3D view

Introduction

The 3D view of FreeCAD is an instance of a Coin3D scenegraph. Coin3D is a library that implements the OpenInventor 2.1 scene description standard.

Certain properties of the view, like background color, mouse navigation style, and zooming steps, can be configured in the preferences editor.

By the default the 3D view shows a small widget with coordinate axes, and the navigation cube also with coordinate axes; the grid can be displayed and configured by loading the Draft Workbench.

Actions

Note: link actions were added in version 0.19.

Since the tree view lists most objects that are visible in the 3D view, many of the actions are the same to those that can be executed from the tree view.

When the default Start Workbench is active, right clicking on the 3D view shows only one command:

• Navigation styles: different button styles to use with a 3-button mouse or laptop trackpad.

However, once a Workbench is loaded, there are additional commands:

• Link actions: Make Link.
  • Make Link group: Simple group, Group with links, Group with transform links.
• Fit all: pans and zooms the view to fit all objects in the document on the screen.
• Fit selection: pans and zooms the view to tightly fit the currently selected object on the screen.
• Draw style: as is, flat lines, shaded, wireframe, points, hidden line, no shading.
• Standard views: isometric, front, top, right, rear, bottom, left, rotate left, rotate right.
• Measure: create some measurements on the 3D view with the selected objects, or clear the measurements on the screen.
• Document window: docked, undocked, and fullscreen.

Additionally, depending on the workbench and object that is active, other command menus may become available. For example, with the Part Workbench and one object selected:

• Appearance: launch the Appearance dialog to change color and sizes of lines and vertices, and color of faces.
• Toggle visibility: hide or show.
• Toggle selectability: set to be able to be selected or not. Change the property by toggling ViewSelectable in the Property editor.
• Go to selection: select the object in the tree view.
• Random color: assign a random color to the object.
• Delete: delete the object.

And with the Draft Workbench and one object selected:

• Draft: creation and modification commands from this workbench.
• Utilities: auxiliary commands from this workbench.

Details

Since FreeCAD uses Qt as its graphical toolkit, FreeCAD uses the Quarter library to use Coin3D in a Qt environment.

Moreover, it is possible to interact directly with the 3D view scenegraph from the Python console by using the Python library Pivy.

For more information see the power user documentation:

• Scenegraph, description of Coin3D.
• Pivy, usage of Coin3D from the Python console.
• Third party libraries used by FreeCAD.

User documentation

• Getting started
• Installation: Download, Windows, Linux, Mac, Additional components, Docker, AppImage, Ubuntu Snap
• Basics: About FreeCAD, Interface, Mouse navigation, Selection methods, Object name, Preferences, Workbenches, Document structure, Properties, Help FreeCAD, Donate

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• Help: Tutorials, Video tutorials
• Workbenches: Std Base, Arch, Assembly, CAM, Draft, FEM, Inspection, Mesh, OpenSCAD, Part, PartDesign, Points, Reverse Engineering, Robot, Sketcher, Spreadsheet, Start, Surface, TechDraw, Test Framework, Web

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• Addons: Addon Manager, External workbenches, Scripting and macros

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• Hubs: User hub, Power users hub, Developer hub