I got the chance to speak about FreeCAD at the Osmoces event near Chicago over the weekend. I had a really good time seeing some of the other presentations and exhibits and just hanging around with some pretty cool people. In addition to the talk, I also taught a workshop where we got hands-on with the software…
Tag: FreeCAD
FreeCAD WebGL Export.
This is still early but it’s too cool not to share. Yorik has added a WebGL exporter to the FreeCAD arch module (but it seems to work everywhere in FreeCAD) Open a model in FreeCAD and select the objects in the tree Export the objects (File -> Export) and select WebGL Save…
Vendor provided CAD data.
I’m going to build an enclosure for my CNC mill to keep coolant and chips from going all over the floor. It took about ten minutes to model the mill table in FreeCAD but modeling all the aluminum extrusions was looking like a lot of work. Fortunately it isn’t necessary More and more vendors are…
Understanding Tool Path Generation in HeeksCNC
When I first started using HeeksCNC I was totally confused. It seemed overly complex. When I finally understood it, I realized what a great model it is. I still won’t claim to be an expert but from my perspective it meets three really big objectives. One of these is compromised in every other solution I’ve…
FreeCAD Book Published!
Dan Falck and I spent the last couple months working the Packt Publishing to write this book. The book is written as a series of recipes to guide new users through some of the basic concepts in FreeCAD. The later chapters get into how Python can be used to automate and extend the application. I…
FreeCAD hidden gems – setting colors for individual faces.
This is one I’m documenting here because it’s come up twice on the #freecad channel and because I keep forgetting it myself. FreeCAD has a bunch of different ways to change the appearance of solids. You could change the properties on the objects view tab: You could use the appearance… tool from the object context…
Simple Assemblies in FreeCAD
FreeCAD’s assembly module is still in development. By all reports, this is going to be an amazing feature just dripping with awesome sauce. Alas, it’s not here yet. In the meantime, if you want to design anything with multiple parts, your options are pretty limited. Here’s a technique I’ve been using on the OpenROV project:…
Pinewood Lowrider
I’ve built some fast pinewood derby cars in the past but this year was just about looking good. I’ve always loved the way those lowriders bounce and thought it would be cool to make a derby car do that. Here’s my version. A few more pictures and build details after the jump.
FreeCAD is becoming my favorite modeling tool
It’s taken a while to get used to the interface and there’s still plenty of bugs to work around but the FreeCAD project is really moving along nicely. The sketcher makes designing parts like the ones below really simple. I learn things better with an actual project rather than just trying to copy tutorials…