Porting Sweet Home 3D Files to FreeCAD for BOM Generation
Contents
Notes on Goals
The usefulness of FreeCAD lies in its diverse functionality for all kinds of analysis using various workbenches. One simple part that is very useful for educational purposes is hiding and showing parts to reveal how an object is made. For this reason, individual parts must be ported from a source file in SweetHome3D.
The problem statement is going from SH3D to FreeCAD. One would ask, why not use FreeCAD in the first place? The reason is that the Seed Eco-Home Designer is executed readily within SweetHome3D - for which reason Public Design of housing must start with SweetHome3D. FreeCAD is simply too advanced for most people - it is much easier to create the Seed Eco-Home Designer in SweetHome3D than in FreeCAD. This is simply a matter of sequencing and resources: we start with SweetHome3D as a user-friendly platform, then move to an advanced version in FreeCAD. It appears that there will always be a need for SH3D in the open source architecture workflow - simply because it allows complete novices to do interior design with a very short learning curve. OBI adds value to this process by developing a modular design language for housing in general - which average users can apply to design their own house. This is the promise of open architecture - access to the common person.
Technical Process - BOM Generation
edit (to expand view, click edit and you can view larger size, or set view to full screen)
Technical Process - Export from SweetHome
Simple module-based export from SweetHome, preserving part names.
Software
- Here is the SH3D to Blender exporter python script, compressed, that works for Blender 2.8. File:Sh3dtoblenderexporter.py.zip
- Here is the Blender batch import - https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/5064/how-to-batch-import-wavefront-obj-files
