![]() ![]() Click on the workbench drop-down, choose Part, and you'll get something like what is shown in Figure 2 (sans the cube). If you want to jump right in, I'd recommend you start with the Part workbench.įrom the start screen, pick Create new… (or press Ctrl+n) to create a new, blank project. Let's try and sort it all out with some examples. Quite the contrary: The number of options and all the rules you have to follow to get a valid piece that will actually print is quite daunting. However, knowing all this does not help you get any closer to actually producing a piece. You can acquire even more by going to Tools | Addon Manager from the program's menu. FreeCAD's modular nature means users can create their own specific desktops to scratch their own specific itches.Īnd create they do: When you open FreeCAD, there is a drop-down menu in the middle of the top toolbar, which shows more than 20 preinstalled desktops. There are also custom desktops for preparing a piece for 3D printing for architectural design for screws, bolts, and other fasteners for rendering photorealistic (ahem!) images from your pieces and so on. So, for example, you will have one workbench (with its own set of tools, especially designed for drafting pieces), another for turning the shapes into an actual 3D object, another for assembling several pieces together into a device, and another to produce the blueprints that you can share with a manufacturer. Workbenches are distinct areas especially designed for specific tasks within the 3D-design workflow. One of the interesting things about FreeCAD is that, apart from your typical items-and-properties-on-the-left-workspace-on-the-right layout, it adds a third dimension to the interface: workbenches. There are also versions of FreeCAD that work on Windows and macOS. I will be using the current version 0.18 in this article. However, if you want an up-to-date version, something I strongly recommend, you will probably have to check out the "extra software" repositories (e.g., PPAs, AURs, or whatever).įreeCAD also has an AppImage of the latest stable version. Installing FreeCAD is easy enough: Most Linux distributions list it in their regular repositories. A printed version is being prepared.Figure 1: FreeCAD is a very complete CAD system that lets you import pieces from OpenSCAD. Easier to read HTML, PDF, MOBI and EPUB versions are also available here. The source files for this manual are hosted on this wiki, and on the original github account used to write the first version of this book. The contents of this manual are published under the Creative Commons 4.0 license, and can be freely used, downloaded, copied, and modified. This manual is being written for the newest stable version of FreeCAD, version 0.18 (early 2019). It will become a companion for the wiki, but not replace it. This manual will walk you through much of the information available on the wiki, but we hope the step-by-step approach based on examples and a more unified tone due to a smaller number of authors will make it more suitable for a first contact with FreeCAD. ![]() This makes it an excellent resource for reference, but a less practical tool for learning FreeCAD. Like most wikis, it contains huge amounts of information but is somewhat difficult to access and navigate by newcomers. ![]() The wiki is written collaboratively by dozens of community members. This manual is an experiment, taking a different approach from the official FreeCAD documentation wiki. The data you produce with FreeCAD is fully yours, and can be recovered without FreeCAD.įreeCAD is also fundamentally a social project, as it is developed and maintained by a community of developers and users united by their passion for FreeCAD. FreeCAD is free to download, use, distribute and modify, and its source code is open and published under the very permissive LGPL license. ![]() It is made primarily to model real-world objects, ranging from small electronic components up to large objects such as buildings and civil engineering projects, with a strong focus on 3D-printable objects. FreeCAD is a free, open source parametric 3D modeling application. ![]()
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