Migrating to FreeCAD from SolidWorks: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 10:25, 10 June 2022

This documentation is not finished. Please help and contribute documentation.

GuiCommand model explains how commands should be documented. Browse Category:UnfinishedDocu to see more incomplete pages like this one. See Category:Command Reference for all commands.

See WikiPages to learn about editing the wiki pages, and go to Help FreeCAD to learn about other ways in which you can contribute.

Template:FYI

Overview

The intention of this page is to serve as a guide for users that are accustomed to the SolidWorks CAD/CAM workflow and want to migrate to FreeCAD.

History

Understanding a little of the history of FreeCAD may help users comprehend it better:

FreeCAD was initially designed to behave parametrically using the Constructive solid geometry method (see Part Workbench).
Later it incorporated the feature editing method with the PartDesign Workbench.
SolidWorks use the latter approach, feature editing.

Tips

The Part Design Workbench has many equivalent functions to SolidWorks. The image below identifies equivalent functions and their names on each platform, as well as functions that are unique to each platform:

A comparison between FreeCAD and SolidWorks. Click the image for a higher resolution.

Terminology

Extrude in FreeCAD terms is referred to as Padding (see Pad)
Collinear relation in FreeCAD is called Tangent constraint
...

Tutorials

List of helpful tutorials

Joko Engineeringhelp

There are many video tutorials online. One of the most popular (at the time this was written) is by a Youtuber calling himself Joko Engineeringhelp (he also participates on the FreeCAD Forum as Celica_Supra (profile link). One of his tutorials is meant specifically for former SolidWorks users: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XXnulyKPNI Some of the other videos are comparisons of SolidWorks and FreeCAD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX8-3rMCbRw

@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 The Part Design Workbench has many equivalent functions to SolidWorks. The image below identifies equivalent functions and their names on each platform, as well as functions that are unique to each platform:
 [[File:Features and Part Design.png|600px]]
 {{Caption|A comparison between FreeCAD and SolidWorks. Click the image for a higher resolution.}}