![]() ![]() We also have a list of the best free 3D modeling software.This naturally had its problems - it was much slower, more prone to human error, and less repeatable. I’m constantly finding new things it can do, and I’ve hardly touched any of the add-ons available for it yet.CAD stands for Computer Aided Design, and CAD software are used all across the architectural, engineering, automotive and jewelry industries, just to name a few, and ever-present across rapid prototyping, product design, graphic design, and even in the making of prosthetics.īoth 3D CAD software and 2D CAD programs exist to create, edit, modify and test 2D and 3D designs before they ever get put into production and become physical parts, tools or objects.īack before computer software and CAD, designers and engineers had to manually draw their designs on paper to create new products. That will save your project as a STL file, all ready to be sliced and printed.įor free software, FreeCAD is incredibly powerful. In the top left panel, select all the objects you want in your print job, then click the File menu and choose Export. Once your object is designed you’ll need to export it from FreeCAD – the programme uses its own file format, and slicers need a STL mesh to work from. If you have a set of digital calipers – and you should, if you’re going to be designing things – then between those and the programme, you can easily design objects to within the accuracy of your 3D printer. Playing with the various editing options, you’ll find that you can enter very precise measurements and have them perfectly recreated in your model. I’ve found that if adding, say, a 1mm chamfer deletes the whole model, I can usually fix it by clicking Undo then trying again with a 0.9mm chamfer. Watch out when doing this if you get too ambitious and the selected edges intersect in the wrong way, your whole model will disappear. Just select an edge, click the appropriate tool then set the width you want the edge to be. You can create less fragile edges, and make things look more professional, by using the Chamfer and Fillet tools. For example, if you want a hole for a screw, make a cylinder the same diameter as the screw and long enough to hold the screw you plan to use, place it so it intersects your object, then cut you’ll be left with a neat hole. This method lets you create some surprisingly complicated shapes, and it’s the one I use the most often. If you place two shapes so they overlap, select them both using Ctrl+click, then click the Cut button on the toolbar (the overlapping blue and white circles) the second object you selected will be cut out of the first one. ![]() So, with a basic shape created, how do you create more complex ones? One of the most useful methods is cutting. The scroll wheel will zoom you in and out to pan and tilt the camera around the object you need to press the centre and right buttons at the same time, not a combination I’ve ever seen before. There’s an icon at the top right that lets you click on a face of the object to shift the view to that face, but if you want more control you’ll have to use the mouse – and that’s a little weird. One of the trickier things about FreeCAD is changing the viewing angles. You can also move objects by opening the Edit menu and switching to edit more, but the Placement tab is more precise. You can edit the size by changing the dimensions, or open the Placement options and adjust the object’s position and rotation angles. Click on it in either place and the bottom left panel will show your editing options. That shape will appear in the workspace, and it will also appear in the object list in the top left panel. To add a shape to your design, just click on the one you want. Almost everything you design in FreeCAD will be built up from combinations of these shapes, but the ways you can combine and modify them give you immense flexibility. ![]() ![]() This is where you’ll be working.Īt the left of the biggest toolbar there are some basic shapes – a cube, cylinder, sphere and so on. When you open the programme it will be on the Start workbench change that to Part, and some of the toolbars will change. Now find the Workbench list it’s the drop-down menu on the top toolbar. Ignore this apart from the Create New button click that to open a blank workspace. When you open FreeCAD you’ll see a screen with a couple of side windows and a main window full of confusing things. ![]()
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