FreeCAD BOM Generator
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Tools That Can Be Used For Generating Bills of Materials by Counting
Structured Way
- The simplest method of obtaining a complete BOM, line by line, is to export parts spreadsheet in a FreeCAD document, and simply count them. You can count phrases by using an online phrase counter - [1]. That is your BOM Generator MVP1.0.
- For this to work, the part names must be structured in an understandable way, such as "8 mm Screw #" such that every time it is copied, it appears as: "8 mm Screw #0",
- Check out what happens when you copy a part, if its name allows for easy counting by examinging part name:
- The count appears readily by observing the last number.
- Out of the box - you can even include a BOM link to that part with URL or shortcut, so that the exported BOM can include links out of the box:
- The above looks trivial - but if done - one has automated capacity to generate full and correct clickable BOMs in FreeCAD. For example, if a design contains a house design made of multiples of various modules - all the parts can be summed automatically - with ordering links provided. This is powerful help for automated custom design.
- FreeCAD allows CSV export of part spreadsheets - so further processing into finished BOMs can happen readily.
Extracting Parts Spreadsheet in FreeCAD
There is a macro from FreeCAD forum [2]:
obj = FreeCADGui.Selection.getSelection()
bom = App.activeDocument().addObject('Spreadsheet::Sheet','BOM') cell = 0 for x in obj:
cell = cell + 1
bom.set("A" + str(cell), x.Label)
App.ActiveDocument.recompute()
You can execute this macro in Macros or in the Python console. Select the parts in the tree view, and you will generate a spreadsheet with all the parts.Then these parts can be counted.
- This generates a spreadsheet, from selected parts in part tree
- Export this to CSV for other spreadsheet apps.
- Spreadsheet workbench allows import of CSV as well.
Note on Groups
If you organize parts in folders (ie, Create group...) - the group name also appears in the above list:
FreeCAD Evolution
2018 Progress
- Note comment: part organization is what makes for proper assemblies - not constraints! Exactly. [3]