FreeCAD
FreeCAD Download
http://sourceforge.net/projects/free-cad/?source=dlp
Action Plan
Recruit software developer to analyze FreeCAD and build with/upon their work. Short-term Objective: Get Assembly Module Working.
Document FreeCAD source code in github repository.
Document FreeCAD's code structure.
Info
FreeCAD Bugtracker/Issue Queue
Temp
Ok, first FreeCAD:
As they say themselves, it is still in the early stages of development. I (Conor) have searched for documentation, and apart from the getstarted [1] there are 2 nice articles from December (so version 0.9, which btw. is in Lucid already). The funny thing is that for some reason, both are in... Polish! I understand you have polish origins, so maybe you speak Polish. Otherwise just google translate. They give you examples and a better idea of what it is right now capable of. [2] [3]
So I propose the following: you try to reproduce the steps in the articles, so you get a feeling for it. But then regardless stick with Blender a bit longer, and try FreeCAD again when version 0.11 or 0.12 comes out.
Undo doesn't work
Using FreeCAD 0.13.1828 on Windows.
- Situation: I draw a box and modify it's size. Then I hit Ctrl+Z (or Redo from the menu).
- What happens: Box is deleted :-(
- Expected: Box returns to old size.
OSE FreeCAD Documentation
I (Mark Norton) have created a very simply, introductory guide to FreeCAD. It only covers the very basics at this point, but we can expand on it as needed. - User:Mjn
This document covers the following topics:
- Views
- Workshops
- Sizing a Primitive Part
- Positioning a Part
- Making a Cut
- Combining Parts
- Rotating a Part
- Extrusion
See also, FreeCAD Documentation and Tutorials [4].
Related
OSE FreeCAD Requirements
For OSE to use FreeCAD for all of its design needs, these are the functions required. Do these exist? Please comment.
- Freehand drawing of shapes and extrusion (like Sketchup).
- Adding parameters to all of the shapes, so they can be modified.
- Modifying all parameters in 3D parametrically (typing in lengths)
- Modifying all parameters in 3D with the mouse (such as dragging corners, edges, and faces)
Response from Reddit User buovjaga: "This is not possible and will not be in the future. This kind of behavior needs quite advanced back-end functionality which is not provided by our geometric modeling kernel"
- Adding parameters in 3D parametrically (boolean operations)?
- Adding parameters in 3D by drawing them and extruding (mouse-based boolean operations)
- Adding parameters to shapes in 3D parametrically (such as drawing in new objects parametrically)?
- Adding parameters to shapes in 3D manually (such as drawing in new objects with a mounse)?
- For multiple objects, moving them with the mouse to arrange, mate, align them.
Response from Reddit User buovjaga: "That is not yet possible. The assembly workbench is in a very early design phase and still needs quite some time. That is true for basic functionality and integration into freecad workflows."
- Grouping and ungrouping objects into assemblies?
Response from Reddit User buovjaga: "not yet but will be possible with upcoming assembly workbench"
- Maintaining parametric nature of grouped objects?
Response from Reddit User buovjaga: "not yet, but will be possible with the upcoming assembly workbench"
Now for interoperability with other CAD packages:
- Importing multiple new objects into a drawing - one at a time?
Response from Reddit User buovjaga: 'currently you can only import whole files, not individual objects from a file'
- Importing multiple objects into a model - all at one time?
- Importing new objects while passing the parametric values into FreeCAD, such as with a STEP file?
Tutorials
Bram De Vries
Tutorials 1-8: