Another way to zoom in on one or all objects is by using the two left-most icons in the workbench's toolbar. The little cube at the bottom right of the guide cube lets you change the view to Orthographic, Isometric, or Perspective and also gives you the option to zoom in on your object(s) until they fit in the pane. In the bottom right of the view, you can see the x, y, and z axes. 0 gives you an isometric view as shown in Figure 2. You can change the view using the number keys: 1 being a view of the object from the front, 2 from the top, 3 from the right, and so on.
You can also use the arrows surrounding the guide cube to change your view in 45-degree increments. It will tell you which side of your object is showing. Notice that there is also a guide cube in the upper right-hand corner of the pane with your object. Talking of spinning, hold down Ctrl and then click and drag the cursor in the workspace to change the angle you look at your objects. Well, technically it wouldn't be a cube anymore, but rather a square-based straight prism, but you know what I mean.Ĭlicking on the Placement value will unfold it, and you can change the location coordinates, the angle, and the axis around which you want to spin your cube. Click on Length, and you will be able to make a longer or shorter cube. The Data tab contains information regarding its location, size, angle, etc. The View tab contains information about what the cube looks like: its color, opacity, whether it is visible or not, etc. Click on it to highlight it, and the bottom box will fill with information regarding your cube.
Getting back to your piece, notice FreeCAD has also added a new cube item to the list of Labels & Attributes in the Combo View on the left. FreeCAD does autosave, but, just in case, press Ctrl+s often. It must be said here that FreeCAD is quite stable, with the operative word in the prior clause being "quite." It has been known to happen that yours truly got carried away making a really complex piece and then… Poof! FreeCAD disappeared, taking a bunch of unsaved changes with it. To get the cube, click on the cube icon in the workbench's colorful toolbar, and it will appear in the workspace on the right.įigure 2: The Part workbench lets you work with geometric primitives and use Boolean operations to shape complex pieces. 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.
#Freecad lesson windows
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. Figure 1: FreeCAD is a very complete CAD system that lets you import pieces from OpenSCAD.
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