plane accordingly. I Love FreeCAD and I just keep using it everyday to get better. Thanks FreeCAD Community, i.e. (Developers) and this channel!

@@GDub1958 I try and treat it like fillets, they're the last thing I might use to finish off some small detail, not something I'll use in the normal workflow. If I treat it like that, no problems.

How can I learn datum planes? Ich tried with multiple videos, but it feels like there is no good one where I can follow the steps. I find this feature very difficult to learn.

@@sandmann7777 The basic idea is to create and position a datum plane and then use it like you're using XY, YZ, and XZ planes. So before creating a sketch select the datum plane. That way the sketch will be on the datum plane instead of the XY plane or whatever.

@@sandmann7777 so I use datum planes on surfaces that I have created on something that has a slope, but then I need to create a hole in this sloped surface that is perpendicular to this sloped surface (face). If you use one of the 3 planes (XY,YZ,XZ) then the bore will not be perpendicular and not the absolute thickness of this face. This is just one example where a datum plane comes in handle, but I do not use a datum plane just because of the Topographical Naming Issue. Mango Jelly Solutions explains this very good!

He did talk about link branch in passing but talked about it more in the last as well so was probably trying not to repeat himself to much

Fully agreed. Even last week's video barely acknowledged Realthunder's contributions of *actually solving the problem in the first place*. Not sure why.

Wouldn't it be hilarious if it was just a typo of a single character in a variable name (i instead of j etc).

Just DL the current weekly build.

If you are interested, it’s documented in detail in the Assembly3 GitHub repository belonging to Realthunder who developed the TNP fix.

Funny you should say that I am planning to get through all the buttons on the part design in a new beginners tutorials coming up. At the beginning of each tutorial a matrix is show showing which tools have been covered previously. The first few videos are on patreon but I will be releasing soon. I suppose when I run out of buttons I have completed the series :)

There's an incredible amount of fixes and new features coming in 1.0. Check the release notes, it's a true revolution.

I have to be honest....... I totally forgot about that! I know what I am doing at the weekend then! :)

Unfortunately, from what I know, the TNP fix doesn’t touch TechDraw at all. It would require a separate project to make TD less sensitive to changes in models.

I have been using dev version 0.22 in the weekly builds. Been updating it each week and it has been a god send to work with. Not being plagued by topo naming issues is just so much nicer.

@@MangoJellySolutions This fix will definately make things easier when doing things such as station frames on a boat hull or aircraft fuselage design. Looking forward to giving it a go!!

The name implied its work from a branch development. If so, it means it needs to be merged before it shows up on the snapshot releases.

Yes, it is different. The fix is not in the latest (37249) bundle.

The TNP fix hasn’t been fully merged to 0.22 dev yet. Once it’s done, it will become 1.0.

Just to add the Devs have released a time line and they are looking at v1 release around mid July

@@MangoJellySolutions But I'm still curious why they hid the branch code of this crucial feature. In theory, the license requires that the code must be made public, but I have to wonder if anyone is thinking about how to convert these valuable features to non-open source

​@@longjack8919 The branch was built and release to myself from by a developer so I could demonstrate the progress. The code was not ready for a weekly builds but the source code is readily available to anyone that want's to download it, it's not hidden, you can go and download it now. Finding out what branch to compile and what to change to switch on the test features requires knowledge in the software development field and a full understanding of the source code itself to finish the code and communication with the developers. Anyone with the knowledge can participate enhancing the code and submitting the changes for review. This is how originally the fix started, it was originally developed in something called the 'link stage' branch which some people are already using. This is a fork of freecad that has diverge so much that those changes needed to be merged back into the code. I demonstrated this branch in the prior video. The timeline for the release of v1 has been set by the developers to be released by approx. mid July with a feature freeze beginning of June. Open source is just that, the source is open for anyone to participate so nothing is closed to general public.

Great that I was able to teach a new things with the video as well. Nice additional bonus. Thank you for the kind comments and glad to see your learning.

Indeed it is another thing that they need to fix because it is not obvious where in the "timeline" you are currently sitting. They need to change "Combo View" (which is not a view)/Model/Operations/Steps (or what the hell is that thing called) into Timeline, just like F360 has. Or add a line on which step you are. Just begin grayed out is not obvious. For me, grayed out means object is hidden (example: hidden layers in Photoshop).

Na, it's good to know that something like this can happen and how to fix it. Not even the best CAD programs are 100% immune to it. Sometimes a change of a previous operation just leads to an ambiguous result that needs the user to decide.

@@superdau You're absolutely right. There aren't softwares bug free or able to do whatever you need to be done, and even paying a bunch of money for them...

I use freecad on windows 7. No problem. Sometimes you need to get the win 7 installer for the programming language fix a program uses. Then the program works.

@@meisievannancy The new version is not compiled for win 7. only the old ones are.

​@@noanyobiseniss7462 That would be terrible. I'll check it out.

I commented the same lol.

@@oddlytimbotwillison6296 🤣🤣🤣 it is true!

Many other issues and limitations (IMO mostly fillets/chamfers, offsets and making parts hollow - those are the least reliable tools). But even if most of them are fixed (which won't happen anytime soon as it's a fault of the open-source CAD engine used by FreeCAD, not FreeCAD itself), even the best open-source software is rarely used by bigger companies.

@@Gumball_W I've investigated FreeCAD to replace our existing CAD. We have in-house dev so transforming FreeCAD to match our workflow to increase productivity is actually a unique strength. There are obviously no licensing fees, but we set that off against the cost in developing custom workflows. But still better because the alternative would be both the license and development. And eventually development will show down. In our case the chamfer and round issue are minor. However it does expose the bigger problem in the dependency on the OpenCascade kernel. It would go a long way to see strong collaboration between the two projects to help build faith in the future on FreeCAD.

The fix is so bleeding edge that there is still a lot of testing to do. There is a meeting today with core devs to discuss a feature freeze which will allow for testing.

@@MangoJellySolutions Why hasn't the community given an opportunity to help implementing the fix?

Actually, it's not. Just high-effort promises so far ;)

There’s no release date yet but likely around July/August.

The Devs have just announced that this will be around mid July with a feature freeze beginning of June.

RU-vid doesn't allow weblinks to other sites, but the FreeCAD site Community page leads to the Forum which is probably where you want to be.

Dev branch doesn’t have this fix fully implemented yet.

@@Gumball_W I'm referencing to whatever branch fixed application was build from. It's 0.22.0dev in window title in video

You can thank RealThunder for that.

No, it's the actual 0.22 with the fix within along with 3 scenarios. Before I demoed 0.21 and link stage.

​@@MangoJellySolutionsPersonally, I was hoping for an actual explanation of the fix.

Every last operation/feature made and presented in the model tree is considered the tip of the current process. You can also select a previous step long time "processed" and press the Space Bar, all subsequent "steps" will be ignored on the 3D Viewer window.

The tip of the model is the point after which new features will be added. By default it's the last feature created in the timeline but you can set it to any other one so new features are inserted into the tree rather than appended to it.