Design456 Workbench

From FreeCAD Documentation
This workbench is under heavy development

Introduction

Design456 External workbench icon

The Design456 workbench is an External workbench that plans to implement a Direct Modeling methodology in FreeCAD. Think 'push and pull geometry' that one finds in CAD suites like SketchUp and Fusion360. The original idea came to live when the developer of Design456 wanted to do the basic tasks which is simple and easy to do in 123D Design. FreeCAD could do the same job but the tools aren't interfaced in that way. This workbench will not keep track of old shapes. It tries to clean up the garbage which might be produced during running under commands. It tries to make the tree as simple as possible. Parameters must be decided during the desired manipulations which cannot be changed later.

Background

Traditionally, FreeCAD employs a Parametric Modeling methodology which is a powerful and scalable approach. It is also has been an industry standard. But I wish to have another approach. My workbench will try to implement direct modeling which is not provided at the moment by FreeCAD.

Installation

Download the Design456 workbench via the Addon Manager Tools → Addon Manager

Note:

If the above is not working for you please consider :

  • Addon manager no longer works in FreeCAD 0.18 due to changes in Github use FreeCAD 0.20 instead.
  • Invoke the Addon Manager - Tools | Adddon manager.
  • Select Configure..Into Custom repositories enter https://github.com/MariwanJ/Design456.
  • Then OK.
  • Restart FreeCAD.

References

Tools

2D Drawing and manipulation tools

3D Drawing and manipulation tools

Alignment tools

FreeCAD Direct Modeling

The main WB development is on this part at the moment. There are some (almost- finished) commands developed, and the development of this part is ongoing. The following are available ..

  • smart Scale
  • smart DirectScale
  • smart Fillet
  • samrt Chamfer
  • smart Extrude
  • smart Extrude Rotate
  • smart Edge Extend
  • smart Face Extend
  • Paint
  • Hole
  • Reset Placement
  • Simplify Edges
Note:

Please notice that there is no released version yet for this workbench. Intensively development is ongoing and bug is expected for the tools. Don't use it on serious document yet.

FreeCAD GUI Widgets toolkit

Fr_Widget system is a beginning work for the Coin3D and the QT drawing GUI toolkit. The toolkit will make it easy to make drawing and provides an interactive way to manipulate the objects. The simplicity of the toolkit should make it easy to use it. It will be well documented. Looking at the Devbranch at my github, you will find some widget that are already made. But it is just the beginning. More details will come after finishing the Nurbs tools. The toolkit will be a flavor of FLTK toolkit.

Defeaturing WB added to Design456

I added the workbench to my workbench and further development of the tools will continue. Those tools are needed for my workbench. More tools must be added to let the defeaturing useful.

  • Tobe continued!


Microelly2 Tools converted

I did the conversion for the Nurbs and fixed many bugs. In the begning I added the project to my WB, but since the tools are not working well, I remove it. The work is huge and there were places where I didn't know how to solve the issues. More time required and more understanding of Microlley's work is required that is why the work on the project is suspended. Some good works are done and you can find the project at : https://github.com/MariwanJ/nurbs

  • Tobe continued!


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