Book Image

FreeCAD

By : Brad Collette, Daniel Falck
Book Image

FreeCAD

By: Brad Collette, Daniel Falck

Overview of this book

FreeCAD is a general purpose platform for CAD development. It can be extended to use different workbenches to solve different problems. Targeted squarely at the engineering community, FreeCAD is an open source design application built to be extended. Python, the powerful scripting language, is woven deeply into FreeCAD's DNA and gives users unprecedented power to automate and invent. "FreeCAD [How-to]" is a lean, fast tour of FreeCAD's major workbenches and design philosophy. The reader will get a hands-on introduction to several modeling techniques and learn how Python makes macro automation and design possible. FreeCAD allows users to design in a variety of ways; from drawing 2D designs as lines and circles to combining primitive solids into complex 3D shapes. Objects can even be created or modified by code you write in Python. FreeCAD even allows power users to extend the application itself with new dialogs, panels, and scripts. This book will not only show you how to get started using FreeCAD in a traditional GUI mode, but will teach you how to harness its powerful scripting language for more power.
Table of Contents (9 chapters)

Exporting DXF files for other applications (Should know)


Most CAD applications don't live in a vacuum and need to be able to save to different file formats for other CADCAM programs to use. FreeCAD is no exception. There are some tasks that FreeCAD doesn't do especially well, such as dimensioning drawings. Other applications, such as LibreCAD or DraftSight do better in this area. Exporting 2D geometry to DXF format is an excellent way of facilitating this.

Getting ready

The first rule of exporting geometry is to make sure your geometry is clean and consistent. This means that the end points of lines and arcs that are meant to be connected should be connected with no gaps. Line segments hiding under other line segments should be deleted. Arcs and lines that are impossibly small should also be deleted. Don't leave any extra entities that aren't necessary in your document for exporting. 3D geometry does not export as DXF format in FreeCAD.

How to do it...

  1. In the Project tree, select 2D geometry from a Sketch or the Draft workbench. Be sure and select all geometry that you want exported.

  2. From the top menu, select File and then Export.

  3. In the lower-right corner of the Export file dialog, select Autodesk DXF.

  4. In the Name entry box, give your file a name with the *.dxf extension.

  5. Select the directory where you want your file saved.

How it works...

FreeCAD normally uses scripts from the Draft workbench to export 2D geometry.