FreeCAD Manual

Manual
From free-cad
This is the FreeCAD manual. It includes the essential parts out of the FreeCAD documentation wiki. It is made primarily to be printed as
one big document, so, if you are reading this online, you might prefer to head directly to the Online help version, which is easier to
browse.
Contents
1 Welcome to the FreeCAD on-line help
1.1 How to use
1.2 Contribute
2 Introduction
2.1 Release notes
2.2 General features
2.2.1 Base application
2.2.2 Document structure
2.2.3 User Interface
2.3 Application specific features
2.3.1 Meshes
2.3.2 2D Drafting
2.3.3 CAD
2.3.4 Raytracing
2.3.5 Drawing
2.3.6 CAM
3 Installation
3.1 Install on Windows
3.1.1 Simple Installation
3.1.2 Command Line Installation
3.1.2.1 Non-interactive Installation
3.1.2.2 Limited user interface
3.1.2.3 Target directory
3.1.2.4 Installation for All Users
3.1.2.5 Feature Selection
3.1.3 Uninstallation
3.1.4 Administrative installation
3.1.5 Advertisement
3.1.6 Automatic Installation on a Group of Machines
3.1.7 Installation on Linux using Crossover Office
3.2 Install on Unix/Linux
3.2.1 Ubuntu
3.2.2 Debian, Mint and other debian-based systems
3.2.3 OpenSUSE
3.2.4 Gentoo
3.2.5 Other distributions
3.2.6 Manual install on .deb based systems
3.2.7 Installing on other Linux/Unix systems
3.3 Install on Mac
3.3.1 Simple Installation
3.3.2 Uninstallation
4 Discovering FreeCAD
4.1 What's new
4.2 Foreword
4.3 Installing
4.4 Exploring FreeCAD
4.4.1 Navigating in the 3D space
4.5 2D Drafting
4.5.1 Drawing objects
4.5.2 Modifying objects
4.6 Creating 3D Parts
4.6.1 Primitives
4.7 Exporting to 2D Drawings
4.8 Exporting to external renderers
4.9 Scripting
5 Working with FreeCAD
5.1 3D navigation
5.2 Selecting objects
5.3 Handling Objects
5.4 Manipulating Objects
5.5 Hardware support
5.6 The FreeCAD Document
5.7 Application and User Interface
5.8 Scripting
5.9 Setting User Preferences
5.10 Customizing the Interface
5.11 Object properties
6 Working with workbenches
6.1 The Mesh workbench
6.1.1 Using the mesh module
6.2 The Part workbench
6.2.1 The tools
6.2.2 Primitives
6.2.4 Boolean Operations
6.2.5 Explaining the concepts
6.2.6 Scripting
6.2.7 Examples
6.3 The Drawing workbench
6.3.1 GUI Tools
6.3.2 Scripting
6.3.3 Simple example
6.3.4 The parametric way
6.3.5 Accessing the bits and pieces
6.3.6 Templates
6.4 The Raytracing workbench
6.4.1 GUI Tools
6.4.2 Export a View
6.4.3 Scripting
6.4.4 Links
6.5 The Image workbench
6.6 The Draft workbench
6.6.1 Tutorial
6.6.2 Quickstart
6.6.3 Importing & exporting
6.6.4 Drawing objects
6.6.6 Common behaviours
6.6.7 API
7 Scripting and Macros
7.1 Macros
7.1.1 How it works
7.1.2 Example
7.1.3 Customizing
7.1.4 Creating macros without recording
7.1.5 Macros repository
7.2 Introduction to Python
7.3 The interpreter
7.4 Variables
7.5 Numbers
7.6 Lists
7.7 Indentation
7.8 Functions
7.9 Modules
7.10 Starting with FreeCAD
7.11 Python scripting in FreeCAD
7.11.1 The interpreter
7.11.2 Python Help
7.12 Built-in modules
7.12.1 The App and Gui objects
7.12.2 The Document objects
7.13 Using additional modules
7.13.1 Creating objects
7.13.3 Querying objects
7.13.4 Introduction
7.13.5 Creation and Loading
7.13.6 Modeling
7.13.7 Examining and Testing
7.13.8 Write your own Algorithms
7.13.9 Exporting
7.13.10 Gui related stuff
7.13.11 Odds and Ends
7.14 Introduction
7.14.1 Class Diagram
7.14.2 Geometry
7.14.3 Topology
7.14.4 Quick example : Creating simple topology
7.14.4.1 Creating Geometry
7.14.4.2 Arc
7.14.4.3 Line
7.14.4.4 Putting all together
7.14.4.5 Make a prism
7.14.4.6 Show it all
7.15 Creating basic shapes
7.15.1 Importing the needed modules
7.15.2 Creating a Vector
7.15.3 Creating an Edge
7.15.4 Putting the shape on screen
7.15.5 Creating a Wire
7.15.6 Creating a Face
7.15.7 Creating a Circle
7.15.8 Creating an Arc along points
7.15.9 Creating a polygon
7.15.10 Creating a Plane
7.15.11 Creating an ellipse
7.15.12 Creating a Torus
7.15.13 Creating a box or cuboid
7.15.14 Creating a Sphere
7.15.15 Creating a Cylinder
7.15.16 Creating a Cone
7.16 Modifying shapes
7.16.1 Transform operations
7.16.1.1 Translating a shape
7.16.1.2 Rotating a shape
7.16.1.3 Generic transformations with matrixes
7.16.1.4 Scaling a shape
7.16.2 Boolean Operations
7.16.2.1 Subtraction
7.16.2.2 Intersection
7.16.2.3 Union
7.16.2.4 Section
7.16.2.5 Extrusion
7.17 Exploring shapes
7.17.1 Edge analysis
7.17.2 Using the selection
7.18 Complete example: The OCC bottle
7.18.1 The complete script
7.18.2 Detailed explanation
7.19 Loading and Saving
7.20 Converting Part objects to Meshes
7.21 Converting Meshes to Part objects
7.22 Accessing and modifying the scenegraph
7.23 Using callback mechanisms
7.24 Documentation
7.25 Basic example
7.26 Available properties
7.27 Other more complex example
7.28 Making objects selectable
7.29 Working with simple shapes
7.29.1 Using FreeCAD without GUI
7.29.2 Using FreeCAD with GUI
7.29.3 A typical InitGui.py file
7.29.4 A typical module file
7.29.5 Import a new filetype
7.29.6 Adding a line
7.29.7 Adding a polygon
7.29.8 Adding and removing an object to a group
7.29.9 Adding a Mesh
7.29.10 Adding an arc or a circle
7.29.11 Accessing and changing representation of an object
7.29.12 Observing mouse events in the 3D viewer via Python
7.29.13 Manipulate the scenegraph in Python
7.29.14 Adding and removing objects to/from the scenegraph
7.29.15 Adding custom widgets to the interface
7.30 The main script
7.31 Detailed explanation
7.32 Testing & Using the script
7.33 Registering the script in the FreeCAD interface
7.34 So you want more?
7.35 Designing the dialog
7.36 Converting our dialog to python
7.37 Making our dialog do something
7.38 The complete script
8 Developing applications for FreeCAD
8.1 Statement of the maintainer
8.2 Used Licences
8.3 Impact of the licences
8.3.1 Private users
8.3.2 Professional users
8.3.3 Open Source developers
8.3.4 Professional developers
8.4 Reporting bugs
8.5 Requesting features
8.6 Submitting patches
8.7 The "old" sourceforge tracker (obsolete)
8.7.1 Where to find?
8.7.2 When to use?
8.7.3 Bugs
8.7.4 Feature Requests
8.7.5 Support Requests
8.7.6 New Patches
8.7.7 Prerequisites
8.7.8 Building with cMake
8.7.8.1 The switch to cMake
8.7.8.2 Configure the build process
8.7.8.3 Options for the Build Process
8.7.8.4 command line build
8.7.9 Building older versions
8.7.9.1 Using LibPack
8.7.9.1.1 Directory setup in Visual Studio
8.7.9.1.1.1 Includes
8.7.9.1.1.2 Libs
8.7.9.1.1.3 Executables
8.7.9.1.2 Python needed
8.7.9.1.3 Special for VC8
8.7.9.2 Compile
8.7.9.3 After Compiling
8.7.9.4 Additional stuff
8.7.10 Getting the source
8.7.11 Prerequisites
8.7.11.1 Debian/Ubuntu and most recent distributions
8.7.11.2 Fedora
8.7.11.3 Older and non-conventional distributions
8.7.11.4 OpenCASCADE
8.7.11.5 SoQt
8.7.11.6 Pivy
8.7.12 Compile FreeCAD
8.7.12.1 The autotools way
8.7.12.2 The cMake way
8.7.12.3 Optional parts
8.7.13 Troubleshooting
8.7.13.1 Note for 64bit systems
8.7.13.2 Automake macros
8.7.14 Making a debian package
8.7.15 Automatic build scripts
8.7.15.1 Ubuntu 9.10 - Karmic Koala / Ubuntu 10.04 LTS - Lucid Lynx / Ubuntu
10.10 Maveric
8.7.15.2 Ubuntu 9.04 - Jaunty Jackalope
8.7.15.3 OpenSuse 11.2
8.7.15.4 OpenSuse 11.1
8.7.15.5 Debian Squeeze
8.7.16 Download the FreeCAD sources
8.7.17 Install MacPorts and Library Dependencies
8.7.18 Install Frameworks and OpenCASCADE
8.7.19 Download and 'install' the FreeCAD.app template
8.7.20 Compile
8.7.21 Run
8.7.22 Overview
8.7.23 Links
8.7.24 Details
8.7.24.1 Python
8.7.24.1.1 Description
8.7.24.1.2 Credits
8.7.24.2 OpenCasCade
8.7.24.3 Qt
8.7.24.4 Coin3D
8.7.24.5 ODE (Open dynamic engine)
8.7.24.5.1 Credits
8.7.24.6 SoQt
8.7.24.7 Xerces-C++
8.7.24.8 GTS
8.7.24.9 Zlib
8.7.24.10 Boost
8.7.25 LibPack
8.7.25.1 FreeCADLibs7.x Changelog
8.8 Tool Page
8.8.1 Platform independend tools
8.8.1.1 Qt-Toolkit
8.8.1.2 InkScape
8.8.1.3 Doxygen
8.8.1.4 The Gimp
8.8.2 Tools on Windows
8.8.2.1 Visual Studio 8 Express
8.8.2.2 CamStudio
8.8.2.3 Tortoise SVN
8.8.2.4 StarUML
8.8.3 Tools on Linux
8.9 Starting FreeCAD from the Command line
8.9.1 Command line options
8.9.2 Response and config files
8.9.3 Hidden options
8.10 Running FreeCAD without User Interface
8.11 Running FreeCAD as a python module
8.12 The Config set
8.12.1 User related information
8.12.2 Command line arguments
8.12.3 System related
8.12.4 Build related information
8.12.5 Branding related
8.13 Usage
8.13.1 DistSrc
8.13.2 DistBin
8.13.3 DistSetup
8.13.4 DistSetup
8.13.5 DistAll
8.13.6 NextBuildNumber
8.13.7 CreateModule
8.14 Test first
8.15 command line
8.16 Introduction
8.16.1 General
8.16.2 Images
8.16.2.1 Icons
8.16.2.2 Background Image
8.17 Helping to translate FreeCAD
8.17.1 How to Translate
8.17.2 Translating with Qt-Linguist (old way)
8.17.2.1 Available translation files
8.18 Preparing your own modules/applications for translation
8.18.1 Prerequisites
8.18.2 Project Setup
8.18.3 Setting up python files for translation
8.19 Translating the wiki
8.19.1 Page Naming Convention
8.20 PyQt4
8.20.1 Installation
8.20.2 Usage
8.20.3 Documentation
8.21 Pivy
8.21.1 Installation
8.21.1.1 Debian & Ubuntu
8.21.1.2 Other linux distributions
8.21.1.3 Windows
8.21.2 Usage
8.21.3 Documentation
9 Credits
9.1 Developer
9.1.1 Lead developer
9.1.2 Developers
9.2 Companies
Welcome to the FreeCAD on-line help

This document has been automatically created from the contents of the official FreeCAD wiki documentation, which can be read online at
http://apps.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/free-cad/index.php?title=Main_Page . Since the wiki is actively maintained and continuously
developed by the FreeCAD community of developers and users, you may find that the online version contains more or newer information
than this document. There you will also find in-progress translations of this documentation in several languages. But neverthless, we hope
you will find here all information you need. In case you have questions you can't find answers for in this document, have a look on the
FreeCAD forum (https://apps.sourceforge.net/phpbb/free-cad/index.php) , where you can maybe find your question answered, or someone
able to help you.
How to use
This document is divided into several sections: introduction, usage, scripting and development, the last three address specifically the
three broad categories of users of FreeCAD: end-users, who simply want to use the program, power-users, who are interested by the
scripting capabilities of FreeCAD and would like to customize some of its aspects, and developers, who consider FreeCAD as a base for
developing their own applications. If you are comletely new to FreeCAD, we suggest you to start simply from the introduction.
Contribute
As you may have experienced sometimes, programmers are really bad help writers! For them it is all completely clear because they
made it that way. Therefore it's vital that experienced users help us to write and revise the documentation. Yes, we mean you! How, you
might ask? Just go to the Wiki at http://apps.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/free-cad/index.php in the User section. You will need a
sourceforge account (http://sourceforge.net/) to log in, then you can start editing!
Introduction
FreeCAD is a general purpose 3D CAD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAD) modeler. The
development is completely Open Source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source) (GPL &
LGPL License). FreeCAD is aimed directly at mechanical engineering
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_engineering) and product design
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_design) but also fits in a wider range of uses around
engineering, such as architecture or other engineering specialties.
FreeCAD features tools similar to Catia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catia) , SolidWorks

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidworks) or Solid Edge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_Edge) ,
the FreeCAD interface and therefore also falls into the category of MCAD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAD) , PLM
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_Lifecycle_Management) , CAx
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAx) and CAE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-
aided_engineering) . It will be a feature based parametric modeler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parametric_feature_based_modeler) with a
modular software architecture which makes it easy to provide additional functionality without modifying the core system.
As with many modern 3D CAD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAD) modelers it has many 2D components in order to sketch 2D shapes or
extract design detail from the 3D model to create 2D production drawings, but direct 2D drawing (like AutoCAD LT
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AutoCAD#AutoCAD_LT) ) is not the focus, neither are animation or organic shapes (like Maya
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(software)) , 3ds Max (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3ds_Max) or Cinema 4D
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CINEMA_4D) ), although, thanks to its wide adaptability, FreeCAD might become useful in a much broader
area than its current focus.
Another major concern of FreeCAD is to make heavy use of all the great open-source libraries that exist out there in the field of Scientific
Computing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Computation) . Among them are OpenCascade (http://OpenCascade.org) , a powerful
CAD kernel, Coin3D (http://Coin3D.org) , an incarnation of OpenInventor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Inventor) , Qt
(http://www.qtsoftware.com/) , the world-famous UI framework, and Python (http://www.python.org) , one of the best scripting languages
available. FreeCAD itself can also be used as a library by other programs.
FreeCAD is also fully multi-platform (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-platform) , and currently runs flawlessly on Windows and
Linux/Unix and Mac OSX systems, with the exact same look and functionality on all platforms.
Got curious? Take a look at the Feature list, the latest release notes or the Getting started articles, or head directly to the User hub!
This is an extensive, hence not complete, list of features FreeCAD implements. If you want to look into the future see the Development
roadmap for a quick overview the Screenshots are a nice place to go.
Release notes
Release 0.11
General features
Base application
FreeCAD is multi-platform. It runs and behaves exactly the same way on

Windows Linux and Mac OSX platforms.
FreeCAD is a full GUI application. FreeCAD has a complete Graphical

User Interface based on the famous Qt (http://www.qtsoftware.com/)
framework, with a 3D viewer based on Open Inventor
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Inventor) , allowing fast rendering of 3D
scenes and a very accessible scene graph representation.
FreeCAD also runs as a command line application, with low memory

footprint. In command line mode, FreeCAD runs without its interface, but
with all its geometry tools. It can be, for example, used as server to
produce content for other applications.
FreeCAD can be imported as a Python module, inside other applications that can run python scripts, or in a python console.
Like in console mode, the interface part of FreeCAD is unavailable, but all geometry tools are accessible.
Plugin/Module framework for late loading of features/data-types. FreeCAD is divided into a core application and modules,
that are loaded only when needed. Almost all the tools and geometry types are stored in modules. Modules behave like plugins,
and can be added or removed to an existing installation of FreeCAD.
Built-in scripting framework: FreeCAD features a built-in Python (http://www.python.org/) interpreter, and an API that covers
almost any part of the application, the interface, the geometry and the representation of this geometry in the 3D viewer. The
interpreter can run single commands up to complex scripts, in fact entire modules can even be programmed completely in Python.
a modular MSI installer allows flexible installations on Windows systems. Packages for Ubuntu systems are also maintained.
Document structure
Undo/Redo framework: Everything is undo/redoable, with access to the

undo stack, so multiple steps can be undone at a time.
Transaction management: The undo/redo stack stores document

transactions and not single actions, allowing each tool to define exactly
what must be undone or redone.
Parametric associative document objects: All objects in a FreeCAD

document can be defined by parameters. Those parameters can be
modified on the fly, and recomputed anytime. The relationship between
objects is also stored, so modifying one object also modifies its dependent
objects.
Compound (ZIP based) document save format: FreeCAD documents

saved with .fcstd extension can contain many different types of information, such as geometry, scripts or thumbnail icons.
User Interface
Fully customizable/scriptable Graphical User Interface. The Qt (http://www.qtsoftware.com) -based interface of FreeCAD is
entirely accessible via the python interpreter. Aside from the simple functions that FreeCAD itself provides to workbenches, the
whole Qt framework is accessible too, allowing any operation on the GUI, such as creating, adding, docking, modifying or removing
widgets and toolbars.
Workbench concept: In the FreeCAD interface, tools are grouped by workbenches. This allows to display only the tools used to
accomplish a certain task, keeping the workspace uncluttered and responsive, and the application fast to load.
Built-in Python console with syntax highlighting, autocomplete and class browser: Python commands can be issued directly in
FreeCAD and immediately return results, permitting scriptwriters to test functionality on the fly, explore the contents of the
modules and easily learn about FreeCAD internals.
User interaction mirroring on the console: Everything the user does in the FreeCAD interface executes python code, which can
be printed on the console and recorded in macros.
Full macro recording & editing: The python commands issued when the user manipulates the interface can then be recorded,
edited if needed, and saved to be reproduced later.
Thumbnailer (Linux systems only at the moment): The FreeCAD document icons show the contents of the file in most file
manager applications such as gnome's nautilus.
Application specific features

The functionality of FreeCAD is separated in modules, each one dealing with special data types and applications:
Meshes
The Mesh Module deals with 3D meshes. It is intented primarily for import,
healing and conversion of third-party generated mesh geometry into
FreeCAD, and export of FreeCAD geometry into mesh formats. But
FreeCAD itself also features much more advanced geometry types than
meshes.
Primitive creation (box, sphere, cylinder, etc), offset (trivial or after

Jung/Shin/Choi) or boolean operations (add, cut, intersect)
Import of the following formats: ASCII or binary STL (Stereo lithography

format) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STL_%28file_format%29) (*.stl, *.ast),
the OBJ format (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obj) (*.obj), limited NASTRAN
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASTRAN) support (*.nas), Open Inventor
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Inventor) meshes (*.iv), and FreeCAD
native mesh kernel (*.bms)
Export of the following formats: ASCII or binary STL (Stereo lithography format)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STL_%28file_format%29) (*.stl, *.ast), the OBJ format (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obj) (*.obj), limited
NASTRAN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASTRAN) support (*.nas, *.brl), VRML (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VRML) meshes
(*.wrl), FreeCAD native mesh kernel (*.bms), mesh as Python module (*.py)
Testing and repairing tools for meshes: solid test, non-two-manifolds test, self-intersection test, hole filling and uniform
orientation.
Extensive Python scripting API.
2D Drafting
Graphical creation of simple planar geometry like lines, wires, rectangles, arcs or circles in any plane of the 3D space
Annotations like texts or dimensions
Graphical modification operations like translation, rotation, scaling, mirroring, offset or shape conversion, in any plane of the 3D
space
Import and Export of the following formats: Autodesk's Drawing Exchange Format (*.dxf), Open Cad Format (*.oca, *.gcad) e
SVG (*.svg)
CAD
The Part Module deals with everything around CAD modeling and the CAD
data structures. The CAD functionality is under heavy development (see the
PartDesign_project and Assembly_project in the Development_roadmap).
The Part Module works with high-level Open CASCADE
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_CASCADE) geometry.
Parametric primitive shapes like box, sphere, cylinder, cone or torus.
Topological components like vertices, edges, wires and planes (via

python scripting).
Modeling with straight or revolution extrusions, sections and fillets.
Boolean operations
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_solid_geometry) like union,
difference and intersection.
Extensive Python scripting API.
Import and Export of the following formats: STEP

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_for_the_Exchange_of_Product_model_data) parts and assemblies (*.stp,*.step), IGES
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IGES) models (*.igs, *.iges) and BRep (*.brp), the native format of our Open CASCADE
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_CASCADE) CAD kernel.
Raytracing
The Raytracing Module permits the export of FreeCAD geometry to external renderers for generation of high-quality images.
Currently, the only supported render engine is POV-Ray (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POV-Ray) . The module currently permits the
creation of a render sheet, and adding geometry to that render sheet for export to a POV-Ray file.
Drawing
The Drawing Module allows to export projected views of your 3D geometry to a 2D SVG document. It allows the creation of a 2D
sheet with an existing svg template, and the insertion of projected views of your geometry in that sheet. Then the sheet can be
saved as a SVG file.
CAM
The Cam Module is dedicated to mechanical machining like milling. This module is at the very beginning and at the moment
mostly dedicated to Incremental Sheet Forming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incremental_sheet_forming) . Although there are some
algorithms for toolpath planing they are not usable for the end-user at the moment.
Installation
Install on Windows
The easiest way to install FreeCAD on Windows is by using the installer. This page describes the usage and the features of the
Microsoft Installer for more installation options.
Simple Installation
FreeCAD installer is delivered in .msi (Windows Installer) format.
You can download the latest .msi file from the official FreeCAD Download page (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?
group_id=49159&package_id=206659) . After downloading the file, just double-click on it to start the installation process.
Command Line Installation
With the msiexec.exe command line utility, additional features are available, like non-interactive installation and administrative installation.
Non-interactive Installation
With the command line
msiexec /i FreeCAD<version>.msi
installation can be initiated programmatically. Additional parameters can be passed at the end of this command line, like
msiexec /i FreeCAD-2.5.msi TARGETDIR=r:\FreeCAD25
Limited user interface
The amount of user interface that installer displays can be controlled with /q options, in particular:
/qn - No interface
/qb - Basic interface - just a small progress dialog
/qb! - Like /qb, but hide the Cancel button
/qr - Reduced interface - display all dialogs that don't require user interaction (skip all modal dialogs)
/qn+ - Like /qn, but display "Completed" dialog at the end
/qb+ - Like /qb, but display "Completed" dialog at the end
Target directory
The property TARGETDIR determines the root directory of the FreeCAD installation. For example, a different installation drive can be
specified with
TARGETDIR=R:\FreeCAD25
The default TARGETDIR is [WindowsVolume\Programm Files\]FreeCAD<version>.
Installation for All Users
Adding
ALLUSERS=1
causes an installation for all users. By default, the non-interactive installation install the package just for the current user, and the
interactive installation offers a dialog which defaults to "all users" if the user is sufficiently privileged.
Feature Selection
A number of properties allow selection of features to be installed, reinstalled, or removed. The set of features for the FreeCAD installer is
DefaultFeature - install the software proper, plus the core libraries

Documentation - install documentation
Source code - install the sources
... ToDo
In addition, ALL specifies all features. All features depend on DefaultFeature, so installing any feature automatically installs the default
feature as well. The following properties control features to be installed or removed
ADDLOCAL - list of feature to be installed on the local machine

REMOVE - list of features to be removed
ADDDEFAULT - list of features added in their default configuration (which is local for all FreeCAD features)
REINSTALL - list of features to be reinstalled/repaired
ADVERTISE - list of feature for which to perform an advertise installation
There are a few additional properties available; see the MSDN documentation for details.
With these options, adding
ADDLOCAL=Extensions
installs the interpreter itself and registers the extensions, but does not install anything else.
Uninstallation
With
msiexec /x FreeCAD<version>.msi
FreeCAD can be uninstalled. It is not necessary to have the MSI file available for uninstallation; alternatively, the package or product code
can also be specified. You can find the product code by looking at the properties of the Uninstall shortcut that FreeCAD installs in the
start menu.
Administrative installation
With
msiexec /a FreeCAD<version>.msi
an "administrative" (network) installation can be initiated. The files get unpacked into the target directory (which should be a network
directory), but no other modification is made to the local system. In addition, another (smaller) msi file is generated in the target directory,
which clients can then use to perform a local installation (future versions may also offer to keep some features on the network drive
altogether).
Currently, there is no user interface for administrative installations, so the target directory must be passed on the command line.
There is no specific uninstall procedure for an administrative install - just delete the target directory if no client uses it anymore.
Advertisement
With
msiexec /jm FreeCAD<version>.msi
it would be possible, in principle, to "advertise" FreeCAD to a machine (with /ju to a user). This would cause the icons to appear in the
start menu, and the extensions to become registered, without the software actually being installed. The first usage of a feature would
cause that feature to be installed.
The FreeCAD installer currently supports just advertisement of start menu entries, but no advertisement of shortcuts.
Automatic Installation on a Group of Machines
With Windows Group Policy, it is possible to automatically install FreeCAD an a group of machines. To do so, perform the following
steps:
1. Log on to the domain controller

2. Copy the MSI file into a folder that is shared with access granted to all target machines.
3. Open the MMC snapin "Active Directory users and computers"
4. Navigate to the group of computers that need FreeCAD
5. Open Properties
6. Open Group Policies
7. Add a new policy, and edit it
8. In Computer Configuration/Software Installation, choose New/Package
9. Select the MSI file through the network path
10. Optionally, select that you want the FreeCAD to be deinstalled if the computer leaves the scope of the policy.
Group policy propagation typically takes some time - to reliably deploy the package, all machines should be rebooted.
Installation on Linux using Crossover Office
You can install the windows version of FreeCAD on a Linux system using CXOffice 5.0.1. Run msiexec from the CXOffice command line,
assuming that the install package is placed in the "software" directory which is mapped to the drive letter "Y:":
msiexec /i Y:\\software\\FreeCAD<version>.msi
FreeCAD is running, but it has been reported that the OpenGL display does not work, like with other programms running under Wine i.e.
Google SketchUp.
Install on Unix/Linux
The installation of FreeCAD on the most well-known linux systems has been now endorsed by the community, and FreeCAD should be
directly available via the package manager available on your distribution. The FreeCAD team also provides a couple of "official" packages
when new releases are made, and a couple of experimental PPA repositories for testing bleedig-edge features.
Ubuntu
FreeCAD is available from Ubuntu repositories since version 9.04, and can be installed via the software center or with:
sudo apt-get install freecad
Alternatively, the freecad community provides a PPA with daily builds. This PPA is updated and built automatically every day from latest
source code, and therefore contains maximum one-day old bleeding edge new features, but can also sometimes contain regressions
(functionality that stops working). To add this PPA to your software sources list, do:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:freecad-maintainers/freecad-daily

sudo apt-get update
The freecad community also provides another PPA, which is updated manually every once in a while, which is therefore safer:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:freecad-maintainers/freecad-dev

sudo apt-get update
More information on the Download#Ubuntu_PPA_packages page
Debian, Mint and other debian-based systems
Since Debian Lenny, FreeCAD is available directly from the Debian software repositories and can be installed via synaptic or simply with:
OpenSUSE
FreeCAD is typically installed with:
zypper install FreeCAD
Gentoo
FreeCAD can be built/installed simply by issuing:

emerge freecad
Other distributions
If you find out that your system features FreeCAD but is not documented in this page, please tell us on the forum
(http://apps.sourceforge.net/phpbb/free-cad/viewforum.php?f=8) !
Many alternative, non-official FreeCAD packages are available on the net, for example for systems like slackware or fedora. A search on
the net can quickly give you some results.
Manual install on .deb based systems
If for some reason you cannot use one of the above methods, you can always download one of the .deb packages available on the
Downloads page.
Once you downloaded the .deb corresponding to your system version, if you have the Gdebi package installed (usually it is), you just
need to navigate to where you downloaded the file, and double-click on it. The necessary dependencies will be taken care of automatically
by your system package manager. Alternatively you can also install it from the terminal, navigating to where you downloaded the file, and
type:
sudo dpkg -i Name_of_your_FreeCAD_package.deb
changing Name_of_your_FreeCAD_package.deb by the name of the file you downloaded.
After you installed FreeCAD, a startup icon will be added in the "Graphic" section of your Start Menu.
Installing on other Linux/Unix systems
Unfortnately, at the moment, no precompiled package is available for other Linux/Unix systems,so you will need to compile FreeCAD
yourself.
Install on Mac
FreeCAD can be installed on Mac OS X in one step using the Installer. This page describes the usage and features of the FreeCAD
installer. It also includes uninstallation instructions.
Simple Installation
The FreeCAD installer is provided as a Installer package (.mpkg) enclosed in a disk image file.
You can download the latest installer from the Download page. After downloading the file, just mount the disk image, then run the Install
FreeCAD package.
The installer will present you with a Customize Installation screen that lists the packages that will be installed. If you know that you
already have any of these packages, you can deselect them using the checkboxes. If you're not sure, just leave all items checked.
Uninstallation
There currently isn't an uninstaller for FreeCAD. To completely remove FreeCAD and all installed components, drag the following files and
folders to the Trash:
In /Applications:
FreeCAD
in /Library/Frameworks/
SoQt.framework
Inventor.framework
Then, from the terminal, run:
sudo /Developer/Tools/uninstall-qt.py
sudo rm -R /usr/local/lib/OCC
sudo rm -R /usr/local/include/OCC
That's it. Eventually, FreeCAD will be available as a self-contained application bundle so all this hassle will go away.
Discovering FreeCAD
What's new
Version 0.11 Release notes : Check what's new in the 0.11 release of FreeCAD
Foreword
FreeCAD is a CAD/CAE parametric modeling application. It is still in early stage of development, so don't expect to be able to use it to
produce work already. But, if you are curious about what FreeCAD looks like and what features are being developed, you are welcome to
download it and give it a try. At the moment, much functionality is already present, but not much user interface has been created for it.
This means that if you know a bit of python, you will already be able to produce and modify complex geometry relatively easily. If not, you
will probably find that FreeCAD still has few to offer to you. But, be patient, this is expected to change soon.
And if after testing you have feedback, ideas or opinions, please share it with us on the FreeCAD discussion forum
(http://apps.sourceforge.net/phpbb/free-cad/index.php) !
Installing
First of all (if not done already) download and install FreeCAD. See the Download page for information about current versions and updates.
There are install packages ready for Windows (.msi), Ubuntu & Debian (.deb) openSUSE (.rpm) and Mac OSX.
Exploring FreeCAD
The FreeCAD interface w hen you start it for the first time. See more screenshots here.
FreeCAD is a general all-purpose 3D modeling application, focused on mechanical engineering and related areas, such as other
engineering specialties or architecture. It is conceived as a platform for developing any kind of 3D application, but also for doing very
specific tasks. For that purpose, its interface is divided into a serie of Workbenches. Workbenches allow to change the interface contents
to display all and only the tools necessary for a specific task, or group of tasks.
The FreeCAD interface can therefore be described as a very simple container, with a menu bar, a 3D view area, and a couple of side
panels for displaying the scene contents or object properties. All the contents of these panels can be changes depending on the
workbench.
When you start FreeCAD for the first time, you will be presented a "general" workbench, that we call "complete workbench". This
workbench simply gathers the most mature tools from other workbenches. Since FreeCAD is pretty young and not yet used for very
specialized work, this workbench is very handy for discovering FreeCAD more easily. Basically, all the tools that are good enough for
producing geometry are here.
Navigating in the 3D space
FreeCAD has two different navigation modes availables, that can be set in the preferences settings dialog. In the default mode, zooming
is made with the Mouse wheel , panning with the Middle mouse button , and rotating with the Left mouse button and Middle
mouse button simultaneously. Selecting an object is made simply by clicking on it with the Left mouse button , with CTRL pressed if
you want to select several objects.
You also have several view presets (top view, front view, etc) available in the View menu and on the View toolbar, and by numeric
shortcuts ( 1 , 2 , etc...)
2D Drafting
Drawing objects
These are tools for creating objects.
2-point Line: Draws a line segment from 2 points
Wire (multiple-point line): Draws a line made of multiple line segments
Circle: Draws a circle from center and radius
Arc: Draws an arc segment from center, radius, start angle and end angle
Rectangle: Draws a rectangle from 2 opposite points
Polygon: Draws a regular polygon from a center and a radius
BSpline: Draws a B-Spline from a serie of points
Text: Draws a multi-line text annotation
Dimension: Draws a dimension annotation
Modifying objects
These are tools for modifying existing objects. They work on selected objects, but if no object is selected, you will be invited to select
one.
Move: Moves object(s) from one location to another
Rotate: Rotates object(s) from a start angle to an end angle
Offset: Moves segments of an object about a certain distance
Upgrade: Joins objects into a higher-level object
Downgrade: Explodes objects into lower-level objects
Trim/Extend (Trimex): Trims or extends an object
Scale: Scales selected object(s) around a base point
Edit: Edits a selected object
Drawing: Writes selected objects to a Drawing sheet
Creating 3D Parts
Primitives
These are tools for creating primitive objects.
Box: Draws a box by specifying its dimensions
Cone: Draws a cone by specifying its dimensions

Cylinder: Draws a cylinder by specifying its dimensions
Sphere: Draws a sphere by specifying its dimensions
Torus: Draws a torus (ring) by specifying its dimensions
Modifying objects
These are tools for modifying existing objects. They will allow you to choose which object to modify.
Booleans: Performs boolean operations on objects
Fuse: Fuses (unions) two objects
Common: Extracts the common (intersection) part of two objects
Cut: Cuts (subtracts) one object from another
Extrude: Extrudes planar faces of an object
Fillet: Fillets (rounds) edges of an object
Revolve: Creates an object by revolving another object around an axis
Section: Creates a section by intersecting an object with a section plane
Chamfer: Chamfers edges of an object
Mirror: Mirrors the selected object around a given axis
Exporting to 2D Drawings
These are tools for creating, configuring and exporting 2D drawing sheets
New drawing sheet: Creates a new drawing sheet from an existing SVG file
New A3 landscape drawing: Creates a new drawing sheet from FreeCAD's default A3 template
Insert a view: Inserts a view of the selected object in the active drawing sheet
Save sheet: Saves the current sheet as a SVG file
Exporting to external renderers

These are tools for exporting your 3D work to external renderers
New PovRay project: Insert new PovRay project in the document
Export view to povray: Write the active 3D view with camera and all its content to a povray file
Export camera to povray: Export the camera position of the active 3D view in POV-Ray format to a file
Export part to povray: Write the selected Part (object) as a povray file
Scripting
And finally, one of the most powerful features of FreeCAD is the scripting environment. From the integrated python console (or from any
other external python script), you can gain access to almost any part of FreeCAD, create or modify geometry, modify the representation
of those objects in the 3D scene or access and modify the FreeCAD interface. Python scripting can also be used in macros, which
provide an easy method to create custom commands.
Working with FreeCAD

3D navigation
The mouse model of FreeCAD is very flexible and intuitive and with a few hints you can use it after only a minute of practice.
Selecting objects
Objects can be selected by a click with the left mouse button either by clicking on the object in the 3D-view or by selecting it in the tree
view. There is also a Preselection mechanism that highlights objects and displays information about them before selection just by
hovering the mouse over it. If you don't like that behaviour or you have a slow machine, you can switch preselection off in the preferences.
Handling Objects
The object handling is common to all workbenches. The following mouse gestures can be used to control the object position and view.
Select
Press the left mouse button over an object you want to select.
Zoom
Use the + or - keys or the mouse wheel to zoom in and out.
Pan
Click the middle mouse button and move the object around.
Rotate
Click first with the middle mouse button, hold it and the click the left mouse button on any visible part of an object and drag it in the
desired direction. This works like spinning a ball that rotates around its center. If you release the buttons before you stop your
motion, the object continues spinning, if this is enabled.
Setting Center of Rotation

A double click with the middle mouse button on any part of an object sets the new center of rotation and zooms in on this point.
Manipulating Objects
FreeCAD offers manipulators that can be used to modify an object or its visual appearance. A simple example is the clipping plane wich
can be activated with the ViewClipping Plane menu. After activation the clipping plane object appears and shows seven obvious
manipulators as little boxes: One on each end of its three coordinate axes and one on the center of the plane normal axis. There are four
more that are not as obvious: The plane itself and the thin part of the three axis objects.
Scaling
To scale the object click with the left mouse button on the box manipulators at the end of the axes and pull them back and forth.
Depending on the object the manipulators work independently or synchronously.
Out of plane shifting
To shift the object along its normal vector, pull the long box on the center of an axis with the left mouse button. For the clipping
plane there is only one manipulator along the normal vector.
In plane shifting
To move the center of the clipping plane, click on the plane object and pull it to the desired location.
Rotation
Clicking on the thin part of the axes puts the manipulator in rotation mode.
Hardware support
The SVN version of FreeCAD also supports a couple of 3D input devices.
The FreeCAD Document

A FreeCAD document contains all the objects of your scene. It can contain groups, and objects
made with any workbench. You can therefore switch between workbenches, and still work on
the same document. The document is what gets saved to disk when you save your work. You
can also open several documents at the same time in FreeCAD, and open several views of the
same document.
Inside the document, the objects can be moved into and groups, and have a unique name.
Managing groups, objects and object names is done mainly from the Tree view. It can also be
done, of course, like everything in FreeCAD, from the python interpretor. In the Tree view, you
can create groups, move objects to groups, delete objects or groups, by right-clicking in the tree
view or on an object, rename objects by double-clicking on their names, or possibly other
operations, depending on the current workbench.
The objects inside a FreeCAD document can be of different types. Each workbench can create
its own types of objects, for example the Mesh Workbench creates mesh objects, the Part
Workbench create Part objects, the Draft Workbench also creates Part objects, etc.
If there is at least one document open in FreeCAD, there is always one and only one active
document. That's the document that appears in the current 3D view, the document you are
currently working on.
Application and User Interface

Like almost everything else in FreeCAD, the user interface part (Gui) is separated from the base application part (App). This is also valid
for documents. The documents are also made of two parts: the Application document, which contains our objects, and the View
document, which contains the representation on screen of our objects.
Think of it as two spaces, where the objects are defined. Their constructive parameters (is it a cube? a cone? which size?) are stored in
the Application document, while their graphical representation (is it drawn with black lines? with blue faces?) are stored in the View
document. Why is that? Because FreeCAD can also be used WITHOUT graphical interface, for example inside other programs, and we
must still be able to manipulate our objects, even if nothing is drawn on the screen.
Another thing that is contained inside the View document are 3D views. One document can have several views opened, so you can
inspect your document from several points of view at the same time. Maybe you would want to see a top view and a front view of your
work at the same time? Then, you will have two views of the same document, both stored in the View document. Create new views or
close views can be done from the View menu or by right-clicking on a view tab.
Scripting
Documents can be easily created, accessed and modified from the python interpreter. For example:
FreeCAD.ActiveDocument
Will return the current (active) document
FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.Blob
Would access an object called "Blob" inside your document
FreeCADGui.ActiveDocument
Will return the view document associated to the current document
FreeCADGui.ActiveDocument.Blob
Would access the graphical representation (view) part of our Blob object
FreeCADGui.ActiveDocument.ActiveView
Will return the current view
Setting User Preferences

The preferences system of FreeCAD is located in the Edit menu -> Preferences.
FreeCAD functionality is divided into different modules, each module being responsible for the working of a specific workbench. FreeCAD
also uses a concept called late loading, which means that components are loaded only when they are needed. You may have noticed that
when you select a workbench on the FreeCAD toolbar, that workbench and all its components get loaded at that moment. This includes
its preferences settings.
The general preferences settings
When you start FreeCAD with no workbench loaded, you will then have a minimal preferences window. As you load additional modules,
new sections will appear in the preferences window, allowing you to configure the details of each workbench.
Without any module loaded, you will have access to two configuration sections, responsibles for the general application settings and for
the display settings.
The display settings
FreeCAD is always in constant evolution, so the contents of those screens might differ from the above screenshots. The settings are
usually self-explanatory, so you shouldn't meet any difficulty configuring FreeCAD to your needs.
Customizing the Interface

Since FreeCAD interface is based on the modern Qt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_(toolkit)) toolkit, it has a state-of-the-art organization.
Widgets, menus, toolbars and other tools can be modified, moved, shared between workbenches, keyboard shortcuts can be set,
modified, and macros can be recorded and played. The customization window is accessed from the Tools -> Customize menu:
The Commands tab lets you browse all available FreeCAD commands, organized by their category.
In Keyboard, you can see the keyboard shortcuts associated with every FreeCAD command, and if you want, modify or assign new
shortcut to any command. This is where to come if you use a particular workbench often, and would like to speed up its use by using the
keyboard.
The Toolbars and Toolbox bars tabs let you modify existing toolbars, or create your own custom toolbars.
The Macros tab lets you manage your saved Macros.
Object properties
A property is a piece of information like a number or a text string that is attached to a FreeCAD document or an object in a document.
Properties can be viewed and - if allowed - modified with the property editor.
Properties play a very important part in FreeCAD, since it is from the beginning made to work with parametric objects, which are objects
defined only by their properties.
Custom scripted objects in FreeCAD can have properties of the following types:
Boolean
Float
FloatList
FloatConstraint
Angle
Distance
Integer
IntegerConstraint
Percent
Enumeration
IntegerList
String
StringList
Link
LinkList
Matrix
Vector
VectorList
Placement
PlacementLink
Color
ColorList
Material
Path
File
FileIncluded
PartShape
FilletContour
Circle
Working with workbenches

FreeCAD, like many modern design applications such as Revit or Catia, is based on the concept of Workbench. A workbench can be
considered as a set of tools specially grouped for a certain task. In a traditional furniture workshop, you would have a work table for the
person who works with wood, another one for the one who works with metal pieces, and maybe a third one for the guy who mounts all the
pieces together.
In FreeCAD, the same concept applies. Tools are grouped into workbenches according to the tasks they are related to.
Currently we have the following workbenches available:
The Mesh Workbench for working with triangulated meshes

The Part Workbench for working with CAD parts
The Image Workbench for working with bitmap images
The Raytracing Workbench for working with ray-tracing (rendering)
The Draft Workbench for doing basic 2D CAD drafting
The Drawing workbench for displaying your 3D work on a 2D sheet
The Robot Workbench for studying robot movements
The Sketcher Workbench for working with geometry-constrained sketches
The Part Design Workbench for building Part shapes from sketches
The Arch Workbench for working with architectural elements
New workbenches are in development, stay tuned!
When you switch from one workbench to another, the tools available on the interface change. Toolbars, command bars and eventually
other parts of the interface switch to the new workbench, but the contents of your scene doesn't change. You could, for example, start
drawing 2D shapes with the Draft Workbench, then work further on them with the Part Workbench.
The Mesh workbench

The Mesh Workbench handles triangle meshes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_mesh) . Meshes are a special type of 3D objects,
composed of triangles conected by their edges and their corners (also called vertices).
An example of a mesh object
Many 3D applications use meshes as their primary type of 3D object, like sketchup (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketchup) , blender
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(software)) , maya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(software)) or 3d studio max
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3d_max) . Since meshes are very simple objects, containing only vertices (points), edges and (triangular)
faces, they are very easy to create, modify, subdivide, stretch, and can easily be passed from one application to another without any loss.
Besides, since they contain very simple data, 3D applications can usually manage very large quantities of them without any problem. For
those reasons, meshes are often the 3D object type of choice of applications dealing with movies, animation, and image creation.
In the field of engineering, however, meshes present one big limitation: They are very dumb objects, only composed of points,lines and
faces. They are only made of surfaces, and have no mass information, so they don't behave as solids. In a mesh there is no automatic
way to know if a point is inside or outside the object. This means that all solid-based operations, such as addition or subtraction, are
always a bit difficult to perform on meshes, and return errors often.
In FreeCAD, since it is an engineering application, we would obviously prefer to work with more intelligent types of 3D objects, that can
carry more informations, such as mass, solid behaviour, or even custom parameters. The mesh module was first created to serve as a
testbed, but be able to read, manipulate and convert meshes is also highly important for FreeCAD. Very often, in your workflow, you will
receive 3D data in mesh format. You will need to handle that data, analyse it to detect errors or other problems that prevent converting
them to more intelligent objects, and finally, convert them to more intelligent objects, handled by the Part Module.
Using the mesh module
The mesh module has currently a very simple interface, all its functions are grouped in the Mesh menu entry. The most important
operations you can currently do with meshes are:
Import meshes in several file formats

Export meshes in several file formats
Convert Part objects into meshes
Analyse curvature, faces, and check if a mesh can be safely converted into a solid
Flip mesh normals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_normal)
Close holes in meshes
Remove faces of meshes
Union, subtract and intersect meshes
Create mesh primitives, like cubes, spheres, cones or cylinders
Cut meshes along a line
These are only some of the basic operations currently present in the Mesh module interface. But the FreeCAD meshes can also be
handled in many more ways by scripting.
The Part workbench

the CAD capabilities of FreeCAD are based on the OpenCasCade (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_CASCADE) kernel. The Part module
allows FreeCAD to access and use the OpenCasCade objects and functions. OpenCascade is a professional-level CAD kernel, that
features advanced 3D geometry manipulation and objects. The Part objects, unlike Mesh Module objects, are much more complex, and
therefore permit much more advanced operations, like coheent booleans operations, modifications history and parametric behaviour.
Example of Part shapes in FreeCAD
The tools
The Part module tools are all located in the Part menu that appears when you load the Part module.
Primitives
These are tools for creating primitive objects.
Box: Draws a box by specifying its dimensions
Cone: Draws a cone by specifying its dimensions
Cylinder: Draws a cylinder by specifying its dimensions
Sphere: Draws a sphere by specifying its dimensions
Torus: Draws a torus (ring) by specifying its dimensions
Modifying objects
These are tools for modifying existing objects. They will allow you to choose which object to modify.
Booleans: Performs boolean operations on objects
Fuse: Fuses (unions) two objects
Common: Extracts the common (intersection) part of two objects
Cut: Cuts (subtracts) one object from another
Extrude: Extrudes planar faces of an object

Fillet: Fillets (rounds) edges of an object
Revolve: Creates an object by revolving another object around an axis
Section: Creates a section by intersecting an object with a section plane
Chamfer: Chamfers edges of an object
Mirror: Mirrors the selected object around a given axis
Boolean Operations
An example of union (Fuse), intersection (Common) and difference (Cut)
Explaining the concepts
In OpenCasCade terminology, we distinguish between geometric primitives and (topological) shapes. A geometric primitive can be a point,
a line, a circle, a plane, etc. or even some more complex types like a B-Spline curve or surface. A shape can be a vertex, an edge, a wire,
a face, a solid or a compound of other shapes. The geometric primitive are not made to be directly displayed on the 3D scene, but rather
to be used as building geometry for shapes. For example, an edge can be constructed from a line or from a portion of a circle.
We could say, to resume, that geometry primitive are "shapeless" building blocks, and shapes are the real spatial geometry built on it.
To get a complete list of all of them refer to the OCC documentation (http://www.opencascade.org/org/doc/) and search for
Geom_Geometry and TopoDS_Shape. There you can also read more about the differences between geometric objects and shapes.
Please note that unfortunately the OCC documentation is not available online (you must download an archive) and is mostly aimed at
programmers, not at end-users. But hopefully you'll find enough information to get started here.
The geometric types actually can be divided into two major groups: curves and surfaces. Out of the curves (line, circle, ...) you can
directly build an edge, out of the surfaces (plane, cylinder, ...) a face can be built. For example, the geometric primitive line is unlimited,
i.e. it is defined by a base vector and a direction vector while its shape representation must be something limited by a start and end point.
And a box -- a solid -- can be created by six limited planes.
From an edge or face you can also go back to its geometric primitive counter part.
Thus, out of shapes you can build very complex parts or, the other way round, extract all sub-shape a more complex shape is made of.
Scripting
The main data structure used in the Part module is the BRep (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_representation) data type from
OpenCascade. About all contents and object types of the Part module are now available to python scripting. This includes geometric
primitives, such as Line and Circle (or Arc), and the whole range of TopoShapes, like Vertexes, Edges, Wires, Faces, Solids and
Compounds. For each of those objects, several creations methods exist, and for some of them, especially the TopoShapes, advanced
operations like booleans union/difference/intersection are also available. Explore the contents of the Part module, as described in the
FreeCAD Scripting Basics page, to know more.
Examples
To create a line element switch to the Python console and type in:
import Part,PartGui
doc=App.newDocument()
l=Part.Line()
l.StartPoint=(0.0,0.0,0.0)
l.EndPoint=(1.0,1.0,1.0)
doc.addObject("Part::Feature","Line").Shape=l.toShape()
doc.recompute()
Let's go through the above python example step by step:
import Part,PartGui
loads the Part module and creates a new document
l=Part.Line()
l.EndPoint=(1.0,1.0,1.0)
Line is actually a line segment, hence the start and endpoint.
This adds a Part object type to the document and assigns the shape representation of the line segment to the 'Shape' property of the
added object. It is important to understand here that we used a geometric primitive (the Part.line) to create a TopoShape out of it (the
toShape() method). Only Shapes can be added to the document. In FreeCAD, geometry primitives are used as "building structures" for
Shapes.
doc.recompute()
Updates the document. This also prepare the visual representation of the new part object.
Note that a Line can be created by specifiying its start and endpoint directly in the constructor, for ex. Part.Line(point1,point2) or we can
create a default line and set its properties afterwards, like we did here.
A circle can be created in a similar way:
import Part
doc = App.activeDocument()
c = Part.Circle()
c.Radius=10.0
f = doc.addObject("Part::Feature", "Circle")
f.Shape = c.toShape()
doc.recompute()
Note again, we used the circle (geometry primitive) to construct a shape out of it. We can of course still access our construction
geometry afterwards, by doing:
s = f.Shape
e = s.Edges[0]
c = e.Curve
Here we take the shape of our object f, then we take its list of edges, in this case there will be only one because we made the whole
shape out of a single circle, so we take only the first item of the Edges list, and we takes its curve. Every Edge has a Curve, which is the
geometry primitive it is based on.
Head to the Topological data scripting page if you would like to know more.
The Drawing workbench

The Drawing module allows you to put your 3D work on paper. That is, to put views of your models in a 2D window and to insert that
window in a drawing, for example a sheet with a border, a title and your logo and finally print that sheet. The Drawing module is currently
under construction and more or less a technology preview!
GUI Tools
These are tools for creating, configuring and exporting 2D drawing sheets
New drawing sheet: Creates a new drawing sheet from an existing SVG file
New A3 landscape drawing: Creates a new drawing sheet from FreeCAD's default A3 template
Insert a view: Inserts a view of the selected object in the active drawing sheet
Save sheet: Saves the current sheet as a SVG file
In the picture you see the main concepts of the Drawing module. The document contains a shape object (Schenkel) which we want to
extract to a drawing. Therefore a "Page" is created. A page gets instantiated through a template, in this case the "A3_Landscape"
template. The template is an SVG document which can hold your usual page frame, your logo or comply to your presentation standards.
In this page we can insert one or more views. Each view has a position on the page (Properties X,Y), a scale factor (Property scale) and
additional properties. Every time the page or the view or the referenced object changes the page gets regenerated and the page display
updated.
Scripting
At the moment the end user(GUI) workflow are very limited, so the scripting API is more interesting. Here follows examples on how to use
the scripting API of the drawing module.
Simple example
First of all you need the Part and the Drawing module:
import FreeCAD, Part, Drawing
Create a small sample part
Part.show(Part.makeBox(100,100,100).cut(Part.makeCylinder(80,100)).cut(Part.makeBox(90,40,100)).cut(Part.makeBox(20,85,10
3 4
Direct projection. The G0 means hard edge, the G1 is tangent continuous.
Shape = App.ActiveDocument.Shape.Shape
[visibleG0,visibleG1,hiddenG0,hiddenG1] = Drawing.project(Shape)
print "visible edges:", len(visibleG0.Edges)
print "hidden edges:", len(hiddenG0.Edges)
Everything was projected on the Z-plane:
print "Bnd Box shape: X=",Shape.BoundBox.XLength," Y=",Shape.BoundBox.YLength," Z=",Shape.BoundBox.ZLength

print "Bnd Box project: X=",visibleG0.BoundBox.XLength," Y=",visibleG0.BoundBox.YLength," Z=",visibleG0.BoundBox.ZLength
3 4
Different projection vector
[visibleG0,visibleG1,hiddenG0,hiddenG1] = Drawing.project(Shape,App.Vector(1,1,1))
Project to SVG
resultSVG = Drawing.projectToSVG(Shape,App.Vector(1,1,1))
print resultSVG
The parametric way
Create the body

# Create three boxes and a cylinder
App.ActiveDocument.addObject("Part::Box","Box")
App.ActiveDocument.Box.Length=100.00
App.ActiveDocument.Box.Width=100.00
App.ActiveDocument.Box.Height=100.00
App.ActiveDocument.addObject("Part::Box","Box1")
App.ActiveDocument.Box1.Length=90.00
App.ActiveDocument.Box1.Width=40.00
App.ActiveDocument.Box1.Height=100.00
App.ActiveDocument.addObject("Part::Box","Box2")
App.ActiveDocument.Box2.Length=20.00
App.ActiveDocument.Box2.Width=85.00
App.ActiveDocument.Box2.Height=100.00
App.ActiveDocument.addObject("Part::Cylinder","Cylinder")
App.ActiveDocument.Cylinder.Radius=80.00
App.ActiveDocument.Cylinder.Height=100.00
App.ActiveDocument.Cylinder.Angle=360.00
# Fuse two boxes and the cylinder
App.activeDocument().addObject("Part::Fuse","Fusion")
App.activeDocument().Fusion.Base = App.activeDocument().Cylinder
App.activeDocument().Fusion.Tool = App.activeDocument().Box1
App.activeDocument().addObject("Part::Fuse","Fusion1")
App.activeDocument().Fusion1.Base = App.activeDocument().Box2
App.activeDocument().Fusion1.Tool = App.activeDocument().Fusion
# Cut the fused shapes from the first box
App.activeDocument().addObject("Part::Cut","Shape")
App.activeDocument().Shape.Base = App.activeDocument().Box
App.activeDocument().Shape.Tool = App.activeDocument().Fusion1
# Hide all the intermediate shapes
Gui.activeDocument().Box.Visibility=False
Gui.activeDocument().Box1.Visibility=False
Gui.activeDocument().Box2.Visibility=False
Gui.activeDocument().Cylinder.Visibility=False
Gui.activeDocument().Fusion.Visibility=False
Gui.activeDocument().Fusion1.Visibility=False
Insert a Page object and assign a template
App.activeDocument().addObject('Drawing::FeaturePage','Page')
App.activeDocument().Page.Template = App.getResourceDir()+'Mod/Drawing/Templates/A3_Landscape.svg'
Create a view on the "Shape" object, define the position and scale and assign it to a Page
App.activeDocument().addObject('Drawing::FeatureViewPart','View')
App.activeDocument().View.Source = App.activeDocument().Shape
App.activeDocument().View.Direction = (0.0,0.0,1.0)
App.activeDocument().View.X = 10.0
App.activeDocument().View.Y = 10.0
App.activeDocument().Page.addObject(App.activeDocument().View)
Create a second view on the same object but this time the view will be rotated by 90 degrees.
App.activeDocument().addObject('Drawing::FeatureViewPart','ViewRot')
App.activeDocument().ViewRot.Source = App.activeDocument().Shape
App.activeDocument().ViewRot.Direction = (0.0,0.0,1.0)
App.activeDocument().ViewRot.X = 290.0
App.activeDocument().ViewRot.Y = 30.0
App.activeDocument().ViewRot.Scale = 1.0
App.activeDocument().ViewRot.Rotation = 90.0
App.activeDocument().Page.addObject(App.activeDocument().ViewRot)
Create a third view on the same object but with an isometric view direction. The hidden lines are activated too.
App.activeDocument().addObject('Drawing::FeatureViewPart','ViewIso')
App.activeDocument().ViewIso.Source = App.activeDocument().Shape
App.activeDocument().ViewIso.Direction = (1.0,1.0,1.0)
App.activeDocument().ViewIso.X = 335.0
App.activeDocument().ViewIso.Y = 140.0
App.activeDocument().ViewIso.ShowHiddenLines = True
App.activeDocument().Page.addObject(App.activeDocument().ViewIso)
Change something and update. The update process changes the view and the page.
App.activeDocument().View.X = 30.0
App.activeDocument().View.Y = 30.0
App.activeDocument().View.Scale = 1.5
App.activeDocument().recompute()
Accessing the bits and pieces
Get the SVG fragment of a single view
ViewSVG = App.activeDocument().View.ViewResult
print ViewSVG
Get the whole result page (it's a file in the document's temporary directory, only read permission)
print "Resulting SVG document: ",App.activeDocument().Page.PageResult

file = open(App.activeDocument().Page.PageResult,"r")
print "Result page is ",len(file.readlines())," lines long"
Important: free the file!
del file
Insert a view with your own content:
App.activeDocument().addObject('Drawing::FeatureView','ViewSelf')
App.activeDocument().ViewSelf.ViewResult = """<g id="ViewSelf"
stroke="rgb(0, 0, 0)"
stroke-width="0.35"
stroke-linecap="butt"
stroke-linejoin="miter"
transform="translate(30,30)"
fill="#00cc00"
>
<ellipse cx="40" cy="40" rx="30" ry="15"/>

</g>
"""
App.activeDocument().Page.addObject(App.activeDocument().ViewSelf)
App.activeDocument().recompute()
del Shape,ViewSVG, resultSVG
That leads to the following result:

Templates
FreeCAD comes bundled with a set of default templates, but you can find more on the Drawing templates page.
The Raytracing workbench

This module is aimed at sending the contents of your scene to an external renderer
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendering_(computer_graphics)) , for generating photorealistic images of your work. The Raytracing module is
still in very early stage of completion, so you have not many options available at the moment. Currently, only a basic set of tools to export
Part objects as POV-ray (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POV-Ray) files is implemented. Those files can then be loaded into POV-ray and
rendered.
GUI Tools
These are tools for exporting your 3D work to external renderers
New PovRay project: Insert new PovRay project in the document
Export view to povray: Write the active 3D view with camera and all its content to a povray file
Export camera to povray: Export the camera position of the active 3D view in POV-Ray format to a file
Export part to povray: Write the selected Part (object) as a povray file
Export a View
The easiest way is to export the current 3D view and all of its content to a Povray (http://www.povray.org/) file. First, you must load or
create your CAD data and position the 3D View orientation as you wish. Then choose "Export View..." from the raytracing menu.
You get ask for a location to save the resulting *.pov file. After that you can open it in Povray (http://www.povray.org/) and render:
As usual in a rendererer you can make big and nice pictures:
Scripting
Here is how to use these features from python:
import Raytracing,RaytracingGui
OutFile = open('C:/Documents and Settings/jriegel/Desktop/test.pov','w')
OutFile.write(open(App.getResourceDir()+'Mod/Raytracing/Templates/ProjectStd.pov').read())
OutFile.write(RaytracingGui.povViewCamera())
OutFile.write(Raytracing.getPartAsPovray('Box',App.activeDocument().Box.Shape,0.800000,0.800000,0.800000))
OutFile.close()
del OutFile
Links
About POV-Ray:
http://www.spiritone.com/~english/cyclopedia/
http://www.povray.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POV-Ray
About other open-source renderers (for future implementation):
http://www.yafaray.org/
http://www.luxrender.net/
The Image workbench

The image module manages different types of bitmap images (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raster_graphics) , and lets you open them in
FreeCAD. Currently, the modules lets you open .bmp, .jpg, .png and .xpm file formats in a separate viewer window. There is also a tool
that allows you to capture an image from a webcam.
The Draft workbench

The draft Module is a work-in-progress and quite experimental module made to add basic 2d drawing functionality to FreeCAD. It is written
entirely in python, and is also intended to showcase how far you can extend FreeCAD entirely in python, without even touching the source
code.
Currently it is not really usable for production work, but already contains a couple of working basic functions. Feel free to test, and give us
a feedback on the discussion page.
The draft workbench is available in your workbenches list. When you activate it, two toolbars will appear; a classical toolbar containing
the standard draft commands listed below and a special command bar that has no tool icon on it, but that is used by the different
functions to display their controls. On that command bar, you can also change general things like current line color and width. As a
sidenote, the command bar (and, IMHO, the whole QT interface) looks much better if you choose the "cleanlooks" style in FreeCAD
general preferences...
Tutorial
For an in-depth explanation, read the Draft tutorial (work in progress), or read the quickstart section below to get you quickly on rails.
Quickstart
Not all Draft commands work well in 3D at the moment. So, the best thing to do is to put yourself in orthographic 2D view before starting
to draw. To do that, open or create a new document, then press the O key (or menu view -> orthographic view) to switch to orthographic
mode. Then press the 2 key (or menu view -> standard views -> top) to put you in top view. Now, you are ready to draw. You can also
configure freecad (menu edit -> preferences) to always start in orthographic mode.
All draft commands follow more or less the same rules: Drawing tools will ask you to pick points on the screen or enter numeric
coordinates, while modification tools will ask you to choose an object to work on first, in case no object is selected. In almost all
commands, pressing the CTRL key will allow you to snap to existing points, SHIFT will constrain your movement horizontally,
verically or in relation to an existing segment, and in some tools ALT will give you extra options such as creating a new object instead
of transforming an existing one. The ESC key will always cancel the active command.
Note
On some desktop systems (ex. Gnome, Kde), the ALT key is bound by default to moving windows on the desktop.
You might need to change that shortcut key in your desktop preferences.
Some commands work in non-horizontal planes too, just make sure the Z coordinate is unlocked when drawing, and place yourself in the
appropriate view. Below you will find a more complete description of all available tools.
Importing & exporting
These are functions for opening, importing or exporting other file formats. Opening will open a new document with the contents of the file,
while importing will append the file content to the current document. Exporting will save the selected objects to a file. If nothing is
selected, then all objects will be exported. Be aware that since the purpose of the Draft module is to work with 2d objects, those
importers focus only on 2d objects, and, although DXF and OCA formats do support objects definitions in 3D space (objects are not
necessarily flat), they won't import volumetric objects like meshes, 3D faces, etc, but rather lines, circles, texts or flat shapes. Currently
supported file formats are:
Autodesk .DXF: Imports and exports DXF files created with other CAD applications
SVG (as geometry): Imports and exports SVG files created with vector drawing applications
Open Cad format .OCA: Imports and exports OCA/GCAD files, a potentially new open CAD file format
(http://groups.google.com/group/open_cad_format)
Airfoil Data Format .DAT: Imports DAT files describing Airfoil profiles (http://www.ae.illinois.edu/m-selig/ads/coord_database.html)
Drawing objects
These are tools for creating objects.
2-point Line: Draws a line segment from 2 points
Wire (multiple-point line): Draws a line made of multiple line segments
Circle: Draws a circle from center and radius
Arc: Draws an arc segment from center, radius, start angle and end angle
Rectangle: Draws a rectangle from 2 opposite points
Polygon: Draws a regular polygon from a center and a radius
BSpline: Draws a B-Spline from a serie of points
Text: Draws a multi-line text annotation
Dimension: Draws a dimension annotation
Modifying objects
These are tools for modifying existing objects. They work on selected objects, but if no object is selected, you will be invited to select
one.
Move: Moves object(s) from one location to another
Rotate: Rotates object(s) from a start angle to an end angle
Offset: Moves segments of an object about a certain distance
Upgrade: Joins objects into a higher-level object
Downgrade: Explodes objects into lower-level objects

Trim/Extend (Trimex): Trims or extends an object
Scale: Scales selected object(s) around a base point
Edit: Edits a selected object
Drawing: Writes selected objects to a Drawing sheet
Common behaviours
Snapping: Allows to place new points on special places on existing objects

Constraining: Allows to place new points horizontally or vertically in relation to previous points
Working with manual coordinates: Allows to enter manual coordinates instead of clicking on screen
Copying: All modification tools can either modify the selected objects or create a modified copy of them. Pressing ALT while
using the tool will make a copy
Construction Mode: Allows you to put geometry apart from the rest, for easy switch on/switch off
Work Plane: All Draft commands can be used on any plane in the 3D space. The current working plane can be easily configured
All newly created objects adopt current Draft color and width
The Draft module also has its preferences screen
API
See the Draft API page for a complete description of the Draft functions that you can use in scripts and macros
Scripting and Macros

Macros
Macros are a convenient way to create complex actions in FreeCAD. You simply record actions as you do them, then save that under a
name, and replay them whenever you want. Since macros are in reality a list of python commands, you can also edit them, and create
very complex scripts.
How it works
If you enable console output (Menu Edit -> Preferences -> General -> Macros -> Show scripts commands in python console), you will see
that in FreeCAD, every action you do, such as pressing a button, outputs a python command. Thos commands are what can be recorded
in a macro. The main tool for making macros is the macros toolbar: . On it you have 4 buttons: Record, stop
recording, edit and play the current macro.
It is very simple to use: Press the record button, you will be asked to give a name to your macro, then perform some actions. When you
are done, click the stop recording button, and your actions will be saved. You can now access the macro dialog with the edit button:
There you can manage your macros, delete, edit or create new ones from scratch. If you edit a macro, it will be opened in an editor
window where you can make changes to its code.
Example
Press the record button, give a name, let's say "cylinder 10x10", then, in the Part Workbench, create a cylinder with radius = 10 and
height = 10. Then, press the "stop recording" button. In the edit macros dialog, you can see the python code that has been recorded, and,
if you want, make alterations to it. To execute your macro, simply press the execute button on the toolbar while your macro is in the
editor. You macro is always saved to disk, so any change you make, or any new macro you create, will always be available next time you
start FreeCAD.
Customizing
Of course it is not practical to load a macro in the editor in order to use it. FreeCAD provides much better ways to use your macro, such
as assigning a keyboard shortcut to it or putting an entry in the menu. Once your macro is created, all this can be done via the Tools ->
Customize menu:
This way you can make your macro become a real tool, just like any standard FreeCAD tool. This, added to the power of python scripting
within FreeCAD, makes it possible to easily add your own tools to the interface. Read on to the Scripting page if you want to know more
about python scripting...
Creating macros without recording
You can also directly copy/paste python code into a macro, without recording GUI action. Simply create a new macro, edit it, and paste
your code. You can then save your macro the same way as you save a FreeCAD document. Next time you start FreeCAD, the macro will
appear under the "Installed Macros" item of the Macro menu.
Macros repository
Visit the Macros recipes page to pick some useful macros to add to your FreeCAD installation.
Introduction to Python
This is a short tutorial made for who is totally new to Python. Python
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_%28programming_language%29) is an open-source, multiplatform programming language
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_language) . Python has several features that make it very different than other common
programming languages, and very accessible to new users like yourself:
It has been designed specially to be easy to read by human beings, and so it is very easy to learn and understand.
It is interpreted, that is, unlike compiled languages like C, your program doesn't need to be compiled before it is executed. The
code you write can be immediately executed, line by line if you want so. This makes it extremely easy to learn and to find errors in
your code, because you go slowly, step-by-step.
It can be embedded in other programs to be used as scripting language. FreeCAD has an embedded Python interpreter, so you
can write Python code in FreeCAD, that will manipulate parts of FreeCAD, for example to create geometry. This is extremely
powerful, because instead of just clicking a button labeled "create sphere", that a programmer has placed there for you, you have
the freedom to create easily your own tool to create exactly the geometry you want.
It is extensible, you can easily plug new modules in your Python installation and extend its functionality. For example, you have
modules that allow Python to read and write jpg images, to communicate with twitter, to schedule tasks to be performed by your
operating system, etc.
So, hands on! Be aware that what will come next is a very simple introduction, by no means a complete tutorial. But my hope is that after
that you'll get enough basics to explore deeper into the FreeCAD mechanisms.
The interpreter
Usually, when writing computer programs, you simply open a text editor or your special programming environment which is in most case
a text editor with several tools around it, write your program, then compile it and execute it. Most of the time you made errors while
writing, so your program won't work, and you will get an error message telling you what went wrong. Then you go back to your text editor,
correct the mistakes, run again, and so on until your program works fine.
That whole process, in Python, can be done transparently inside the Python interpreter. The interpreter is a Python window with a
command prompt, where you can simply type Python code. If you install Python on your computer (download it from the Python website
(http://www.python.org) if you are on Windows or Mac, install it from your package repository if you are on GNU/Linux), you will have a
Python interpreter in your start menu. But FreeCAD also has a Python interpreter in its bottom part:
(If you don't have it, click on View Views Python console.)
The interpreter shows the Python version, then a >>> symbol, which is the command prompt, that is, where you enter Python code.
Writing code in the interpreter is simple: one line is one instruction. When you press Enter, your line of code will be executed (after being
instantly and invisibly compiled). For example, try writing this:
print "hello"
print is a special Python keyword that means, obviously, to print something on the screen. When you press Enter, the operation is
executed, and the message "hello" is printed. If you make an error, for example let's write:
print hello
Python will tell us that it doesn't know what hello is. The " characters specify that the content is a string, which is simply, in programming
jargon, a piece of text. Without the ", the print command believed hello was not a piece of text but a special Python keyword. The
important thing is, you immediately get notified that you made an error. By pressing the up arrow (or, in the FreeCAD interpreter,
CTRL+up arrow), you can go back to the last command you wrote and correct it.
The Python interpreter also has a built-in help system. Try typing:
help
or, for example, let's say we don't understand what went wrong with our print hello command above, we want specific information about
the "print" command:
help("print")
You'll get a long and complete description of everything the print command can do.
Now we dominate totally our interpreter, we can begin with serious stuff.
Variables
Of course, printing "hello" is not very interesting. More interesting is printing stuff you don't know before, or let Python find for you. That's
where the concept of variable comes in. A variable is simply a value that you store under a name. For example, type this:
a = "hello"
print a
I guess you understood what happened, we "saved" the string "hello" under the name a. Now, a is not an unknown name anymore! We
can use it anywhere, for example in the print command. We can use any name we want, just respecting simple rules, like not using
spaces or punctuation. For example, we could very well write:
hello = "my own version of hello"

print hello
See? now hello is not an undefined word anymore. What if, by terrible bad luck, we choosed a name that already exists in Python? Let's
say we want to store our string under the name "print":
print = "hello"
Python is very intelligent and will tell us that this is not possible. It has some "reserved" keywords that cannot be modified. But our own
variables can be modified anytime, that's exactly why they are called variables, the contents can vary. For example:
myVariable = "hello"
print myVariable
myVariable = "good bye"
print myVariable
We changed the value of myVariable. We can also copy variables:
var1 = "hello"
var2 = var1
print var2
Note that it is interesting to give good names to your variables, because when you'll write long programs, after a while you won't remember
what your variable named "a" is for. But if you named it for example myWelcomeMessage, you'll remember easily what it is used for when
you'll see it.
Numbers
Of course you must know that programming is useful to treat all kind of data, and especially numbers, not only text strings. One thing is
important, Python must know what kind of data it is dealing with. We saw in our print hello example, that the print command recognized
our "hello" string. That is because by using the ", we told specifically the print command that what it would come next is a text string.
We can always check what data type is the contents of a variable with the special Python keyword type:
myVar = "hello"
type(myVar)
It will tell us the contents of myVar is 'str', or string in Python jargon. We have also other basic types of data, such as integer and float
numbers:
firstNumber = 10
secondNumber = 20
print firstNumber + secondNumber
type(firstNumber)
This is already much more interesting, isn't it? Now we already have a powerful calculator! Look well at how it worked, Python knows that
10 and 20 are integer numbers. So they are stored as "int", and Python can do with them everything it can do with integers. Look at the
results of this:
firstNumber = "10"
secondNumber = "20"
print firstNumber + secondNumber
See? We forced Python to consider that our two variables are not numbers but mere pieces of text. Python can add two pieces of text
together, but it won't try to find out any sum. But we were talking about integer numbers. There are also float numbers. The difference is
that integer numbers don't have decimal part, while foat numbers can have a decimal part:
var1 = 13
var2 = 15.65
print "var1 is of type ", type(var1)
print "var2 is of type ", type(var2)
Int and Floats can be mixed together without problem:
total = var1 + var2

print total
print type(total)
Of course the total has decimals, right? Then Python automatically decided that the result is a float. In several cases such as this one,
Python automatically decides what type to give to something. In other cases it doesn't. For example:
varA = "hello 123"

varB = 456
print varA + varB
This will give us an error, varA is a string and varB is an int, and Python doesn't know what to do. But we can force Python to convert
between types:
varA = "hello"
varB = 123
print varA + str(varB)
Now both are strings, the operation works! Note that we "stringified" varB at the time of printing, but we didn't change varB itself. If we
wanted to turn varB permanently into a string, we would need to do this:
varB = str(varB)
We can also use int() and float() to convert to int and float if we want:
varA = "123"
print int(varA)
print float(varA)
Note on Python commands
You must have noticed that in this section we used the print command in several ways. We printed variables, sums, several things
separated by commas, and even the result of other Python command such as type(). Maybe you also saw that doing those two
commands:
type(varA)
print type(varA)
have exactly the same result. That is because we are in the interpreter, and everything is automatically printed on screen. When we'll
write more complex programs that run outside the interpreter, they won't print automatically everything on screen, so we'll need to use the
print command. But from now on, let's stop using it here, it'll go faster. So we can simply write:
myVar = "hello friends"

myVar
You must also have seen that most of the Python commands (or keywords) we already know have parenthesis used to tell them on what
contents the command must work: type(), int(), str(), etc. Only exception is the print command, which in fact is not an exception, it also
works normally like this: print("hello"), but, since it is used often, the Python programmers made a simplified version.
Lists
Another interesting data type is lists. A list is simply a list of other data. The same way as we define a text string by using " ", we define
lists by using [ ]:
myList = [1,2,3]
type(myList)
myOtherList = ["Bart", "Frank", "Bob"]
myMixedList = ["hello", 345, 34.567]
You see that it can contain any type of data. Lists are very useful because you can group variables together. You can then do all kind of
things within that groups, for example counting them:
len(myOtherList)
or retrieving one item of a list:

myName = myOtherList[0]
myFriendsName = myOtherList[1]
You see that while the len() command returns the total number of items in a list, their "position" in the list begins with 0. The first item in a
list is always at position 0, so in our myOtherList, "Bob" will be at position 2. We can do much more stuff with lists such as you can read
here (http://diveintopython.org/native_data_types/lists.html) , such as sorting contents, removing or adding elements.
A funny and interesting thing for you: a text string is very similar to a list of characters! Try doing this:
myvar = "hello"
len(myvar)
myvar[2]
Usually all you can do with lists can also be done with strings. In fact both lists and strings are sequences.
Outside strings, ints, floats and lists, there are more built-in data types, such as dictionnaries
(http://www.diveintopython.org/getting_to_know_python/dictionaries.html) , or you can even create your own data types with classes
(http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld/tutclass.htm) .
Indentation
One big cool use of lists is also browsing through them and do something with each item. For example look at this:
alldaltons = ["Joe", "William", "Jack", "Averell"]

for dalton in alldaltons:
print dalton + " Dalton"
We iterated (programming jargon again!) through our list with the "for ... in ..." command and did something with each of the items. Note
the special syntax: the for command terminates with : which indicates that what will comes after will be a block of one of more
commands. Immediately after you enter the command line ending with :, the command prompt will change to ... which means Python
knows that a :-ended line has happened and that what will come next will be part of it.
How will Python know how many of the next lines will be to be executed inside the for...in operation? For that, Python uses indentation.
That is, your next lines won't begin immediately. You will begin them with a blank space, or several blank spaces, or a tab, or several
tabs. Other programming languages use other methods, like putting everythin inside parenthesis, etc. As long as you write your next lines
with the same indentation, they will be considered part of the for-in block. If you begin one line with 2 spaces and the next one with 4,
there will be an error. When you finished, just write another line without indentation, or simply press Enter to come back from the for-in
block
Indentation is cool because if you make big ones (for example use tabs instead of spaces because it's larger), when you write a big
program you'll have a clear view of what is executed inside what. We'll see that many other commands than for-in can have indented
blocks of code too.
For-in commands can be used for many things that must be done more than once. It can for example be combined with the range()
command:
serie = range(1,11)
total = 0
print "sum"
for number in serie:
print number
total = total + number
print "----"
print total
Or more complex things like this:

for n in range(4):
print alldaltons[n], " is Dalton number ", n
You see that the range() command also has that strange particularity that it begins with 0 (if you don't specify the starting number) and
that its last number will be one less than the ending number you specify. That is, of course, so it works well with other Python
commands. For example:
total = len(alldaltons)
for n in range(total):
print alldaltons[n]
Another interesting use of indented blocks is with the if command. If executes a code block only if a certain condition is met, for example:

if "Joe" in alldaltons:
print "We found that Dalton!!!"
Of course this will always print the first sentence, but try replacing the second line by:
if "Lucky" in alldaltons:
Then nothing is printed. We can also specify an else: statement:

if "Lucky" in alldaltons:
print "We found that Dalton!!!"
else:
print "Such Dalton doesn't exist!"
Functions
The standard Python commands (http://docs.python.org/reference/lexical_analysis.html#identifiers) are not many. In current version of
Python there are about 30, and we already know several of them. But imagine if we could invent our own commands? Well, we can, and
it's extremely easy. In fact, most the additional modules that you can plug into your Python installation do just that, they add commands
that you can use. A custom command in Python is called a function and is made like this:
def printsqm(myValue):
print str(myValue)+" square meters"
printsqm(45)
Extremely simple: the def() command defines a new function. You give it a name, and inside the parenthesis you define arguments that
we'll use in our function. Arguments are data that will be passed to the function. For example, look at the len() command. If you just write
len() alone, Python will tell you it needs an argument. That is, you want len() of something, right? Then, for example, you'll write
len(myList) and you'll get the length of myList. Well, myList is an argument that you pass to the len() function. The len() function is
defined in such a way that it knows what to do with what is passed to it. Same as we did here.
The "myValue" name can be anything, and it will be used only inside the function. It is just a name you give to the argument so you can
do something with it, but it also serves so the function knows how many arguments to expect. For example, if you do this:
printsqm(45,34)
There will be an error. Our function was programmed to receive just one argument, but it received two, 45 and 34. We could instead do
something like this:
def sum(val1,val2):
total = val1 + val2
return total
sum(45,34)
myTotal = sum(45,34)
We made a function that receives two arguments, sums them, and returns that value. Returning something is very useful, because we can
do something with the result, such as store it in the myTotal variable. Of course, since we are in the interpreter and everything is printed,
doing:
sum(45,34)
will print the result on the screen, but outside the interpreter, since there is no more print command inside the function, nothing would
appear on the screen. You would need to do:
print sum(45,34)
to have something printed. Read more about functions here (http://www.penzilla.net/tutorials/python/functions/) .
Modules
Now that we have a good idea of how Python works, we'll need one last thing: How to work with files and modules.
Until now, we wrote Python instructions line by line in the interpreter, right? What if we could write several lines together, and have them
executed all at once? It would certainly be handier for doing more complex things. And we could save our work too. Well, that too, is
extremely easy. Simply open a text editor (such as the windows notepad), and write all your Python lines, the same way as you write
them in the interpreter, with indentations, etc. Then, save that file somewhere, preferably with a .py extension. That's it, you have a
complete Python program. Of course, there are much better editors than notepad, but it is just to show you that a Python program is
nothing else than a text file.
To make Python execute that program, there are hundreds of ways. In windows, simply right-click your file, open it with Python, and
execute it. But you can also execute it from the Python interpreter itself. For this, the interpreter must know where your .py program is. In
FreeCAD, the easiest way is to place your program in a place that FreeCAD's Python interpreter knows by default, such as FreeCAD's
bin folder, or any of the Mod folders. Suppose we write a file like this:
def sum(a,b):
return a + b
print "test.py succesfully loaded"
and we save it as test.py in our FreeCAD/bin directory. Now, let's start FreeCAD, and in the interpreter window, write:
import test
without the .py extension. This will simply execute the contents of the file, line by line, just as if we had written it in the interpreter. The
sum function will be created, and the message will be printed. There is one big difference: the import command is made not only to
execute programs written in files, like ours, but also to load the functions inside, so they become available in the interpreter. Files
containing functions, like ours, are called modules.
Normally when we write a sum() function in the interpreter, we execute it simply like that:
sum(14,45)
Like we did earlier. When we import a module containing our sum() function, the syntax is a bit different. We do:
test.sum(14,45)
That is, the module is imported as a "container", and all its functions are inside. This is extremely useful, because we can import a lot of
modules, and keep everything well organized. So, basically, everywhere you see something.somethingElse, with a dot in between, that
means somethingElse is inside something.
We can also throw out the test part, and import our sum() function directly into the main interpreter space, like this:
from test import *

sum(12,54)
Basically all modules behave like that. You import a module, then you can use its functions like that: module.function(argument). Almost
all modules do that: they define functions, new data types and classes that you can use in the interpreter or in your own Python modules,
because nothing prevents you to import modules inside your module!
One last extremely useful thing. How do we know what modules we have, what functions are inside and how to use them (that is, what
kind of arguments they need)? We saw already that Python has a help() function. Doing:
help()
modules
Will give us a list of all available modules. We can now type q to get out of the interactive help, and import any of them. We can even
browse their content with the dir() command
import math
dir(math)
We'll see all the functions contained in the math module, as well as strange stuff named __doc__, __file__, __name__. The __doc__ is
extremely useful, it is a documentation text. Every function of (well-made) modules has a __doc__ that explains how to use it. For
example, we see that there is a sin function in side the math module. Want to know how to use it?
print math.sin.__doc__
Starting with FreeCAD

Well, I think you must know have a good idea of how Python works, and you can start exploring what FreeCAD has to offer. FreeCAD's
Python functions are all well organized in different modules. Some of them are already loaded (imported) when you start FreeCAD. So,
just do
dir()
and read on to FreeCAD Scripting Basics...
Of course, we saw here only a very small part of the Python world. There are many important concepts that we didn't mention here. There
are two very important Python reference documents on the net:
the official Python reference (http://docs.python.org/reference/)

the Dive into Python (http://www.diveintopython.org/toc/index.html) wikibook
Be sure to bookmark them!
Python scripting in FreeCAD

FreeCAD is built from scratch to be totally controlled by Python scripts. Almost all parts of FreeCAD such as the interface, the scene
contents, and even the representation of this content in the 3d views are accessible from the built-in Python interpreter or from your own
scripts. As a result, FreeCAD is probably one of the most deeply customizable engineering application available today.
In its current state however, FreeCAD has very few "native" commands to interact on your 3D objects, mainly because it is still in early
stage of development, but also because the philosophy behind it is more to provide a platform for CAD development than a user-tailored
application. But the ease of Python scripting inside FreeCAD will probably help much to see quickly new functionality being developed by
"power users", or, typically, users who know a bit of Python programming, like, we hope, yourself.
If you are not familiar with Python, we recommend you to search for tutorials on the internet, and have a quick look at its structure.
Python is a very easy language to learn, especially because it can be run inside an interpreter, where from simple commands to complete
programs can be executed on the fly, without the need to compile anything. FreeCAD has a built-in Python interpreter. If you don't see the
window labeled "Report view" as shown below, you can activate it under the View -> Views -> Report view to bring up the interpreter.
The interpreter
From the interpreter, you can access all your system-installed Python modules, as well as the built-in FreeCAD modules, and all
additional FreeCAD modules you installed later. The screenshot below shows the Python interpreter:
From the interpreter, you can execute Python code and browse through the available classes and function. FreeCAD provides a very
handy class browser for exploration of your new FreeCAD world: When you type the name of a known class followed by a period (meaning
you want to add something from that class), a class browser window opens, where you can navigate between available subclasses and
methods. When you select something, an associated help text (if existing) is displayed:
So, start here by typing App. or Gui. and see what happens. Another more generic Python way of exploring contents of modules and
classes is to use the print dir() command. For example, typing print dir() will list all modules currently loaded in FreeCAD. print dir(App)
will show you everything inside the App module, etc.
Another useful feature of the interpreter is the possibility to go back in command history and retrieve a line of code you already typed
earlier. To navigate in command history, just use CTRL+UP or CTRL+DOWN.
By right-clicking in the interpreter window, you also have several other options, such as copy the entire history (useful to experiment
something here, then make a full script of it), or insert filename with complete path.
Python Help
In the FreeCAD Help menu, you'll find an entry labeled "Python help", which will open a browser window containing a complete, realtime-
generated documentation of all Python modules available to the FreeCAD interpreter, including Python and FreeCAD built-in modules,
system-installed modules, and FreeCAD additional modules. The documentation available there depends on how much effort each module
developer put in documenting his code, but usually Python module have the reputation to be fairly well documented. Your FreeCAD
window must stay open for this documentation system to work.
Built-in modules
Since FreeCAD is designed to be run without Graphic User Interface, almost all its functionality is separated in two groups: Core
functionality, named App, and Gui functionality, named Gui. So, our two main FreeCAD built-in modules are called App and Gui. These
two modules can also be accessed from scripts outside of the interpreter, by the respective names of FreeCAD and FreeCADGui.
In the App module, you'll find everything related to the application itself, like methods for opening or closing files, and to the
documents, like setting the active document or listing their contents.
In the Gui module, you'll find tools for accessing and managing Gui elements, like the workbenches and their toolbars, and, more
interesting, the graphical representation of all FreeCAD content.
Listing all the content of those modules is a bit counter-productive task, since they grow quite fast along FreeCAD development. But the
two browsing tools provided (the class browser and the Python help) should give you, at any moment, a complete and up-to-date
documentation of these modules.
The App and Gui objects
As we said, in FreeCAD, everything is separated between core and representation. This includes the 3D objects too. You can access
defining properties of objects (called features in FreeCAD) via the App module, and change the way they are represented on screen via the
Gui module. For example, a cube has properties that define it, like width, length, height, that are stored in an App object, and
representation properties, such as faces color, drawing mode, that are stored in a corresponding Gui object.
This way of doing allows a very wide range of uses, like having algorithms work only on the defining part of features, without the need to
care about any visual part, or even redirect the content of the document to non-graphical application, such as lists, spreadsheets, or
element analysis.
For every App object in your document, exists a corresponding Gui object. The document itself, actually, also has App and a Gui objects.
This, of course, is only valid when you run FreeCAD with its full interface. In the command-line version, no GUI exists, so only App objects
are availible. Note that the Gui part of objects is generated again everytime an App object is marked as "to be recomputed" (for example
when one of its parameters changed), so changes you might have done directly to the Gui object might get lost.
To access the App part of something, you type:
myObject = App.ActiveDocument.getObject("ObjectName")
where "ObjectName" is the name of your object. You can also type:
myObject = App.ActiveDocument.ObjectName
To access the Gui part of the same object, you type:
myViewObject = Gui.ActiveDocument.getObject("ObjectName")
where "ObjectName is the name of your object. You can also type:
myViewObject = App.ActiveDocument.ObjectName.ViewObject
If we have no GUI (for example we are in command line mode), the last line will return None.
The Document objects
In FreeCAD all your work resides inside Documents. A document contains your geometry and can be saved to a file. Several documents
can be opened at the same time. The document, like the geometry contained inside, has App and Gui objects. App object contains your
actual geometry definitions, while the Gui object contains the different views of your document. You can open several windows, each one
viewing your work with a different zoom factor or point of view. These views are all part of your document's Gui object.
To access the App part the currently open (active) document, you type:
myDocument = App.ActiveDocument
To create a new document, type:
myDocument = App.newDocument("Document Name")
To access the Gui part the currently open (active) document, you type:
myGuiDocument = Gui.ActiveDocument
To access the current view, you type:
myView = Gui.ActiveDocument.ActiveView
Using additional modules

The FreeCAD and FreeCADGui modules are solely responsibles for creating and managing objects in the FreeCAD document. They don't
actually do anything such as creating or modifying geometry. That is because that geometry can be of several types, and so it is
managed by additional modules, each responsible for managing a certain geometry type. For example, the Part Module uses the
OpenCascade kernel, and therefore is able to create and manipulate BRep-type geometry, which is what OpenCascade is built for. The
Mesh Module is able to build and modify mesh objects. That way, FreeCAD is able to handle a wide variety of object types, that can all
coexist in the same document, and new types could be added easily in the future.
Creating objects
Each module has its own way to treat its geometry, but one thing they usually all can do is create objects in the document. But the
FreeCAD document is also aware of the available object types provided by the modules:
FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.supportedTypes()
will list you all the possible objects you can create. For example, let's create a mesh (treated by the mesh module) and a part (treated by
the part module):
myMesh = FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.addObject("Mesh::Feature","myMeshName")
myPart = FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.addObject("Part::Feature","myPartName")
The first argument is the object type, the second the name of the object. Our two objects look almost the same: They don't contain any
geometry yet, and most of their properties are the same when you inspect them with dir(myMesh) and dir(myPart). Except for one,
myMesh has a "Mesh" property and "Part" has a "Shape" property. That is where the Mesh and Part data are stored. For example, let's
create a Part cube and store it in our myPart object:
import Part
cube = Part.makeBox(2,2,2)
myPart.Shape = cube
You could try storing the cube inside the Mesh property of the myMesh object, it will return an error complaining of the wrong type. That is
because those properties are made to store only a certain type. In the myMesh's Mesh property, you can only save stuff created with the
Mesh module. Note that most modules also have a shortcut to add their geometry to the document:
import Part
Part.show(cube)
Modifying objects
Modifying an object is done the same way:
import Part
myPart.Shape = cube
Now let's change the shape by a bigger one:
biggercube = Part.makeBox(5,5,5)
myPart.Shape = biggercube
Querying objects
You can always look at the type of an object like this:
myObj = FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.getObject("myObjectName")
print myObj.Type
or know if an object is derived from one of the basic ones (Part Feature, Mesh Feature, etc):
print myObj.isDerivedFrom("Part::Feature")
Now you can really start playing with FreeCAD! To look at what you can do with the Part Module, read the Part scripting page, or the
Mesh Scripting page for working with the Mesh Module. Note that, although the Part and Mesh modules are the most complete and
widely used, other modules such as the Draft Module also have scripting APIs that can be useful to you. For a complete list of each
modules and their available tools, visit the Category:API section.
Introduction
First of all you have to import the Mesh module:
import Mesh
After that you have access to the Mesh module and the Mesh class which facilitate the functions of the FreeCAD C++ Mesh-Kernel.
Creation and Loading
To create an empty mesh object just use the standard constructor:
mesh = Mesh.Mesh()
You can also create an object from a file
mesh = Mesh.Mesh('D:/temp/Something.stl')
What file formats you can use to build up a mesh is noted here.
Or create it out of a set of triangles described by their corner points:
planarMesh = [
# triangle 1
[-0.5000,-0.5000,0.0000],[0.5000,0.5000,0.0000],[-0.5000,0.5000,0.0000],
#triangle 2
[-0.5000,-0.5000,0.0000],[0.5000,-0.5000,0.0000],[0.5000,0.5000,0.0000],
]
planarMeshObject = Mesh.Mesh(planarMesh)
The Mesh-Kernel takes care about creating a topological correct data structure by sorting coincident points and edges together.
Later on you will see how you can test and examine mesh data.
Modeling
To create regular geometries you can use the Python script BuildRegularGeoms.py.
import BuildRegularGeoms
This script provides methods to define simple rotation bodies like spheres, ellipsoids, cylinders, toroids and cones. And it also has a
method to create a simple cube. To create a toroid, for instance, can be done as follows:
t = BuildRegularGeoms.Toroid(8.0, 2.0, 50) # list with several thousands triangles

m = Mesh.Mesh(t)
The first two parameters define the radiuses of the toroid and the third parameter is a sub-sampling factor for how many triangles are
created. The higher this value the smoother and the lower the coarser the body is. The Mesh class provides a set of boolean functions
that can be used for modeling purposes. It provides union, intersection and difference of two mesh objects.
m1, m2 # are the input mesh objects

m3 = Mesh.Mesh(m1) # create a copy of m1
m3.unite(m2) # union of m1 and m2, the result is stored in m3
m4 = Mesh.Mesh(m1)
m4.intersect(m2) # intersection of m1 and m2
m5 = Mesh.Mesh(m1)
m5.difference(m2) # the difference of m1 and m2
m6 = Mesh.Mesh(m2)
m6.difference(m1) # the difference of m2 and m1, usually the result is different to m5
Finally, a full example that computes the intersection between a sphere and a cylinder that intersects the sphere.
import Mesh, BuildRegularGeoms
sphere = Mesh.Mesh( BuildRegularGeoms.Sphere(5.0, 50) )
cylinder = Mesh.Mesh( BuildRegularGeoms.Cylinder(2.0, 10.0, True, 1.0, 50) )
diff = sphere
diff.difference(cylinder)
d = FreeCAD.newDocument()
d.addObject("Mesh::Feature","Diff_Sphere_Cylinder").Mesh=diff
d.recompute()
Examining and Testing
Write your own Algorithms
Exporting
You can even write the mesh to a python module:
m.write("D:/Develop/Projekte/FreeCAD/FreeCAD_0.7/Mod/Mesh/SavedMesh.py")
import SavedMesh
m2 = Mesh.Mesh(SavedMesh.faces)
Gui related stuff
Odds and Ends
An extensive, ought hard to use, source of Mesh related scripting are the unit test scripts of the Mesh-Module. In this unit tests literally all
methods are called and all properties/attributes are tweaked. So if you are bold enough, take a look at the Unit Test module (http://free-
cad.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/free-cad/trunk/src/Mod/Mesh/App/MeshTestsApp.py?view=markup) .
This page describes several methods for creating and modifying Part shapes from python. Before reading this page, if you are new to
python, it is a good idea to read about python scripting and how python scripting works in FreeCAD.
Introduction
We will here explain you how to control the Part Module directly from the FreeCAD python interpreter, or from any external script. Be sure
to browse the Scripting section and the FreeCAD Scripting Basics pages if you need more information about how python scripting works
in FreeCAD.
Class Diagram
This is a UML overview about the most important classes of the Part module:
Geometry
The geomtric objects are the building block of all topological objects:
Geom Base class of the geometric objects

Line A straight line in 3D, defined by starting point and and point
Circle Circle or circle segment defined by a center point and start and end point
...... And soon some more ;-)
Topology
The following topological data types are available:
Compound A group of any type of topological object.

Compsolid A composite solid is a set of solids connected by their faces. It expands the notions of WIRE and SHELL to solids.
Solid A part of space limited by shells. It is three dimensional.
Shell A set of faces connected by their edges. A shell can be open or closed.
Face In 2D it is part of a plane; in 3D it is part of a surface. Its geometry is constrained (trimmed) by contours. It is two
dimensional.
Wire A set of edges connected by their vertices. It can be an open or closed contour depending on whether the edges are linked or
not.
Edge A topological element corresponding to a restrained curve. An edge is generally limited by vertices. It has one dimension.
Vertex A topological element corresponding to a point. It has zero dimension.
Shape A generic term covering all of the above.
Quick example : Creating simple topology
We will now create a topology by constructing it out of simpler geometry. As a case study we use a part as seen in the picture which
consists of four vertexes, two circles and two lines.
Creating Geometry
First we have to create the distinct geometric parts of this wire. And we have to take care that the vertexes of the geometric parts are at
the same position. Otherwise later on we might not be able to connect the geometric parts to a topology!
So we create first the points:
from FreeCAD import Base

V1 = Base.Vector(0,10,0)
V2 = Base.Vector(30,10,0)
V3 = Base.Vector(30,-10,0)
V4 = Base.Vector(0,-10,0)
Arc
To create an arc of circle we make a helper point and create the arc of circle through three points:
VC1 = Base.Vector(-10,0,0)
C1 = Part.Arc(V1,VC1,V4)
# and the second one
VC2 = Base.Vector(40,0,0)
C2 = Part.Arc(V2,VC2,V3)
Line
The line can be created very simple out of the points:
L1 = Part.Line(V1,V2)
# and the second one
L2 = Part.Line(V4,V3)
Putting all together
The last step is to put the geometric base elements together and bake a topological shape:
S1 = Part.Shape([C1,C2,L1,L2])
Make a prism
Now extrude the wire in a direction and make an actual 3D shape:
W = Part.Wire(S1.Edges)
P = W.extrude(Base.Vector(0,0,10))
Show it all
Part.show(P)
Creating basic shapes

You can easily create basic topological objects with the "make...()" methods from the Part Module:
b = Part.makeBox(100,100,100)
Part.show(b)
A couple of other make...() methods available:
makeBox(l,w,h): Makes a box located in p and pointing into the direction d with the dimensions (l,w,h)
makeCircle(radius): Makes a circle with a given radius
makeCone(radius1,radius2,height): Makes a cone with a given radii and height
makeCylinder(radius,height): Makes a cylinder with a given radius and height.
makeLine((x1,y1,z1),(x2,y2,z2)): Makes a line of two points
makePlane(length,width): Makes a plane with length and width
makePolygon(list): Makes a polygon of a list of points
makeSphere(radius): Make a sphere with a given radius
makeTorus(radius1,radius2): Makes a torus with a given radii
See the Part API page for a complete list of available methods of the Part module.
Importing the needed modules
First we need to import the Part module so we can use its contents in python. We'll also import the Base module from inside the
FreeCAD module:
import Part
Creating a Vector
Vectors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclidean_vector) are one of the most important pieces of information when building shapes. They
contain a 3 numbers usually (but not necessarily always) the x, y and z cartesian coordinates. You create a vector like this:
myVector = Base.Vector(3,2,0)
We just created a vector at coordinates x=3, y=2, z=0. In the Part module, vectors are used everywhere. Part shapes also use another
kind of point representation, called Vertex, which is acually nothing else than a container for a vector. You access the vector of a vertex
like this:
myVertex = myShape.Vertexes[0]
print myVertex.Point
> Vector (3, 2, 0)
Creating an Edge
An edge is nothing but a line with two vertexes:
edge = Part.makeLine((0,0,0), (10,0,0))

edge.Vertexes
> [<Vertex object at 01877430>, <Vertex object at 014888E0>]
Note: You can also create an edge by passing two vectors:
vec1 = Base.Vector(0,0,0)
vec2 = Base.Vector(10,0,0)
line = Part.Line(vec1,vec2)
edge = line.toShape()
You can find the length and center of an edge like this:
edge.Length
> 10.0
edge.CenterOfMass
> Vector (5, 0, 0)
Putting the shape on screen
So far we created an edge object, but it doesn't appear anywhere on screen. This is because we just manipulated python objects here.
The FreeCAD 3D scene only displays what you tell it to display. To do that, we use this simple method:
Part.show(edge)
An object will be created in our FreeCAD document, and our "edge" shape will be attributed to it. Use this whenever it's time to display
your creation on screen.
Creating a Wire
A wire is a multi-edge line and can be created from a list of edges or even a list of wires:
edge1 = Part.makeLine((0,0,0), (10,0,0))
wire1 = Part.Wire([edge1,edge2])
wire2 = Part.Wire([edge3,edge4])
wire3 = Part.Wire([wire1,wire2])
wire3.Edges
> [<Edge object at 016695F8>, <Edge object at 0197AED8>, <Edge object at 01828B20>, <Edge object at 0190A788>]
Part.show(wire3)
Part.show(wire3) will display the 4 edges that compose our wire. Other useful information can be easily retrieved:
wire3.Length
> 40.0
wire3.CenterOfMass
> Vector (5, 5, 0)
wire3.isClosed()
> True
wire2.isClosed()
> False
Creating a Face
Only faces created from closed wires will be valid. In this example, wire3 is a closed wire but wire2 is not a closed wire (see above)
face = Part.Face(wire3)
face.Area
> 99.999999999999972
face.CenterOfMass
> Vector (5, 5, 0)
face.Length
> 40.0
face.isValid()
> True
sface = Part.Face(wire2)
face.isValid()
> False
Only faces will have an area, not wires nor edges.
Creating a Circle
A circle can be created as simply as this:
circle = Part.makeCircle(10)
circle.Curve
> Circle (Radius : 10, Position : (0, 0, 0), Direction : (0, 0, 1))
If you want to create it at certain position and with certain direction:
ccircle = Part.makeCircle(10, Base.Vector(10,0,0), Base.Vector(1,0,0))

ccircle.Curve
> Circle (Radius : 10, Position : (10, 0, 0), Direction : (1, 0, 0))
ccircle will be created at distance 10 from origin on x and will be facing towards x axis. Note: makeCircle only accepts Base.Vector() for
position and normal but not tuples. You can also create part of the circle by giving start angle and end angle as:
from math import pi

arc1 = Part.makeCircle(10, Base.Vector(0,0,0), Base.Vector(0,0,1), 0, 180)
arc2 = Part.makeCircle(10, Base.Vector(0,0,0), Base.Vector(0,0,1), 180, 360)
Both arc1 and arc2 jointly will make a circle. Angles should be provided in degrees, if you have radians simply convert them using formula:
degrees = radians * 180/PI or using python's math module (after doing import math, of course):
degrees = math.degrees(radians)
Creating an Arc along points
Unfortunately there is no makeArc function but we have Part.Arc function to create an arc along three points. Basically it can be
supposed as an arc joining start point and end point along the middle point. Part.Arc creates an arc object on which .toShape() has to be
called to get the edge object, the same way as when using Part.Line instead of Part.makeLine.
arc = Part.Arc(Base.Vector(0,0,0),Base.Vector(0,5,0),Base.Vector(5,5,0))
arc
> <Arc object>
arc_edge = arc.toShape()
Arc only accepts Base.Vector() for points but not tuples. arc_edge is what we want which we can display using Part.show(arc_edge). You
can also obtain an arc by using a portion of a circle:
from math import pi

circle = Part.Circle(Base.Vector(0,0,0),Base.Vector(0,0,1),10)
arc = Part.Arc(c,0,pi)
Arcs are valid edges, like lines. So they can be used in wires too.
Creating a polygon
A polygon is simply a wire with multiple straight edges. The makePolygon function takes a list of points and creates a wire along those
points:
lshape_wire = Part.makePolygon([Base.Vector(0,5,0),Base.Vector(0,0,0),Base.Vector(5,0,0)])
Creating a Plane
A Plane is simply a flat rectangular surface. The method used to create one is this: makePlane(length,width,[start_pnt,dir_normal]).
By default start_pnt = Vector(0,0,0) and dir_normal = Vector(0,0,1). Using dir_normal = Vector(0,0,1) will create the plane facing z axis,
while dir_normal = Vector(1,0,0) will create the plane facing x axis:
plane = Part.makePlane(2,2)
plane
><Face object at 028AF990>
plane = Part.makePlane(2,2, Base.Vector(3,0,0), Base.Vector(0,1,0))
plane.BoundBox
> BoundBox (3, 0, 0, 5, 0, 2)
BoundBox is a cuboid enclosing the plane with a diagonal starting at (3,0,0) and ending at (5,0,2). Here the BoundBox thickness in y axis
is zero, since our shape is totally flat.
Note: makePlane only accepts Base.Vector() for start_pnt and dir_normal but not tuples
Creating an ellipse
To create an ellipse there are several ways:
Part.Ellipse()
Creates an ellipse with major radius 2 and minor radius 1 with the center in (0,0,0)
Part.Ellipse(Ellipse)
Create a copy of the given ellipse
Part.Ellipse(S1,S2,Center)
Creates an ellipse centered on the point Center, where the plane of the ellipse is defined by Center, S1 and S2, its major axis is defined
by Center and S1, its major radius is the distance between Center and S1, and its minor radius is the distance between S2 and the major
axis.
Part.Ellipse(Center,MajorRadius,MinorRadius)
Creates an ellipse with major and minor radii MajorRadius and MinorRadius, and located in the plane defined by Center and the normal
(0,0,1)
eli = Part.Ellipse(Base.Vector(10,0,0),Base.Vector(0,5,0),Base.Vector(0,0,0))
Part.show(eli.toShape())
In the above code we have passed S1, S2 and center. Similarly to Arc, Ellipse also creates an ellipse object but not edge, so we need to
convert it into edge using toShape() to display.
Note: Arc only accepts Base.Vector() for points but not tuples
eli = Part.Ellipse(Base.Vector(0,0,0),10,5)
Part.show(eli.toShape())
for the above Ellipse constructor we have passed center, MajorRadius and MinorRadius
Creating a Torus
Using the method makeTorus(radius1,radius2,[pnt,dir,angle1,angle2,angle]). By default

pnt=Vector(0,0,0),dir=Vector(0,0,1),angle1=0,angle1=360 and angle=360. Consider a torus as small circle sweeping along a big circle.
Radius1 is the radius of big cirlce, radius2 is the radius of small circle, pnt is the center of torus and dir is the normal direction. angle1
and angle2 are angles in radians for the small circle, the last parameter angle is to make a section of the torus:
torus = Part.makeTorus(10, 2)
The above code will create a torus with diameter 20(radius 10) and thickness 4 (small cirlce radius 2)
tor=Part.makeTorus(10,5,Base.Vector(0,0,0),Base.Vector(0,0,1),0,180)
The above code will create a slice of the torus
tor=Part.makeTorus(10,5,Base.Vector(0,0,0),Base.Vector(0,0,1),0,360,180)
The above code will create a semi torus, only the last parameter is changed i.e the angle and remaining angles are defaults. Giving the
angle 180 will create the torus from 0 to 180, that is, a half torus.
Creating a box or cuboid
Using makeBox(length,width,height,[pnt,dir]). By default pnt=Vector(0,0,0) and dir=Vector(0,0,1)
box = Part.makeBox(10,10,10)
len(box.Vertexes)
> 8
Creating a Sphere
Using makeSphere(radius,[pnt, dir, angle1,angle2,angle3]). By default pnt=Vector(0,0,0), dir=Vector(0,0,1), angle1=-90, angle2=90

and angle3=360. angle1 and angle2 are the vertical minimum and maximum of the sphere, angle3 is the sphere diameter itself.
sphere = Part.makeSphere(10)
hemisphere = Part.makeSphere(10,Base.Vector(0,0,0),Base.Vector(0,0,1),-90,90,180)
Creating a Cylinder
Using makeCylinder(radius,height,[pnt,dir,angle]). By default pnt=Vector(0,0,0),dir=Vector(0,0,1) and angle=360

cylinder = Part.makeCylinder(5,20)
partCylinder = Part.makeCylinder(5,20,Base.Vector(20,0,0),Base.Vector(0,0,1),180)
Creating a Cone
Using makeCone(radius1,radius2,height,[pnt,dir,angle]). By default pnt=Vector(0,0,0), dir=Vector(0,0,1) and angle=360
cone = Part.makeCone(10,0,20)
semicone = Part.makeCone(10,0,20,Base.Vector(20,0,0),Base.Vector(0,0,1),180)
Modifying shapes
There are several ways to modify shapes. Some are simple transformation operations such as moving or rotating shapes, other are more
complex, such as unioning and subtracting one shape from another. Be aware that
Transform operations
Translating a shape
Translating is the act of moving a shape from one place to another. Any shape (edge, face, cube, etc...) can be translated the same way:
myShape = Part.makeBox(2,2,2)
myShape.translate(Base.Vector(2,0,0))
This will move our shape "myShape" 2 units in the x direction.
Rotating a shape
To rotate a shape, you need to specify the rotation center, the axis, and the rotation angle:
myShape.rotate(Vector(0,0,0),Vector(0,0,1),180)
The above code will rotate the shape 180 degrees around the Z Axis.
Generic transformations with matrixes
A matrix is a very convenient way to store transformations in the 3D world. In a single matrix, you can set translation, rotation and scaling
values to be applied to an object. For example:
myMat = Base.Matrix()
myMat.move(Base.Vector(2,0,0))
myMat.rotateZ(math.pi/2)
Note: FreeCAD matrixes work in radians. Also, almost all matrix operations that take a vector can also take 3 numbers, so those 2 lines
do the same thing:
myMat.move(2,0,0)
myMat.move(Base.Vector(2,0,0))
When our matrix is set, we can apply it to our shape. FreeCAD provides 2 methods to do that: transformShape() and
transformGeometry(). The difference is that with the first one, you are sure that no deformations will occur (see "scaling a shape" below).
So we can apply our transformation like this:
myShape.trasformShape(myMat)
or
myShape.transformGeometry(myMat)
Scaling a shape
Scaling a shape is a more dangerous operation because, unlike translation or rotation, scaling non-uniformly (with different values for x, y
and z) can modify the structure of the shape. For example, scaling a circle with a higher value horizontally than vertically will transform it
into an ellipse, which behaves mathematically very differenty. For scaling, we can't use the transformShape, we must use
transformGeometry():
myMat = Base.Matrix()
myMat.scale(2,1,1)
myShape.transformGeometry(myMat)
Boolean Operations
Subtraction
Subtracting a shape from another one is called "cut" in OCC/FreeCAD jargon and is done like this:
cylinder = Part.makeCylinder(3,10,Base.Vector(0,0,0),Base.Vector(1,0,0))
sphere = Part.makeSphere(5,Base.Vector(5,0,0))
diff = cylinder.cut(sphere)
Intersection
The same way, the intersection between 2 shapes is called "common" and is done this way:
cylinder1 = Part.makeCylinder(3,10,Base.Vector(0,0,0),Base.Vector(1,0,0))
cylinder2 = Part.makeCylinder(3,10,Base.Vector(5,0,-5),Base.Vector(0,0,1))
common = cylinder1.common(cylinder2)
Union
Union is called "fuse" and works the same way:
fuse = cylinder1.fuse(cylinder2)
Section
A Section is the intersection between a solid shape and a plane shape. It will return an intersection curve, a compound with edges
section = cylinder1.section(cylinder2)
section.Wires
> []
section.Edges
> [<Edge object at 0D87CFE8>, <Edge object at 019564F8>, <Edge object at 0D998458>,
<Edge object at 0D86DE18>, <Edge object at 0D9B8E80>, <Edge object at 012A3640>,
<Edge object at 0D8F4BB0>]
Extrusion
Extrusion is the act of "pushing" a flat shape in a certain direction resulting in a solid body. Think of a circle becoming a tube by "pushing
it out":
circle = Part.makeCircle(10)
tube = circle.extrude(Base.Vector(0,0,2))
If your circle is hollow, you will obtain a hollow tube. If your circle is actually a disc, with a filled face, you will obtain a solid cylinder:
wire = Part.Wire(circle)
disc = Part.makeFace(wire)
cylinder = disc.extrude(Base.Vector(0,0,2))
Exploring shapes
You can easily explore the topological data structure:
import Part
b = Part.makeBox(100,100,100)
b.Wires
w = b.Wires[0]
w
w.Wires
w.Vertexes
Part.show(w)
w.Edges
e = w.Edges[0]
e.Vertexes
v = e.Vertexes[0]
v.Point
By typing the lines above in the python interpreter, you will gain a good understanding of the structure of Part objects. Here, our
makeBox() command created a solid shape. This solid, like all Part solids, contains faces. Faces always contain wires, which are lists of
edges that border the face. Each face has at least one closed wire (it can have more if the face has a hole). In the wire, we can look at
each edge separately, and inside each edge, we can see the vertexes. Straight edges have only two vertexes, obviously.
Edge analysis
In case of an edge, which is an arbitrary curve, it's most likely you want to do a discretization. In FreeCAD the edges are parametrized by
their lengths. That means you can walk an edge/curve by its length:
import Part
box = Part.makeBox(100,100,100)
anEdge = box.Edges[0]
print anEdge.Length
Now you can access a lot of properties of the edge by using the length as a position. That means if the edge is 100mm long the start
position is 0 and the end position 100.
anEdge.tangentAt(0.0) # tangent direction at the beginning

anEdge.valueAt(0.0) # Point at the beginning
anEdge.valueAt(100.0) # Point at the end of the edge
anEdge.derivative1At(50.0) # first derivative of the curve in the middle
anEdge.derivative2At(50.0) # second derivative of the curve in the middle
anEdge.derivative3At(50.0) # third derivative of the curve in the middle
anEdge.centerOfCurvatureAt(50) # center of the curvature for that position
anEdge.curvatureAt(50.0) # the curvature
anEdge.normalAt(50) # normal vector at that position (if defined)
Using the selection
Here we see now how we can use the selection the user did in the viewer. First of all we create a box and shows it in the viewer
import Part
Part.show(Part.makeBox(100,100,100))
Gui.SendMsgToActiveView("ViewFit")
Select now some faces or edges. With this script you can iterate all selected objects and their sub elements:
for o in Gui.Selection.getSelectionEx():
print o.ObjectName
for s in o.SubElementNames:
print "name: ",s
for s in o.SubObjects:
print "object: ",s
Select some edges and this script will calculate the length:
length = 0.0
for o in Gui.Selection.getSelectionEx():
for s in o.SubObjects:
length += s.Length
print "Length of the selected edges:" ,length
Complete example: The OCC bottle

A typical example found on the OpenCasCade Getting Started Page (http://www.opencascade.org/org/gettingstarted/appli/) is how to
build a bottle. This is a good exercise for FreeCAD too. In fact, you can follow our example below and the OCC page simultaneously, you
will understand well how OCC structures are implemented in FreeCAD. The complete script below is also included in FreeCAD installation
(inside the Mod/Part folder) and can be called from the python interpreter by typing:
import Part
import MakeBottle
bottle = MakeBottle.makeBottle()
Part.show(bottle)
The complete script
Here is the complete MakeBottle script:

import Part, FreeCAD, math
def makeBottle(myWidth=50.0, myHeight=70.0, myThickness=30.0):

aPnt1=Base.Vector(-myWidth/2.,0,0)
aPnt2=Base.Vector(-myWidth/2.,-myThickness/4.,0)
aPnt3=Base.Vector(0,-myThickness/2.,0)
aPnt4=Base.Vector(myWidth/2.,-myThickness/4.,0)
aPnt5=Base.Vector(myWidth/2.,0,0)
aArcOfCircle = Part.Arc(aPnt2,aPnt3,aPnt4)
aSegment1=Part.Line(aPnt1,aPnt2)
aEdge1=aSegment1.toShape()
aEdge2=aArcOfCircle.toShape()
aWire=Part.Wire([aEdge1,aEdge2,aEdge3])
aTrsf=Base.Matrix()
aTrsf.rotateZ(math.pi) # rotate around the z-axis
aMirroredWire=aWire.transformGeometry(aTrsf)
myWireProfile=Part.Wire([aWire,aMirroredWire])
myFaceProfile=Part.Face(myWireProfile)
aPrismVec=Base.Vector(0,0,myHeight)
myBody=myFaceProfile.extrude(aPrismVec)
myBody=myBody.makeFillet(myThickness/12.0,myBody.Edges)
neckLocation=Base.Vector(0,0,myHeight)
neckNormal=Base.Vector(0,0,1)
myNeckRadius = myThickness / 4.
myNeckHeight = myHeight / 10
myNeck = Part.makeCylinder(myNeckRadius,myNeckHeight,neckLocation,neckNormal)
myBody = myBody.fuse(myNeck)
faceToRemove = 0
zMax = -1.0
for xp in myBody.Faces:
try:
surf = xp.Surface
if type(surf) == Part.Plane:
z = surf.Position.z
if z > zMax:
zMax = z
faceToRemove = xp
except:
continue
myBody = myBody.makeThickness([faceToRemove],-myThickness/50 , 1.e-3)
return myBody
Detailed explanation
import Part, FreeCAD, math

We will need,of course, the Part module, but also the FreeCAD.Base module, which contains basic FreeCAD structures like vectors and
matrixes.
def makeBottle(myWidth=50.0, myHeight=70.0, myThickness=30.0):

aPnt1=Base.Vector(-myWidth/2.,0,0)
aPnt2=Base.Vector(-myWidth/2.,-myThickness/4.,0)
aPnt3=Base.Vector(0,-myThickness/2.,0)
aPnt4=Base.Vector(myWidth/2.,-myThickness/4.,0)
aPnt5=Base.Vector(myWidth/2.,0,0)
Here we define our makeBottle function. This function can be called without arguments, like we did above, in which case default values for
width, height, and thickness will be used. Then, we define a couple of points that will be used for building our base profile.
aArcOfCircle = Part.Arc(aPnt2,aPnt3,aPnt4)
Here we actually define the geometry: an arc, made of 3 points, and two line segments, made of 2 points.
aEdge2=aArcOfCircle.toShape()
aWire=Part.Wire([aEdge1,aEdge2,aEdge3])
Remember the difference between geometry and shapes? Here we build shapes out of our construction geometry. 3 edges (edges can be
straight or curved), then a wire made of those three edges.
aTrsf=Base.Matrix()
aTrsf.rotateZ(math.pi) # rotate around the z-axis
aMirroredWire=aWire.transformGeometry(aTrsf)
myWireProfile=Part.Wire([aWire,aMirroredWire])
Until now we built only a half profile. Easier than building the whole profile the same way, we can just mirror what we did, and glue both
halfs together. So we first create a matrix. A matrix is a very common way to apply transformations to objects in the 3D world, since it
can contain in one structure all basic transformations that 3D objects can suffer (move, rotate and scale). Here, after we create the matrix,
we mirror it, and we create a copy of our wire with that transformation matrix applied to it. We now have two wires, and we can make a
third wire out of them, since wires are actually lists of edges.
myFaceProfile=Part.Face(myWireProfile)
aPrismVec=Base.Vector(0,0,myHeight)
myBody=myFaceProfile.extrude(aPrismVec)
myBody=myBody.makeFillet(myThickness/12.0,myBody.Edges)
Now that we have a closed wire, it can be turned into a face. Once we have a face, we can extrude it. Doing so, we actually made a solid.
Then we apply a nice little fillet to our object because we care about good design, don't we?
neckLocation=Base.Vector(0,0,myHeight)
neckNormal=Base.Vector(0,0,1)
myNeckRadius = myThickness / 4.
myNeckHeight = myHeight / 10
myNeck = Part.makeCylinder(myNeckRadius,myNeckHeight,neckLocation,neckNormal)
Then, the body of our bottle is made, we still need to create a neck. So we make a new solid, with a cylinder.
myBody = myBody.fuse(myNeck)
The fuse operation, which in other apps is sometimes called union, is very powerful. It will take care of gluing what needs to be glued and
remove parts that need to be removed.
return myBody
Then, we return our Part solid as the result of our function. That Part solid, like any other Part shape, can be attributed to an object in a
FreeCAD document, with:
myObject = FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.addObject("Part::Feature","myObject")
myObject.Shape = bottle
or, more simple:
Part.show(bottle)
Loading and Saving

There are several ways to save your work in the Part module. You can of course save your FreeCAD document, but you can also save
Part objects directly to common CAD formats, such as BREP, IGS, STEP and STL.
Saving a shape to a file is easy. There are exportBrep(), exportIges(), exportStl() and exportStep() methods availables for all shape
objects. So, doing:
import Part
s = Part.makeBox(0,0,0,10,10,10)
s.exportStep("test.stp")
this will save our box into a STEP file. To load a BREP, IGES or STEP file, simply do the contrary:
import Part
s = Part.Shape()
s.read("test.stp")
Note that importing or opening BREP, IGES or STEP files can also be done directly from the File -> Open or File -> Import menu, while
exporting is with File -> Export
Converting Part objects to Meshes

Converting higher-level objects such as Part shapes into simpler objects such as meshes is a pretty simple operation, where all faces of a
Part object get triangulated. The result of that triangulation (tessellation) is then used to construct a mesh:
#let's assume our document contains one part object

import Mesh
faces = []
shape = FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.ActiveObject.Shape
triangles = shape.tessellate(1) # the number represents the precision of the tessellation)
for tri in triangles[1]:
face = []
for i in range(3):
vindex = tri[i]
face.append(triangles[0][vindex])
faces.append(face)
m = Mesh.Mesh(faces)
Mesh.show(m)
Sometimes the triangulation of certain faces offered by OpenCascade is quite ugly. If the face has a rectangular parameter space and
doesn't contain any holes or other trimming curves you can also create a mesh on your own:
import Mesh
def makeMeshFromFace(u,v,face):
(a,b,c,d)=face.ParameterRange
pts=[]
for j in range(v):
for i in range(u):
s=1.0/(u-1)*(i*b+(u-1-i)*a)
t=1.0/(v-1)*(j*d+(v-1-j)*c)
pts.append(face.valueAt(s,t))
mesh=Mesh.Mesh()
for j in range(v-1):
for i in range(u-1):
mesh.addFacet(pts[u*j+i],pts[u*j+i+1],pts[u*(j+1)+i])
mesh.addFacet(pts[u*(j+1)+i],pts[u*j+i+1],pts[u*(j+1)+i+1])
return mesh
Converting Meshes to Part objects

Converting Meshes to Part objects is an extremely important operation in CAD work, because very often you receive 3D data in mesh
format from other people or outputted from other applications. Meshes are very practical to represent free-form geometry and big visual
scenes, as it is very lightweight, but for CAD we generally prefer higher-level objects that carry much more information, such as the idea of
solid, or faces made of curves instead of triangles.
Converting meshes to those higher-level objects (handled by the Part Module in FreeCAD) is not an easy operation. Meshes can be made
of thousands of triangles (for example when generated by a 3D scanner), and having solids made of the same number of faces would be
extremely heavy to manipulate. So you generally want to optimize the object when converting.
FreeCAD currently offers two methods to convert Meshes to Part objects. The first method is a simple, direct conversion, without any
optimization:
import Mesh,Part
mesh = Mesh.createTorus()
shape = Part.Shape()
shape.makeShapeFromMesh(mesh.Topology,0.05) # the second arg is the tolerance for sewing
solid = Part.makeSolid(shape)
Part.show(solid)
The second method offers the possibility to consider mesh facets coplanar when the angle between them is under a certain value. This
allows to build much simpler shapes:
# let's assume our document contains one Mesh object

import Mesh,Part,MeshPart
faces = []
mesh = App.ActiveDocument.ActiveObject.Mesh
segments = mesh.getPlanes(0.00001) # use rather strict tolerance here
for i in segments:
if len(i) > 0:
# a segment can have inner holes
wires = MeshPart.wireFromSegment(mesh, i)
# we assume that the exterior boundary is that one with the biggest bounding box
if len(wires) > 0:
ext=None
max_length=0
for i in wires:
if i.BoundBox.DiagonalLength > max_length:
max_length = i.BoundBox.DiagonalLength
ext = i
wires.remove(ext)
# all interior wires mark a hole and must reverse their orientation, otherwise Part.Face fails
for i in wires:
i.reverse()
# make sure that the exterior wires comes as first in the lsit
wires.insert(0, ext)
faces.append(Part.Face(wires))
shell=Part.Compound(faces)
Part.show(shell)
#solid = Part.Solid(Part.Shell(faces))
#Part.show(solid)
FreeCAD is basically a collage of different powerful libraries, the most important being openCascade
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_CASCADE) , for managing and constructing geometry, Coin3d (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coin3D) to
display that geometry, and Qt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_(toolkit)) to put all this in a nice Graphical User Interface.
The geometry that appears in the 3D views of FreeCAD are rendered by the Coin3D library. Coin3D is an implementation of the
OpenInventor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Inventor) standard. The openCascade software also provides the same functionality, but it
was decided, at the very beginnings of FreeCAD, not to use the built-in openCascade viewer and rather switch to the more performant
coin3D software.
OpenInventor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Inventor) is actually a 3D scene descrition language. The scene described in openInventor
is then rendered in OpenGL on your screen. Coin3D takes care of doing this, so the programmer doesn't need to deal with complex
openGL calls, he just has to provide it with valid OpenInventor code. The big advantage is that openInventor is a very well-known and well
documented standard.
One of the big jobs FreeCAD does for you is basically to translate openCascade geometry information into openInventor language.
OpenInventor describes a 3D scene in the form of a scenegraph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scene_graph) , like the one below:
image from Inventor mentor (http://www-
evasion.imag.fr/~Francois.Faure/doc/inventorMentor/sgi_html/index.html)
An openInventor scenegraph describes everything that makes part of a 3D scene, such as geometry, colors, materials, lights, etc, and
organizes all that data in a convenient and clear structure. Everything can be grouped into sub-structures, allowing you to organize your
scene contents pretty much the way you like. Here is an example of an openInventor file:
#Inventor V2.0 ascii
Separator {
RotationXYZ {
axis Z
angle 0
}
Transform {
translation 0 0 0.5
}
Separator {
Material {
diffuseColor 0.05 0.05 0.05
}
Transform {
rotation 1 0 0 1.5708
scaleFactor 0.2 0.5 0.2
}
Cylinder {
}
}
}
As you can see, the structure is very simple. You use separators to organize your data into blocks, a bit like you would organize your
files into folders. Each statement affects what comes next, for example the first two items of our root separator are a rotation and a
translation, both will affect the next item, which is a separator. In that separator, a material is defined, and another transformation. Our
cylinder will therefore be affected by both transformations, the one who was applied directly to it and the one that was applied to its parent
separator.
We also have many other types of elements to organize our scene, such as groups, switches or annotations. We can define very
complex materials for our objects, with color, textures, shading modes and transparency. We can also define lights, cameras, and even
movement. It is even possible to embed pieces of scripting in openInventor files, to define more complex behaviours.
If you are interested in learning more about openInventor, head directly to its most famous reference, the Inventor mentor (http://www-
evasion.imag.fr/~Francois.Faure/doc/inventorMentor/sgi_html/index.html) .
In FreeCAD, normally, we don't need to interact directly with the openInventor scenegraph. Every object in a FreeCAD document, being a
mesh, a part shape or anything else, gets automatically converted to openInventor code and inserted in the main scenegraph that you see
in a 3D view. That scenegraph gets updated continuously when you do modifications, add or remove objects to the document. In fact,
every object (in App space) has a view provider (a corresponding object in Gui space), responsible for issuing openInventor code.
But there are many advantages to be able to access the scenegraph directly. For example, we can temporarily change the appearence of
an object, or we can add objects to the scene that have no real existence in the FreeCAD document, such as construction geometry,
helpers, graphical hints or tools such as manipulators or on-screen information.
FreeCAD itself features several tools to see or modify openInventor code. For example, the following python code will show the
openInventor representation of a selected object:
obj = FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.ActiveObject
viewprovider = obj.ViewObject
print viewprovider.toString()
But we also have a python module that allows complete access to anything managed by Coin3D, such as our FreeCAD scenegraph. So,
read on to Pivy.
Pivy (http://pivy.coin3d.org/) is a python binding library for Coin3d (http://www.coin3d.org) , the 3D-rendering library used FreeCAD. When
imported in a running python interpreter, it allows to dialog directly with any running Coin3d scenegraphs, such as the FreeCAD 3D views,
or even to create new ones. Pivy is bundled in standard FreeCAD installation.
The coin library is divided into several pieces, coin itself, for manipulating scenegraphs and bindings for several GUI systems, such as
windows or, like in our case, qt. Those modules are available to pivy too, depending if they are present on the system. The coin module is
always present, and it is what we will use anyway, since we won't need to care about anchoring our 3D display in any interface, it is
already done by FreeCAD itself. All we need to do is this:
from pivy import coin
Accessing and modifying the scenegraph

We saw in the Scenegraph page how a typical Coin scene is organized. Everything that appears in a FreeCAD 3D view is a coin
scenegraph, organized the same way. We have one root node, and all objects on the screen are its children.
FreeCAD has an easy way to access the root node of a 3D view scenegraph:
sg = FreeCADGui.ActiveDocument.ActiveView.getSceneGraph()
print sg
This will return the root node:
<pivy.coin.SoSelection; proxy of <Swig Object of type 'SoSelection *' at 0x360cb60> >
We can inspect the immediate children of our scene:
for node in sg.getChildren():

print node
Some of those nodes, such as SoSeparators or SoGroups, can have children themselves. The complete list of the available coin objects
can be found in the official coin documentation (http://doc.coin3d.org/Coin/classes.html) .
Let's try to add something to our scenegraph now. We'll add a nice red cube:
col = coin.SoBaseColor()
col.rgb=(1,0,0)
cub = coin.SoCube()
myCustomNode = coin.SoSeparator()
myCustomNode.addChild(col)
myCustomNode.addChild(cub)
sg.addChild(myCustomNode)
and here is our (nice) red cube. Now, let's try this:
col.rgb=(1,1,0)
See? everything is still accessible and modifiable on-the-fly. No need to recompute or redraw anything, coin takes care of everything. You
can add stuff to your scenegraph, change properties, hide stuff, show temporary objects, anything. Of course, this only concerns the
display in the 3D view. That display gets recomputed by FreeCAD on file open, and when an object needs recomputing. So, if you change
the aspect of an existing FreeCAD object, those changes will be lost if the object gets recomputed or when you reopen the file.
A key to work with scenegraphs in your scripts is to be able to access certain properties of the nodes you added when needed. For
example, if we wanted to move our cube, we would have added a SoTranslation node to our custom node, and it would have looked like
this:
col = coin.SoBaseColor()
col.rgb=(1,0,0)
trans = coin.SoTranslation()
trans.translation.setValue([0,0,0])
cub = coin.SoCube()
myCustomNode = coin.SoSeparator()
myCustomNode.addChild(col)
mtCustomNode.addChild(trans)
myCustomNode.addChild(cub)
sg.addChild(myCustomNode)
Remember that in an openInventor scenegraph, the order is important. A node affects what comes next, so you can say something like:
color red, cube, color yellow, sphere, and you will get a red cube and a yellow sphere. If we added the translation now to our existing
custom node, it would come after the cube, and not affect it. If we had inserted it when creating it, like here above, we could now do:
trans.translation.setValue([2,0,0])
And our cube would jump 2 units to the right. Finally, removing something is done with:
sg.removeChild(myCustomNode)
Using callback mechanisms

A callback mechanism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callback_%28computer_science%29) is a system that permits a library that you are
using, such as our coin library, to call you back, that is, to call a certain function from your currently running python object. This is
extremely useful, because that way coin can notify you if some specific event occurs in the scene. Coin can watch very different things,
such as mouse position, clicks of a mouse button, keyboard keys being pressed, and many other things.
FreeCAD features an easy way to use such callbacks:
class ButtonTest:
def __init__(self):
self.view = FreeCADGui.ActiveDocument.ActiveView
self.callback = self.view.addEventCallbackPivy(SoMouseButtonEvent.getClassTypeId(),self.getMouseClick)
def getMouseClick(self,event_cb):
event = event_cb.getEvent()
if event.getState() == SoMouseButtonEvent.DOWN:
print "Alert!!! A mouse button has been improperly clicked!!!"
self.view.removeEventCallbackSWIG(SoMouseButtonEvent.getClassTypeId(),self.callback)
ButtonTest()
The callback has to be initiated from an object, because that object must still be running when the callback will occur. See also a
complete list of possible events and their parameters, or the official coin documentation (http://doc.coin3d.org/Coin/classes.html) .
Documentation
Unfortunately pivy itself still doesn't have a proper documentation, but since it is an accurate translation of coin, you can safely use the
coin documentation as reference, and use python style instead of c++ style (for example SoFile::getClassTypeId() would in pivy be
SoFile.getClassId())
PyQt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PyQt) is a python module that allows python applications to create, access and modify Qt
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_(toolkit)) applications. You can use it for example to create your own Qt programs in python, or to access
and modify the interface of a running qt application, like FreeCAD.
By using the PyQt module from inside FreeCAD, you have therefore full control over its interface. You can for example:
Add your own panels, widgets and toolbars

Add or hide elements to existing panels
Change, redirect or add connections between all those elements
PyQt has an extensive API documentation (http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/static/Docs/PyQt4/html/classes.html) , and there are

many tutorials on the net to teach you how it works.
If you want to work on the FreeCAD interface, the very first thing to do is create a reference to the FreeCAD main window:
import sys
from PyQt4 import QtGui
app = QtGui.qApp
mw = app.activeWindow()
Then, you can for example browse through all the widgets of the interface:
for child in mw.children:

print 'widget name = ', child.getObjectName(), ', widget type = ', child
The widgets in a Qt interface are usually nested into "containers" widgets, so the children of our main window can themselves contain
other children. Depending on the widget type, there are a lot of things you can do. Check the API documentation to see what is possible.
Adding a new widget, for example a dockWidget (which can be placed in one of FreeCAD's side panels) is easy:
myWidget = QtGui.QDockWidget()
mw.addDockWidget(QtCore.Qt.RightDockWidgetArea,myWidget)
You could then add stuff directly to your widget:
myWidget.setObjectName("my Nice New Widget")

myWidget.resize(QtCore.QSize(QtCore.QRect(0,0,300,100))) # sets size of the widget
label = QtGui.QLabel(myWidget) # creates a label
label.setGeometry(QtCore.QRect(50,50,200,24)) # sets its size
label.setObjectName("myLabel") # sets its name, so it can be found by name
But a preferred method is to create a UI object which will do all of the setup of your widget at once. The big advantage is that such an UI
object can be created graphically with the Qt Designer program. A typical object generated by Qt Designer is like this:
class myWidget_Ui(object):
def setupUi(self, myWidget):
myWidget.resize(QtCore.QSize(QtCore.QRect(0,0,300,100).size()).expandedTo(myWidget.minimumSizeHint())) # sets size of
self.label = QtGui.QLabel(myWidget) # creates a label

self.label.setGeometry(QtCore.QRect(50,50,200,24)) # sets its size
self.label.setObjectName("label") # sets its name, so it can be found by name
def retranslateUi(self, draftToolbar): # built-in QT function that manages translations of widgets

myWidget.setWindowTitle(QtGui.QApplication.translate("myWidget", "My Widget", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8))
self.label.setText(QtGui.QApplication.translate("myWidget", "Welcome to my new widget!", None, QtGui.QApplication.Uni
3 4
To use it, you just need to apply it to your freshly created widget like this:
myNewFreeCADWidget = QtGui.QDockWidget() # create a new dckwidget

myNewFreeCADWidget.ui = myWidget_Ui() # load the Ui script
myNewFreeCADWidget.ui.setupUi(myNewFreeCADWidget) # setup the ui
FCmw.addDockWidget(QtCore.Qt.RightDockWidgetArea,myNewFreeCADWidget) # add the widget to the main window
Besides the standard object types such as annotations, meshes and parts objects, FreeCAD also offers the amazing possibility to build
100% python-scripted objects, called Python Features. Those objects will behave exactly as any other FreeCAD object, can be saved in
a document and opened on any other installation of FreeCAD, since the python code that defines the object is also saved in the
document.
Python Features follow the same rule as all FreeCAD features: they are separated into App and GUI parts. The app part, the Document
Object, defines the geometry of our object, while its GUI part, the View Provider Object, defines how the object will be drawn on screen.
The View Provider Object, as any other FreeCAD feature, is only available when you run FreeCAD in its own GUI. There are several
properties and methods available to build your object. Properties must be of any of the predefined properties types that FreeCAD offers,
and will appear in the property view window, so they can be edited by the user. This way, FeaturePython objects are truly and totally
parametric. you can define properties for the Object and its ViewObject separately.
Basic example
The following sample can be found in the src/Mod/TemplatePyMod/FeaturePython.py (http://free-cad.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/free-
cad/trunk/src/Mod/TemplatePyMod/FeaturePython.py?view=markup) file, together with several other examples:
"Examples for a feature class and its view provider."
import FreeCAD, FreeCADGui

class Box:
def __init__(self, obj):
"Add some custom properties to our box feature"
obj.addProperty("App::PropertyLength","Length","Box","Length of the box").Length=1.0
obj.addProperty("App::PropertyLength","Width","Box","Width of the box").Width=1.0
obj.addProperty("App::PropertyLength","Height","Box", "Height of the box").Height=1.0
obj.Proxy = self
def onChanged(self, fp, prop):

"Do something when a property has changed"
FreeCAD.Console.PrintMessage("Change property: " + str(prop) + "\n")
def execute(self, fp):

"Do something when doing a recomputation, this method is mandatory"
FreeCAD.Console.PrintMessage("Recompute Python Box feature\n")
class ViewProviderBox:
"Set this object to the proxy object of the actual view provider"
obj.addProperty("App::PropertyColor","Color","Box","Color of the box").Color=(1.0,0.0,0.0)
obj.Proxy = self
def attach(self, obj):

"Setup the scene sub-graph of the view provider, this method is mandatory"
self.shaded = coin.SoGroup()
self.wireframe = coin.SoGroup()
self.scale = coin.SoScale()
self.color = coin.SoBaseColor()
data=coin.SoCube()
self.shaded.addChild(self.scale)
self.shaded.addChild(self.color)
self.shaded.addChild(data)
obj.addDisplayMode(self.shaded,"Shaded");
style=coin.SoDrawStyle()
style.style = coin.SoDrawStyle.LINES
self.wireframe.addChild(style)
self.wireframe.addChild(self.scale)
self.wireframe.addChild(self.color)
self.wireframe.addChild(data)
obj.addDisplayMode(self.wireframe,"Wireframe");
self.onChanged(obj,"Color")
def updateData(self, fp, prop):

"If a property of the handled feature has changed we have the chance to handle this here"
# fp is the handled feature, prop is the name of the property that has changed
l = fp.getPropertyByName("Length")
w = fp.getPropertyByName("Width")
h = fp.getPropertyByName("Height")
self.scale.scaleFactor.setValue(l,w,h)
pass
def getDisplayModes(self,obj):
"Return a list of display modes."
modes=[]
modes.append("Shaded")
modes.append("Wireframe")
return modes
return modes
def getDefaultDisplayMode(self):
"Return the name of the default display mode. It must be defined in getDisplayModes."
return "Shaded"
def setDisplayMode(self,mode):
"Map the display mode defined in attach with those defined in getDisplayModes.
Since they have the same names nothing needs to be done. This method is optional"
return mode
def onChanged(self, vp, prop):

"Here we can do something when a single property got changed"
if prop == "Color":
c = vp.getPropertyByName("Color")
self.color.rgb.setValue(c[0],c[1],c[2])
def getIcon(self):
"Return the icon in XMP format which will appear in the tree view. This method is
optional and if not defined a default icon is shown."
return """
/* XPM */
static const char * ViewProviderBox_xpm[] = {
"16 16 6 1",
" c None",
". c #141010",
"+ c #615BD2",
"@ c #C39D55",
"# c #000000",
"$ c #57C355",
" ........",
" ......++..+..",
" .@@@@.++..++.",
" .@@@@.++..++.",
" .@@ .++++++.",
" ..@@ .++..++.",
"###@@@@ .++..++.",
"##$.@@$#.++++++.",
"#$#$.$$$........",
"#$$####### ",
"#$$#$$$$$# ",
"#$$#$$$$$# ",
"#$$#$$$$$# ",
" #$#$$$$$# ",
" ##$$$$$# ",
" ####### "};
"""
def __getstate__(self):
"When saving the document this object gets stored using Python's cPickle module.
Since we have some un-pickable here -- the Coin stuff -- we must define this method
to return a tuple of all pickable objects or None."
return None
def __setstate__(self,state):
"When restoring the pickled object from document we have the chance to set some internals here.
Since no data were pickled nothing needs to be done here."
return None
def makeBox():
FreeCAD.newDocument()
a=FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.addObject("App::FeaturePython","Box")
Box(a)
ViewProviderBox(a.ViewObject)
Available properties
Properties are the true building stones of FeaturePython objects. Through them, the user will be able to interact and modify your object.
After creating a new FeaturePython object in your document ( a=FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.addObject("App::FeaturePython","Box") ),
you can get a list of the available properties by issuing:
a.supportedProperties()
You will get a list of available properties:
App::PropertyBool
App::PropertyFloat
App::PropertyFloatList
App::PropertyFloatConstraint
App::PropertyAngle
App::PropertyDistance
App::PropertyInteger
App::PropertyIntegerConstraint
App::PropertyPercent
App::PropertyEnumeration
App::PropertyIntegerList
App::PropertyString
App::PropertyStringList
App::PropertyLink
App::PropertyLinkList
App::PropertyMatrix
App::PropertyVector
App::PropertyVectorList
App::PropertyPlacement
App::PropertyPlacementLink
App::PropertyColor
App::PropertyColorList
App::PropertyMaterial
App::PropertyPath
App::PropertyFile
App::PropertyFileIncluded
Part::PropertyPartShape
Part::PropertyFilletContour
Part::PropertyCircle
When adding properties to your custom objects, take care of this:
Do not use characters "<" or ">" in the properties descriptions (that would break the xml pieces in the .fcstd file)
Properties are stored alphabetically in a .fcstd file. If you have a shape in your properties, any property whose name comes after
"Shape" in alphabetic order, will be loaded AFTER the shape, which can cause strange behaviours.
Other more complex example

This example makes use of the Part Module to create an octahedron, then creates its coin representation with pivy.
First is the Document object itself:

import FreeCAD, FreeCADGui, Part
class Octahedron:
"Add some custom properties to our box feature"
obj.addProperty("App::PropertyLength","Length","Octahedron","Length of the octahedron").Length=1.0
obj.addProperty("App::PropertyLength","Width","Octahedron","Width of the octahedron").Width=1.0
obj.addProperty("App::PropertyLength","Height","Octahedron", "Height of the octahedron").Height=1.0
obj.addProperty("Part::PropertyPartShape","Shape","Octahedron", "Shape of the octahedron")
obj.Proxy = self

# Define six vetices for the shape
v1 = FreeCAD.Vector(0,0,0)
v2 = FreeCAD.Vector(fp.Length,0,0)
v3 = FreeCAD.Vector(0,fp.Width,0)
v4 = FreeCAD.Vector(fp.Length,fp.Width,0)
v5 = FreeCAD.Vector(fp.Length/2,fp.Width/2,fp.Height/2)
v6 = FreeCAD.Vector(fp.Length/2,fp.Width/2,-fp.Height/2)
# Make the wires/faces

f1 = self.make_face(v1,v2,v5)
shell=Part.makeShell([f1,f2,f3,f4,f5,f6,f7,f8])
solid=Part.makeSolid(shell)
fp.Shape = solid
# helper mehod to create the faces

def make_face(self,v1,v2,v3):
wire = Part.makePolygon([v1,v2,v3,v1])
face = Part.Face(wire)
return face
Then, we have the view provider object, responsible for showing the object in the 3D scene:
class ViewProviderOctahedron:
"Set this object to the proxy object of the actual view provider"
obj.addProperty("App::PropertyColor","Color","Octahedron","Color of the octahedron").Color=(1.0,0.0,0.0)
obj.Proxy = self
def attach(self, obj):

"Setup the scene sub-graph of the view provider, this method is mandatory"
self.shaded = coin.SoGroup()
self.wireframe = coin.SoGroup()
self.scale = coin.SoScale()
self.color = coin.SoBaseColor()
self.data=coin.SoCoordinate3()
self.face=coin.SoIndexedLineSet()
self.shaded.addChild(self.scale)
self.shaded.addChild(self.color)
self.shaded.addChild(self.data)
self.shaded.addChild(self.face)
obj.addDisplayMode(self.shaded,"Shaded");
style=coin.SoDrawStyle()
style.style = coin.SoDrawStyle.LINES
self.wireframe.addChild(style)
self.wireframe.addChild(self.scale)
self.wireframe.addChild(self.color)
self.wireframe.addChild(self.data)
self.wireframe.addChild(self.face)
obj.addDisplayMode(self.wireframe,"Wireframe");
self.onChanged(obj,"Color")
def updateData(self, fp, prop):

"If a property of the handled feature has changed we have the chance to handle this here"
if prop == "Shape":
s = fp.getPropertyByName("Shape")
self.data.point.setNum(6)
cnt=0
for i in s.Vertexes:
self.data.point.set1Value(cnt,i.X,i.Y,i.Z)
cnt=cnt+1
self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(0,0)
self.face.coordIndex.set1Value(3,-1)
def getDisplayModes(self,obj):
"Return a list of display modes."
modes=[]
modes.append("Shaded")
modes.append("Wireframe")
return modes
def getDefaultDisplayMode(self):
"Return the name of the default display mode. It must be defined in getDisplayModes."
return "Shaded"
def setDisplayMode(self,mode):
return mode
def onChanged(self, vp, prop):

"Here we can do something when a single property got changed"
if prop == "Color":
c = vp.getPropertyByName("Color")
self.color.rgb.setValue(c[0],c[1],c[2])
def getIcon(self):
return """
/* XPM */
static const char * ViewProviderBox_xpm[] = {
"16 16 6 1",
" c None",
". c #141010",
"+ c #615BD2",
"@ c #C39D55",
"# c #000000",
"$ c #57C355",
" ........",
" ......++..+..",
" .@@@@.++..++.",
" .@@@@.++..++.",
" .@@ .++++++.",
" ..@@ .++..++.",
"###@@@@ .++..++.",
"##$.@@$#.++++++.",
"#$#$.$$$........",
"#$$####### ",
"#$$#$$$$$# ",
"#$$#$$$$$# ",
"#$$#$$$$$# ",
" #$#$$$$$# ",
" ##$$$$$# ",
" ####### "};
"""
def __getstate__(self):
return None
def __setstate__(self,state):
return None
Finally, once our object and its viewobject are defined, we just need to call them:
FreeCAD.newDocument()
a=FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.addObject("App::FeaturePython","Octahedron")
Octahedron(a)
ViewProviderOctahedron(a.ViewObject)
Making objects selectable

If you want to make your object selectable, or at least part of it, by clicking on it in the viewport, you must include its coin geometry inside
a SoFCSelection node. If your object has complex representation, with widgets, annotations, etc, you might want to include only a part of
it in a SoFCSelection. Everything that is a SoFCSelection is constantly scanned by FreeCAD to detect selection/preselection, so it
makes sense try not to overload it with unneeded scanning. This is what you would do to include a self.face from the example above:
selectionNode = coin.SoType.fromName("SoFCSelection").createInstance()
selectionNode.documentName.setValue(FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.Name)
selectionNode.objectName.setValue(obj.Object.Name) # here obj is the ViewObject, we need its associated App Object
selectionNode.subElementName.setValue("Face")
selectNode.addChild(self.face)
...
self.shaded.addChild(selectionNode)
self.wireframe.addChild(selectionNode)
3 4
Simply, you create a SoFCSelection node, then you add your geometry nodes to it, then you add it to your main node, instead of adding
your geometry nodes directly.
Working with simple shapes

If your parametric object simply outputs a shape, you don't need to use a view provider object. The shape will be displayed using
FreeCAD's standard shape representation:
class Line:
"App two point properties"
obj.addProperty("App::PropertyVector","p1","Line","Start point")
obj.addProperty("App::PropertyVector","p2","Line","End point").p2=FreeCAD.Vector(1,0,0)
obj.Proxy = self

"Print a short message when doing a recomputation, this method is mandatory"
fp.Shape = Part.makeLine(fp.p1,fp.p2)
a=FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.addObject("Part::FeaturePython","Line")
Line(a)
a.ViewObject.Proxy=0 # just set it to something different from None (this assignment is needed to run an internal notific
3 4
FreeCAD has the amazing ability to be importable as a python module in other programs or in a standalone python console, together with
all its modules and components. It's even possible to import the FreeCAD GUI as python module -- with some restrictions, however.
Using FreeCAD without GUI
One first, direct, easy and useful application you can make of this is to import FreeCAD documents into your program. In the following
example, we'll import the Part geometry of a FreeCAD document into blender (http://www.blender.org) . Here is the complete script. I hope
you'll be impressed by its simplicity:
FREECADPATH = '/opt/FreeCAD/lib' # path to your FreeCAD.so or FreeCAD.dll file

import Blender, sys
sys.path.append(FREECADPATH)
def import_fcstd(filename):
try:
import FreeCAD
except ValueError:
Blender.Draw.PupMenu('Error%t|FreeCAD library not found. Please check the FREECADPATH variable in the import scrip
else:
scene = Blender.Scene.GetCurrent()
import Part
doc = FreeCAD.open(filename)
objects = doc.Objects
for ob in objects:
if ob.Type[:4] == 'Part':
shape = ob.Shape
if shape.Faces:
mesh = Blender.Mesh.New()
rawdata = shape.tessellate(1)
for v in rawdata[0]:
mesh.verts.append((v.x,v.y,v.z))
for f in rawdata[1]:
mesh.faces.append.append(f)
scene.objects.new(mesh,ob.Name)
Blender.Redraw()
def main():
Blender.Window.FileSelector(import_fcstd, 'IMPORT FCSTD',
Blender.sys.makename(ext='.fcstd'))
# This lets you import the script without running it

if __name__=='__main__':
main()
3 4
The first, important part is to make sure python will find our FreeCAD library. Once it finds it, all FreeCAD modules such as Part, that we'll
use too, will be available automatically. So we simply take the sys.path variable, which is where python searches for modules, and we
append the FreeCAD lib path. This modification is only temporary, and will be lost when we'll close our python interpreter. Another way
could be making a link to your FreeCAD library in one of the python search paths. I kept the path in a constant (FREECADPATH) so it'll
be easier for another user of the script to configure it to his own system.
Once we are sure the library is loaded (the try/except sequence), we can now work with FreeCAD, the same way as we would inside
FreeCAD's own python interpreter. We open the FreeCAD document that is passed to us by the main() function, and we make a list of its
objects. Then, as we choosed only to care about Part geometry, we check if the Type property of each object contains "Part", then we
tesselate it.
The tesselation produce a list of vertices and a list of faces defined by vertices indexes. This is perfect, since it is exactly the same way
as blender defines meshes. So, our task is ridiculously simple, we just add both lists contents to the verts and faces of a blender mesh.
When everything is done, we just redraw the screen, and that's it!
Of course this script is very simple (in fact I made a more advanced here (http://yorik.orgfree.com/scripts/import_freecad.py) ), you might
want to extend it, for example importing mesh objects too, or importing Part geometry that has no faces, or import other file formats that
FreeCAD can read. You might also want to export geometry to a FreeCAD document, which can be done the same way. You might also
want to build a dialog, so the user can choose what to import, etc... The beauty of all this actually lies in the fact that you let FreeCAD do
the ground work while presenting its results in the program of your choice.
Using FreeCAD with GUI
From version 4.2 on Qt has the intriguing ability to embed Qt-GUI-dependent plugins into non-Qt host applications and share the host's
event loop.
Especially, for FreeCAD this means that it can be imported from within another application with its whole user interface where the host
application has full control over FreeCAD, then.
The whole python code to achieve that has only two lines
import FreeCADGui
FreeCADGui.showMainWindow()
If the host application is based on Qt then this solution should work on all platforms which Qt supports. However, the host should link the
same Qt version as FreeCAD because otherwise you could run into unexpected runtime errors.
For non-Qt applications, however, there are a few limitations you must be aware of. This solution probably doesn't work together with all
other toolkits. For Windows it works as long as the host application is directly based on Win32 or any other toolkit that internally uses the
Win32 API such as wxWidgets, MFC or WinForms. In order to get it working under X11 the host application must link the "glib" library.
Note, for any console application this solution of course doesn't work because there is no event loop running.
This page contains examples, pieces, chunks of FreeCAD python code collected from users experiences and discussions on the forums.
Read and use it as a start for your own scripts...
A typical InitGui.py file
Every module must contain, besides your main module file, an InitGui.py file, responsible for inserting the module in the main Gui. This is
an example of a simple one.
class ScriptWorkbench (Workbench):

MenuText = "Scripts"
def Initialize(self):
import Scripts # assuming Scripts.py is your module
list = ["Script_Cmd"] # That list must contain command names, that can be defined in Scripts.py
self.appendToolbar("My Scripts",list)
Gui.addWorkbench(ScriptWorkbench())
A typical module file
This is an example of a main module file, containing everything your module does. It is the Scripts.py file invoked by the previous
example. You can have all your custom commands here.
import FreeCAD, FreeCADGui
class ScriptCmd:
def Activated(self):
# Here your write what your ScriptCmd does...
FreeCAD.Console.PrintMessage('Hello, World!')
def GetResources(self):
return {'Pixmap' : 'path_to_an_icon/myicon.png', 'MenuText': 'Short text', 'ToolTip': 'More detailed text'}
FreeCADGui.addCommand('Script_Cmd', ScriptCmd())
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Import a new filetype
Making an importer for a new filetype in FreeCAD is easy. FreeCAD doesn't consider that you import data in an opened document, but
rather that you simply can directly open the new filetype. So what you need to do is to add the new file extension to FreeCAD's list of
known extensions, and write the code that will read the file and create the FreeCAD objects you want:
This line must be added to the InitGui.py file to add the new file extension to the list:
# Assumes Import_Ext.py is the file that has the code for opening and reading .ext files
FreeCAD.addImportType("Your new File Type (*.ext)","Import_Ext")
Then in the Import_Ext.py file:
def open(filename):
# here you do all what is needed with filename, read, classify data, create corresponding FreeCAD objects
doc.recompute()
To export your document to some new filetype works the same way, except that you use:
FreeCAD.addExportType("Your new File Type (*.ext)","Export_Ext")
Adding a line
A line simply has 2 points.
import Part,PartGui
doc=App.activeDocument()
# add a line element to the document and set its points
l=Part.Line()
l.EndPoint=(1.0,1.0,1.0)
doc.recompute()
Adding a polygon
A polygon is simply a set of connected line segments (a polyline in AutoCAD). It doesn't need to be closed.
import Part,PartGui
n=list()
# create a 3D vector, set its coordinates and add it to the list
v=App.Vector(0,0,0)
n.append(v)
v=App.Vector(10,0,0)
n.append(v)
#... repeat for all nodes
# Create a polygon object and set its nodes
p=doc.addObject("Part::Polygon","Polygon")
p.Nodes=n
doc.recompute()
Adding and removing an object to a group
grp=doc.addObject("App::DocumentObjectGroup", "Group")
lin=doc.addObject("Part::Feature", "Line")
grp.addObject(lin) # adds the lin object to the group grp
grp.removeObject(lin) # removes the lin object from the group grp
Note: You can even add other groups to a group...
Adding a Mesh
import Mesh
# create a new empty mesh
m = Mesh.Mesh()
# build up box out of 12 facets
m.addFacet(0.0,0.0,0.0, 0.0,0.0,1.0, 0.0,1.0,1.0)
m.addFacet(0.0,0.0,0.0, 0.0,1.0,1.0, 0.0,1.0,0.0)
m.addFacet(0.0,0.0,0.0, 1.0,0.0,0.0, 1.0,0.0,1.0)
m.addFacet(0.0,0.0,0.0, 1.0,0.0,1.0, 0.0,0.0,1.0)
m.addFacet(0.0,0.0,0.0, 0.0,1.0,0.0, 1.0,1.0,0.0)
m.addFacet(0.0,0.0,0.0, 1.0,1.0,0.0, 1.0,0.0,0.0)
m.addFacet(0.0,1.0,0.0, 0.0,1.0,1.0, 1.0,1.0,1.0)
m.addFacet(0.0,1.0,0.0, 1.0,1.0,1.0, 1.0,1.0,0.0)
m.addFacet(0.0,1.0,1.0, 0.0,0.0,1.0, 1.0,0.0,1.0)
m.addFacet(0.0,1.0,1.0, 1.0,0.0,1.0, 1.0,1.0,1.0)
m.addFacet(1.0,1.0,0.0, 1.0,1.0,1.0, 1.0,0.0,1.0)
m.addFacet(1.0,1.0,0.0, 1.0,0.0,1.0, 1.0,0.0,0.0)
# scale to a edge langth of 100
m.scale(100.0)
# add the mesh to the active document
me=doc.addObject("Mesh::Feature","Cube")
me.Mesh=m
Adding an arc or a circle
import Part
doc = App.activeDocument()
c = Part.Circle()
c.Radius=10.0
f = doc.addObject("Part::Feature", "Circle") # create a document with a circle feature
f.Shape = c.toShape() # Assign the circle shape to the shape property
doc.recompute()
Accessing and changing representation of an object
Each object in a FreeCAD document has an associated view representation object that stores all the parameters that define how the
object appear, like color, linewidth, etc...
gad=Gui.activeDocument() # access the active document containing all

# view representations of the features in the
# corresponding App document
v=gad.getObject("Cube") # access the view representation to the Mesh feature 'Cube'

v.ShapeColor # prints the color to the console
v.ShapeColor=(1.0,1.0,1.0) # sets the shape color to white
Observing mouse events in the 3D viewer via Python
The Inventor framework allows to add one or more callback nodes to the scenegraph of the viewer. By default in FreeCAD one callback
node is installed per viewer which allows to add global or static C++ functions. In the appropriate Python binding some methods are
provided to make use of this technique from within Python code.
App.newDocument()
v=Gui.activeDocument().activeView()
#This class logs any mouse button events. As the registered callback function fires twice for 'down' and
#'up' events we need a boolean flag to handle this.
class ViewObserver:
def logPosition(self, info):
down = (info["State"] == "DOWN")
pos = info["Position"]
if (down):
FreeCAD.Console.PrintMessage("Clicked on position: ("+str(pos[0])+", "+str(pos[0])+")\n")
o = ViewObserver()
c = v.addEventCallback("SoMouseButtonEvent",o.logPosition)
Now, pick somewhere on the area in the 3D viewer and observe the messages in the output window. To finish the observation just call
v.removeEventCallback("SoMouseButtonEvent",c)
The following event types are supported
SoEvent -- all kind of events

SoButtonEvent -- all mouse button and key events
SoLocation2Event -- 2D movement events (normally mouse movements)
SoMotion3Event -- 3D movement events (normally spaceball)
SoKeyboradEvent -- key down and up events
SoMouseButtonEvent -- mouse button down and up events
SoSpaceballButtonEvent -- spaceball button down and up events
The Python function that can be registered with addEventCallback() expects a dictionary. Depending on the watched event the dictionary
can contain different keys.
For all events it has the keys:
Type -- the name of the event type i.e. SoMouseEvent, SoLocation2Event, ...
Time -- the current time as string
Position -- a tuple of two integers, mouse position
ShiftDown -- a boolean, true if Shift was pressed otherwise false
CtrlDown -- a boolean, true if Ctrl was pressed otherwise false
AltDown -- a boolean, true if Alt was pressed otherwise false
For all button events, i.e. keyboard, mouse or spaceball events
State -- A string 'UP' if the button was up, 'DOWN' if it was down or 'UNKNOWN' for all other cases
For keyboard events:
Key -- a character of the pressed key
For mouse button event
Button -- The pressed button, could be BUTTON1, ..., BUTTON5 or ANY
For spaceball events:
Button -- The pressed button, could be BUTTON1, ..., BUTTON7 or ANY
And finally motion events:
Translation -- a tuple of three floats

Rotation -- a quaternion for the rotation, i.e. a tuple of four floats
Manipulate the scenegraph in Python
It is also possible to get and change the scenegraph in Python, with the 'pivy' module -- a Python binding for Coin.
from pivy.coin import * # load the pivy module

view = Gui.ActiveDocument.ActiveView # get the active viewer
root = view.getSceneGraph() # the root is an SoSeparator node
root.addChild(SoCube())
view.fitAll()
The Python API of pivy is created by using the tool SWIG. As we use in FreeCAD some self-written nodes you cannot create them
directly in Python. However, it is possible to create a node by its internal name. An instance of the type 'SoFCSelection' can be created
with
type = SoType.fromName("SoFCSelection")
node = type.createInstance()
Adding and removing objects to/from the scenegraph
Adding new nodes to the scenegraph can be done this way. Take care of always adding a SoSeparator to contain the geometry,
coordinates and material info of a same object. The following example adds a red line from (0,0,0) to (10,0,0):
sg = Gui.ActiveDocument.ActiveView.getSceneGraph()
co = coin.SoCoordinate3()
pts = [[0,0,0],[10,0,0]]
co.point.setValues(0,len(pts),pts)
ma = coin.SoBaseColor()
ma.rgb = (1,0,0)
li = coin.SoLineSet()
li.numVertices.setValue(2)
no = coin.SoSeparator()
no.addChild(co)
no.addChild(ma)
no.addChild(li)
sg.addChild(no)
To remove it, simply issue:
sg.removeChild(no)
Adding custom widgets to the interface
You can create custom widgets with Qt designer, transform them into a python script, and then load them into the FreeCAD interface with
PyQt4.
The python code produced by the Ui python compiler (the tool that converts qt-designer .ui files into python code) generally looks like this
(it is simple, you can also code it directly in python):
class myWidget_Ui(object):
def setupUi(self, myWidget):
myWidget.resize(QtCore.QSize(QtCore.QRect(0,0,300,100).size()).expandedTo(myWidget.minimumSizeHint())) # sets size of
self.label = QtGui.QLabel(myWidget) # creates a label

self.label.setGeometry(QtCore.QRect(50,50,200,24)) # sets its size
self.label.setObjectName("label") # sets its name, so it can be found by name
def retranslateUi(self, draftToolbar): # built-in QT function that manages translations of widgets

myWidget.setWindowTitle(QtGui.QApplication.translate("myWidget", "My Widget", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8))
self.label.setText(QtGui.QApplication.translate("myWidget", "Welcome to my new widget!", None, QtGui.QApplicati
3 4
Then, all you need to do is to create a reference to the FreeCAD Qt window, insert a custom widget into it, and "transform" this widget
into yours with the Ui code we just made:
app = QtGui.qApp
FCmw = app.activeWindow() # the active qt window, = the freecad window since we are inside it
myNewFreeCADWidget = QtGui.QDockWidget() # create a new dckwidget
myNewFreeCADWidget.ui = myWidget_Ui() # load the Ui script
myNewFreeCADWidget.ui.setupUi(myNewFreeCADWidget) # setup the ui
FCmw.addDockWidget(QtCore.Qt.RightDockWidgetArea,myNewFreeCADWidget) # add the widget to the main window
This page shows how advanced functionality can easily be built in Python. In this exercise, we will be building a new tool that draws a
line. This tool can then be linked to a FreeCAD command, and that command can be called by any element of the interface, like a menu
item or a toolbar button.
The main script

First we will write a script containing all our functionality. Then, we will save this in a file, and import it in FreeCAD, so all classes and
functions we write will be availible to FreeCAD. So, launch your favorite text editor, and type the following lines:
import FreeCADGui, Part
from pivy.coin import *
class line:
"this class will create a line after the user clicked 2 points on the screen"
def __init__(self):
self.stack = []
self.callback = self.view.addEventCallbackPivy(SoMouseButtonEvent.getClassTypeId(),self.getpoint)
def getpoint(self,event_cb):
pos = event.getPosition()
point = self.view.getPoint(pos[0],pos[1])
self.stack.append(point)
if len(self.stack) == 2:
l = Part.Line(self.stack[0],self.stack[1])
shape = l.toShape()
Part.show(shape)
self.view.removeEventCallbackPivy(SoMouseButtonEvent.getClassTypeId(),self.callback)
Detailed explanation
import Part, FreeCADGui

In Python, when you want to use functions from another module, you need to import it. In our case, we will need functions from the Part
Module, for creating the line, and from the Gui module (FreeCADGui), for accessing the 3D view. We also need the complete contents of
the coin library, so we can use directly all coin objects like SoMouseButtonEvent, etc...
class line:
Here we define our main class. Why do we use a class and not a function? The reason is that we need our tool to stay "alive" while we
are waiting for the user to click on the screen. A function ends when its task has been done, but an object (a class defines an object)
stays alive until it is destroyed.
In Python, every class or function can have a description string. This is particularly useful in FreeCAD, because when you'll call that class
in the interpreter, the description string will be displayed as a tooltip.
def __init__(self):
Python classes can always contain an __init__ function, which is executed when the class is called to create an object. So, we will put
here everything we want to happen when our line tool begins.
In a class, you usually want to append self. before a variable name, so it will be easily accessible to all functions inside and outside that
class. Here, we will use self.view to access and manipulate the active 3D view.
self.stack = []
Here we create an empty list that will contain the 3D points sent by the getpoint function.
This is the important part: Since it is actually a coin3D (http://www.coin3d.org/) scene, the FreeCAD uses coin callback mechanism, that
allows a function to be called everytime a certain scene event happens. In our case, we are creating a callback for SoMouseButtonEvent
(http://doc.coin3d.org/Coin/group__events.html) events, and we bind it to the getpoint function. Now, everytime a mouse button is pressed
or released, the getpoint function will be executed.
Note that there is also an alternative to addEventCallbackPivy() called addEventCallback() which dispenses the use of pivy. But since pivy
is a very efficient and natural way to access any part of the coin scene, it is much better to use it as much as you can!
Now we define the getpoint function, that will be executed when a mouse button is pressed in a 3D view. This function will receive an
argument, that we will call event_cb. From this event callback we can access the event object, which contains several pieces of
information (mode info here).
The getpoint function will be called when a mouse button is pressed or released. But we want to pick a 3D point only when pressed
(otherwise we would get two 3D points very close to each other). So we must check for that here.
Here we get the screen coordinates of the mouse cursor
This function gives us a FreeCAD vector (x,y,z) containing the 3D point that lies on the focal plane, just under our mouse cursor. If you are
in camera view, imagine a ray coming from the camera, passing through the mouse cursor, and hitting the focal plane. There is our 3D
point. If we are in orthogonal view, the ray is parallel to the view direction.
We add our new point to the stack
Do we have enough points already? if yes, then let's draw the line!
Here we use the function Line() from the Part Module that creates a line from two FreeCAD vectors. Everything we create and modify
inside the Part module, stays in the Part module. So, until now, we created a Line Part. It is not bound to any object of our active
document, so nothing appears on the screen.
shape = l.toShape()
The FreeCAD document can only accept shapes from the Part module. Shapes are the most generic type of the Part module. So, we
must convert our line to a shape before adding it to the document.
Part.show(shape)
The Part module has a very handy show() function that creates a new object in the document and binds a shape to it. We could also have
created a new object in the document first, then bound the shape to it manually.
Since we are done with our line, let's remove the callback mechanism, that consumes precious CPU cycles.
Testing & Using the script

Now, let's save our script to some place where the FreeCAD python interpreter will find it. When importing modules, the interpreter will
look in the following places: the python installation paths, the FreeCAD bin directory, and all FreeCAD modules directories. So, the best
solution is to create a new directory in one of the FreeCAD Mod directories, and to save our script in it. For example, let's make a
"MyScripts" directory, and save our script as "exercise.py".
Now, everything is ready, let's start FreeCAD, create a new document, and, in the python interpreter, issue:
import exercise
If no error message appear, that means our exercise script has been loaded. We can now check its contents with:
dir(exercise)
The command dir() is a built-in python command that lists the contents of a module. We can see that our line() class is there, waiting for
us. Now let's test it:
exercise.line()
Then, click two times in the 3D view, and bingo, here is our line! To do it again, just type exercise.line() again, and again, and again...
Feels great, no?
Registering the script in the FreeCAD interface

Now, for our new line tool to be really cool, it should have a button on the interface, so we don't need to type all that stuff everytime. The
easiest way is to transform our new MyScripts directory into a full FreeCAD workbench. It is easy, all that is needed is to put a file called
InitGui.py inside your MyScripts directory. The InitGui.py will contain the instructions to create a new workbench, and add our new tool
to it. Besides that we will also need to transform a bit our exercise code, so the line() tool is recognized as an official FreeCAD command.
Let's start by making an InitGui.py file, and write the following code in it:
class MyWorkbench (Workbench):

MenuText = "MyScripts"
def Initialize(self):
import exercise
commandslist = ["line"]
self.appendToolbar("My Scripts",commandslist)
Gui.addWorkbench(MyWorkbench())
By now, you should already understand the above script by yourself, I think: We create a new class that we call MyWorkbench, we give it
a title (MenuText), and we define an Initialize() function that will be executed when the workbench is loaded into FreeCAD. In that function,
we load in the contents of our exercise file, and append the FreeCAD commands found inside to a command list. Then, we make a
toolbar called "My Scripts" and we assign our commands list to it. Currently, of course, we have only one tool, so our command list
contains only one element. Then, once our workbench is ready, we add it to the main interface.
But this still won't work, because a FreeCAD command must be formatted in a certain way to work. So we will need to transform a bit our
line() tool. Our new exercise.py script will now look like this:
import FreeCADGui, Part

class line:
def Activated(self):
self.stack = []
shape = l.toShape()
Part.show(shape)
def GetResources(self):
return {'Pixmap' : 'path_to_an_icon/line_icon.png', 'MenuText': 'Line', 'ToolTip': 'Creates a line by clicking 2 poi
FreeCADGui.addCommand('line', line())
3 4
What we did here is transform our __init__() function into an Activated() function, because when FreeCAD commands are run, they
automatically execute the Activated() function. We also added a GetResources() function, that informs FreeCAD where it can find an icon
for the tool, and what will be the name and tooltip of our tool. Any jpg, png or svg image will work as an icon, it can be any size, but it is
best to use a size that is close to the final aspect, like 16x16, 24x24 or 32x32. Then, we add the line() class as an official FreeCAD
command with the addCommand() method.
That's it, we now just need to restart FreeCAD and we'll have a nice new workbench with our brand new line tool!
So you want more?

If you liked this exercise, why not try to improve this little tool? There are many things that can be done, like for example:
Add user feedback: until now we did a very bare tool, the user might be a bit lost when using it. Sowe could add some feedback,
telling him what to do next. For example, you could issue messages to the FreeCAD console. Have a look in the
FreeCAD.Console module
Add a possibility to type the 3D points coordinates manually. Look at the python input() function, for example
Add the possibility to add more than 2 points
Add events for other things: Now we just check for Mouse button events, what if we would also do something when the mouse is
moved, like displaying current coordinates?
Give a name to the created object
Don't hesitate to write your questions or ideas on the talk page!
In this page we will show how to build a simple Qt Dialog with Qt Designer (http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/designer-manual.html) , Qt's
official tool for designing interfaces, then convert it to python code, then use it inside FreeCAD. I'll assume in the example that you know
how to edit and run python scripts already, and that you can do simple things in a terminal window such as navigate, etc. You must also
have, of course, pyqt installed.
Designing the dialog

In CAD applications, designing a good UI (User Interface) is very important. About everything the user will do will be through some piece of
interface: reading dialog boxes, pressing buttons, choosing between icons, etc. So it is very important to think carefully to what you want
to do, how you want the user to behave, and how will be the workflow of your action.
There are a couple of concepts to know when designing interface:
Modal/non-modal dialogs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_window) : A modal dialog appears in front of your screen, stopping the
action of the main window, forcing the user to respond to the dialog, while a non-modal dialog doesn't stop you from working on the
main window. In some case the first is better, in other cases not.
Identifying what is required and what is optional: Make sure the user knows what he must do. Label everything with proper
description, use tooltips, etc.
Separating commands from parameters: This is usually done with buttons and text input fields. The user knows that clicking a
button will produce an action while changing a value inside a text field will change a parameter somewhere. Nowadays, though,
users usually know well what is a button, what is an input field, etc. The interface toolkit we are using, Qt, is a state-of-the-art
toolkit, and we won't have to worry much about making things clear, since they will already be very clear by themselves.
So, now that we have well defined what we will do, it's time to open the qt designer. Let's design a very simple dialog, like this:
We will then use this dialog in FreeCAD to produce a nice rectangular plane. You might find it not very useful to produce nice rectangular
planes, but it will be easy to change it later to do more complex things. When you open it, Qt Designer looks like this:
It is very simple to use. On the left bar you have elements that can be dragged on your widget. On the right side you have properties
panels displaying all kinds of editable properties of selected elements. So, begin with creating a new widget. Select "Dialog without
buttons", since we don't want the default Ok/Cancel buttons. Then, drag on your widget 3 labels, one for the title, one for writing "Height"
and one for writing "Width". Labels are simple texts that appear on your widget, just to inform the user. If you select a label, on the right
side will appear several properties that you can change if you want, such as font style, height, etc.
Then, add 2 LineEdits, which are text fields that the user can fill in, one for the height and one for the width. Here too, we can edit
properties. For example, why not set a default value? For example 1.00 for each. This way, when the user will see the dialog, both values
will be filled already and if he is satisfied he can directly press the button, saving precious time. Then, add a PushButton, which is the
button the user will need to press after he filled the 2 fields.
Note that I choosed here very simple controls, but Qt has many more options, for example you could use Spinboxes instead of LineEdits,
etc... Have a look at what is available, you will surely have other ideas.
That's about all we need to do in Qt Designer. One last thing, though, let's rename all our elements with easier names, so it will be easier
to identify them in our scripts:
Converting our dialog to python
Now, let's save our widget somewhere. It will be saved as an .ui file, that we will easily convert to python script with pyuic. On windows,
the pyuic program is bundled with pyqt (to be verified), on linux you probably will need to install it separately from your package manager
(on debian-based systems, it is part of the pyqt4-dev-tools package). To do the conversion, you'll need to open a terminal window (or a
command prompt window on windows), navigate to where you saved your .ui file, and issue:
pyuic mywidget.ui > mywidget.py
On some systems the program is called pyuic4 instead of pyuic. This will simply convert the .ui file into a python script. If we open the
mywidget.py file, its contents are very easy to understand:
from PyQt4 import QtCore, QtGui
class Ui_Dialog(object):
def setupUi(self, Dialog):
Dialog.setObjectName("Dialog")
Dialog.resize(187, 178)
self.title = QtGui.QLabel(Dialog)
self.title.setGeometry(QtCore.QRect(10, 10, 271, 16))
self.title.setObjectName("title")
self.label_width = QtGui.QLabel(Dialog)
...
self.retranslateUi(Dialog)
QtCore.QMetaObject.connectSlotsByName(Dialog)
def retranslateUi(self, Dialog):

Dialog.setWindowTitle(QtGui.QApplication.translate("Dialog", "Dialog", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8))
self.title.setText(QtGui.QApplication.translate("Dialog", "Plane-O-Matic", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8))
...
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As you see it has a very simple structure: a class named Ui_Dialog is created, that stores the interface elements of our widget. That
class has two methods, one for setting up the widget, and one for translating its contents, that is part of the general Qt mechanism for
translating interface elements. The setup method simply creates, one by one, the widgets as we defined them in Qt Designer, and sets
their options as we decided earlier. Then, the whole interface gets translated, and finally, the slots get connected (we'll talk about that
later).
We can now create a new widget, and use this class to create its interface. We can already see our widget in action, by putting our
mywidget.py file in a place where FreeCAD will find it (in the FreeCAD bin directory, or in any of the Mod subdirectories), and, in the
FreeCAD python interpreter, issue:
from PyQt4 import QtGui

import mywidget
d = QtGui.QWidget()
d.ui = mywidget.Ui_Dialog()
d.ui.setupUi(d)
d.show()
And our dialog will appear! Note that our python interpreter is still working, we have a non-modal dialog. So, to close it, we can (apart from
clicking its close icon, of course) issue:
d.hide()
Making our dialog do something

Now that we can show and hide our dialog, we just need to add one last part: To make it do something! If you play a bit with Qt designer,
you'll quickly discover a whole section called "signals and slots". Basically, it works like this: elements on your widgets (in Qt
terminology, those elements are themselves widgets) can send signals. Those signals differ according to the widget type. For example, a
button can send a signal when it is pressed and when it is released. Those signals can be connected to slots, which can be special
functionality of other widgets (for example a dialog has a "close" slot to which you can connect the signal from a close button), or can be
custom functions. The PyQt Reference Documentation (http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/static/Docs/PyQt4/html/classes.html) lists
all the qt widgets, what they can do, what signals they can send, etc...
What we will do here, is create a new function that will create a plane based on height and width, and connect that function to the pressed
signal emitted by our "Create!" button. So, let's begin with importing our FreeCAD modules, by putting the following line at the top of the
script, where we already import QtCore and QtGui:
import FreeCAD, Part
Then, let's add a new function to our Ui_Dialog class:
def createPlane(self):
try:
# first we check if valid numbers have been entered
w = float(self.width.text())
h = float(self.height.text())
except ValueError:
print "Error! Width and Height values must be valid numbers!"
else:
# create a face from 4 points
p1 = FreeCAD.Vector(0,0,0)
p2 = FreeCAD.Vector(w,0,0)
p3 = FreeCAD.Vector(w,h,0)
p4 = FreeCAD.Vector(0,h,0)
pointslist = [p1,p2,p3,p4,p1]
mywire = Part.makePolygon(pointslist)
myface = Part.Face(mywire)
Part.show(myface)
self.hide()
Then, we need to inform Qt to connect the button to the function, by placing the following line just before
QtCore.QMetaObject.connectSlotsByName(Dialog):
QtCore.QObject.connect(self.create,QtCore.SIGNAL("pressed()"),self.createPlane)
This, as you see, connects the pressed() signal of our create object (the "Create!" button), to a slot named createPlane, which we just
defined. That's it! Now, as a final touch, we can add a little function to create the dialog, it will be easier to call. Outside the Ui_Dialog
class, let's add this code:
class plane():
d = QtGui.QWidget()
d.ui = Ui_Dialog()
d.ui.setupUi(d)
d.show()
Then, from FreeCAD, we only need to do:
import mywidget
mywidget.plane()
That's all Folks... Now you can try all kinds of things, like for example inserting your widget in the FreeCAD interface (see the Code
snippets page), or making much more advanced custom tools, by using other elements on your widget.
The complete script

This is the complete script, for reference:
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
# Form implementation generated from reading ui file 'mywidget.ui'

#
# Created: Mon Jun 1 19:09:10 2009
# by: PyQt4 UI code generator 4.4.4
#
# WARNING! All changes made in this file will be lost!
from PyQt4 import QtCore, QtGui

import FreeCAD, Part
class Ui_Dialog(object):
def setupUi(self, Dialog):
Dialog.setObjectName("Dialog")
Dialog.resize(187, 178)
self.title = QtGui.QLabel(Dialog)
self.title.setGeometry(QtCore.QRect(10, 10, 271, 16))
self.title.setObjectName("title")
self.label_width = QtGui.QLabel(Dialog)
self.label_width.setGeometry(QtCore.QRect(10, 50, 57, 16))
self.label_width.setObjectName("label_width")
self.label_height = QtGui.QLabel(Dialog)
self.label_height.setGeometry(QtCore.QRect(10, 90, 57, 16))
self.label_height.setObjectName("label_height")
self.width = QtGui.QLineEdit(Dialog)
self.width.setGeometry(QtCore.QRect(60, 40, 111, 26))
self.width.setObjectName("width")
self.height = QtGui.QLineEdit(Dialog)
self.height.setGeometry(QtCore.QRect(60, 80, 111, 26))
self.height.setObjectName("height")
self.create = QtGui.QPushButton(Dialog)
self.create.setGeometry(QtCore.QRect(50, 140, 83, 26))
self.create.setObjectName("create")
self.retranslateUi(Dialog)
QtCore.QObject.connect(self.create,QtCore.SIGNAL("pressed()"),self.createPlane)
QtCore.QMetaObject.connectSlotsByName(Dialog)
def retranslateUi(self, Dialog):

Dialog.setWindowTitle(QtGui.QApplication.translate("Dialog", "Dialog", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8))
self.title.setText(QtGui.QApplication.translate("Dialog", "Plane-O-Matic", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8))
self.label_width.setText(QtGui.QApplication.translate("Dialog", "Width", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8))
self.label_height.setText(QtGui.QApplication.translate("Dialog", "Height", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8))
self.create.setText(QtGui.QApplication.translate("Dialog", "Create!", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8))
def createPlane(self):
try:
# first we check if valid numbers have been entered
w = float(self.width.text())
h = float(self.height.text())
except ValueError:
print "Error! Width and Height values must be valid numbers!"
else:
# create a face from 4 points
p1 = FreeCAD.Vector(0,0,0)
p2 = FreeCAD.Vector(w,0,0)
p3 = FreeCAD.Vector(w,h,0)
p4 = FreeCAD.Vector(0,h,0)
pointslist = [p1,p2,p3,p4,p1]
mywire = Part.makePolygon(pointslist)
myface = Part.Face(mywire)
Part.show(myface)
class plane():
d = QtGui.QWidget()
d.ui = Ui_Dialog()
d.ui.setupUi(d)
d.show()
3 4
Developing applications for FreeCAD
Statement of the maintainer
I know that the discussion on the "right" licence for open source occupied a significant portion of internet bandwidth and so is here the
reason why, in my opinion, FreeCAD should have this one.
I chose the LGPL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGPL) and the GPL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPL) for the project and I know the pro and
cons about the LGPL and will give you some reasons for that decision.
FreeCAD is a mixture of a library and an application, so the GPL would be a little bit strong for that. It would prevent writing commercial
modules for FreeCAD because it would prevent linking with the FreeCAD base libs. You may ask why commercial modules at all?
Therefore Linux is good example. Would Linux be so successful when the GNU C Library would be GPL and therefore prevent linking
against non-GPL applications? And although I love the freedom of Linux, I also want to be able to use the very good NVIDIA 3D graphic
driver. I understand and accept the reason NVIDIA does not wish to give away driver code. We all work for companies and need payment
or at least food. So for me, a coexistence of open source and closed source software is not a bad thing, when it obeys the rules of the
LGPL. I would like to see someone writing a Catia import/export processor for FreeCAD and distribute it for free or for some money. I don't
like to force him to give away more than he wants to. That wouldn't be good neither for him nor for FreeCAD.
Nevertheless this decision is made only for the core system of FreeCAD. Every writer of an application module may make his own
decision.
Used Licences
Here the three licences under which FreeCAD is published:
General Public Licence (GPL2+)

For the Python scripts to build the binaries as stated in the .py files in src/Tools
Lesser General Public Licence (LGPL2+)
For the core libs as stated in the .h and .cpp files in src/App src/Gui src/Base and most modules in src/Mod and for the
executable as stated in the .h and .cpp files in src/main. The icons and other graphic parts are also LGPL.
Open Publication Licence
For the documentation on http://free-cad.sourceforge.net/ as not marked differently by the author
We try to use only LGPL type licences for the core system linked libraries (see Third Party Libraries) with one exception:
the Coin3D licence (www.coin3d.org (http://www.coin3d.org/licensing/) ).
See FreeCAD's debian copyright file (http://free-cad.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/free-cad/trunk/debian/copyright?view=markup) for more

details about the licenses used in FreeCAD
Impact of the licences
Private users
Private users can use FreeCAD free of charge and can do basically whatever they want to do with it....
Professional users
Can use FreeCAD freely, for any kind of private or professional work. They can customize the application as they wish. They can write
open or closed source extensions to FreeCAD. They are always master of their data, they are not forced to update FreeCAD, change their
usage of FreeCAD. Using FreeCAD doesn't bind them to any kind of contract or obligation.
Open Source developers
Can use FreeCAD as the groundwork for own extension modules for special purposes. They can choose either the GPL or the LGPL to
allow the use of their work in proprietary software or not.
Professional developers
Professional developers can use FreeCAD as the groundwork for their own extension modules for special purposes and are not forced to
make their modules open source. They can use all modules which use the LGPL. They are allowed to distribute FreeCAD along with their
proprietary software. They will get the support of the author(s) as long as it is not a one way street. If you want to sell your module you
need a Coin3D licence, otherwise you are forced by this library to make it open source.
Reporting bugs
Recently the sourceforge platform made the mantis bug tracker (http://www.mantisbt.org/) application available to projects, and FreeCAD
is now using it actively, instead of the old built-in bug tracker. The adress of our bug tracker is:
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mantisbt/free-cad/main_page.php
If you think you might have found a bug, you are welcome to report it there. But before reporting a bug, please check the following items:
Make sure your bug is really a bug, that is, something that should be working and that is not working. If you are not sure, dont
hesitate to explain your problem on the forum (http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/free-cad/) and ask what to do.
Before submitting anything, read the frequently asked questions, do a search on the forum (http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/free-
cad/) , and make sure the same bug hasn't been reported before, by doing a search on the bug tracker.
Describe as clearly as possible the problem, and how it can be reproduced. If we can not verify the bug, we might not be able to fix
it.
Join the following information: Your operating system, if it is 32 or 64 bits, and the version of FreeCAD you are running.
Please file one separate report for each bug.
If you are on a linux system and your bug causes a crash in FreeCAD, you can try running a debug backtrace: From a terminal run
gdb freecad (assuming package gdb is installed), then, inside gdb, type run . FreeCAD will then run. After the crash happens, type
bt , to get the full backtrace. Include that backtrace in your bug report.
Requesting features
If you want something to appear in FreeCAD that is not implemented yet, it is not a bug but a feature request. You can also submit it on
the same tracker (file it as feature request instead of bug), but keep in mind there are no guarantees that your wish will be fullfilled.
Submitting patches
In case you have programmed a bug fix, an extension or something else that can be of public use in FreeCAD, create a patch using the
Subversion diff tool and submit it on the same tracker (file it as patch).
The "old" sourceforge tracker (obsolete)

Note: Please use the new mantis bug tracker to submit bugs, this one is now a bit deprecated...
Where to find?
The FreeCAD project has its own tracker summary page (https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=49159) . There you find the overview
on the individual sections of the tracker.
When to use?
Bugs
If you think you might have found a bug, go to the Bugs Section (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?
atid=455298&group_id=49159&func=browse) of the tracker and choose "any" for status to see all bug
request ever filed. The keyword search allows you to find bug tracker entries for a similiar issue. If you
can not find an older entry about your problem, you should file a new entry on the same page.
Feature Requests
If you are missing a feature in FreeCAD that you think of as beeing absolutely necessary to become
the worlds best CAD-Software, you might find the Feature Request (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/? The FreeCAD Bug Tracker
atid=455301&group_id=49159&func=browse) section helpfull.
Support Requests
If you don't get around compiling FreeCAD and the Compile On Windows or Compile On Unix section does not give you a hint, or you try
to port it to a new environment or are programming new modules or extensions for FreeCAD and need some assistance then the Support
Requests (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=455299&group_id=49159&func=browse) section is the place you might want to go to.
New Patches
In case you have programmed a bug fix, an extension or something else that can be of public use in FreeCAD, create a patch using
Subversion and file it in the patches section (https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=49159&atid=455300) .
This article explains step by step how to compile FreeCAD on Windows.
Prerequisites
What you need is mainly the compiler. On Windows we use the M$ VisualStudio 8 Compiler with the highest service pack. Although it's
probably possible to use Cygwin or MingW gcc it's not tested or ported so far. We have also ported to use VC8 Express Edition. You
need to download the Windows Platform SDK to get e.g. the Windows.h. Also you need all the Third Party Libraries to successfully
compile FreeCAD.
If you use the M$ compilers you want most likely download the FreeCAD LibPack which provides you with all needed libs to build
FreeCAD on Windows.
Building with cMake
First of all, you have to download cMake (http://www.cmake.org/cmake/resources/software.html) and install it on your build machine.
The switch to cMake
Since version 0.9 we use the cMake build system to generate the build/make files for various compilers. We do not longer deliver .vcproj
files. If you want build former versions of FreeCAD (0.8 and older) see "Building older versions" later in this article.
We switched because it became more and more painful to maintain project files for 30+ build targets and x compilers. cMake gives us the
posibility to support alternative IDEs, like Code::Blocks, Qt Creator and Eclipse CDT the main compiler we use is still M$ VC9 Express,
though. But we plan for the future a build process on Windows without proprietary compiler software.
Configure the build process
The first step to build FreeCAD with cMake is to configure the environment. There are basically two ways to go:
Using the LibPack

Installing all needed libs and let cMake find them
In the first case you only need to give cMake the path to the LibPack and all the rest should be done automatically and you see such a
screen:
You see the LibPack path inserted into the FREECAD_LIBPACK_DIR variable. Starting from that all includes and paths are set. You just
need to press the Generate button and the project files get generated.
If you switch the FREECAD_LIBPACK_USE options off, the configuration tries to find each and every library needed on your system.
Depending on the libs that works well more or less. So you have to do often define some paths by hand. cMake will show you what is not
found and need to be specified.
Options for the Build Process
The cMake build system gives us a lot more flexibility over the build process. That means we can switch on and off some features or
modules. It's in a way like the Linux kernel build. You have a lot switches to determine the build process.
Here is the description of these switches. They will most likely change a lot in the future because we want to increase the build flexibility
a lot more.
Link table
Variable name Description Default
FREECAD_LIBPACK_USE Switch the usage of the FreeCAD LibPack on or off On Win32 on, otherwishe off
FREECAD_LIBPACK_DIR Directory where the LibPack is FreeCAD SOURCE dir
FREECAD_BUILD_GUI Build FreeCAD with all Gui related modules ON
FREECAD_BUILD_CAM Build the CAM module, experimental! OFF
FREECAD_BUILD_INSTALLER Create the project files for the Windows installer. OFF
FREECAD_BUILD_DOXYGEN_DOCU Create the project files for source code documentation. OFF
FREECAD_MAINTAINERS_BUILD Switch on stuff needed only when you do a Release build. OFF
command line build
Here an example how to build FreeCAD from the Command line:
rem @echo off

rem Build script, uses vcbuild to completetly build FreeCAD
rem update trunc

d:
cd "D:\_Projekte\FreeCAD\FreeCAD_0.9"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Subversion\bin\svn.exe" update
rem set the aprobiated Variables here or outside in the system
set PATH=C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem
set INCLUDE=
set LIB=
rem Register VS Build programms

call "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\vcvarsall.bat"
rem Set Standard include paths

set INCLUDE=%INCLUDE%;%FrameworkSDKDir%\include
set INCLUDE=%INCLUDE%;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\Include
rem Set lib Pathes

set LIB=%LIB%;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\Lib
set LIB=%LIB%;%PROGRAMFILES%\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\Lib
rem Start the Visuall Studio build process

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\vcpackages\vcbuild.exe" "D:\_Projekte\FreeCAD FreeCAD_0.9_build\Fr
3 4
Building older versions
Using LibPack
To make it easier to get FreeCAD compiled, we provide a collection of all needed libraries. It's called the LibPack. You can find it on the
download page (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=49159) on sourceforge.
You need to set the following environment variables:
FREECADLIB = "D:\Wherever\LIBPACK"
QTDIR = "%FREECADLIB%"
Add "%FREECADLIB%\bin" and "%FREECADLIB%\dll" to the system PATH variable. Keep in mind that you have to replace
"%FREECADLIB%" with the path name, since Windows does not recursively replace environment variables.
Directory setup in Visual Studio
Some search path of Visual Studio need to be set. To change them, use the menu ToolsOptionsDirectory
Includes
Add the following search path to the include path search list:
%FREECADLIB%\include
%FREECADLIB%\include\Python
%FREECADLIB%\include\boost
%FREECADLIB%\include\xercesc
%FREECADLIB%\include\OpenCascade
%FREECADLIB%\include\OpenCV
%FREECADLIB%\include\Coin
%FREECADLIB%\include\SoQt
%FREECADLIB%\include\QT
%FREECADLIB%\include\QT\Qt3Support
%FREECADLIB%\include\QT\QtCore
%FREECADLIB%\include\QT\QtGui
%FREECADLIB%\include\QT\QtNetwork
%FREECADLIB%\include\QT\QtOpenGL
%FREECADLIB%\include\QT\QtSvg
%FREECADLIB%\include\QT\QtUiTools
%FREECADLIB%\include\QT\QtXml
%FREECADLIB%\include\Gts
%FREECADLIB%\include\zlib
Libs
Add the following search path to the lib path search list:
%FREECADLIB%\lib
Executables
Add the following search path to the executable path search list:
%FREECADLIB%\bin
TortoiseSVN binary installation directory, usually "C:\Programm Files\TortoiseSVN\bin", this is needed for a distribution build when
SubWVRev.exe is used to extract the version number from Subversion.
Python needed
During the compilation some Python scripts get executed. So the Python interpreter has to function on the OS. Use a command box to
check it. If the Python library is not properly installed you will get an error message like Cannot find python.exe. If you use the LibPack
you can also use the python.exe in the bin directory.
Special for VC8
When building the project with VC8, you have to change the link information for the WildMagic library, since you need a different version
for VC6 and VC8. Both versions are supplied in LIBPACK/dll. In the project properties for AppMesh change the library name for the wm.dll
to the VC8 version. Take care to change it in Debug and Release configuration.
Compile
After you conform to all prerequisites the compilation is - hopefully - only a mouse click in VC ;-)
After Compiling
To get FreeCAD up and running from the compiler environment you need to copy a few files from the LibPack to the bin folder where
FreeCAD.exe is installed after a successful build:
python.exe and python_d.exe from LIBPACK/bin

python25.dll and python25_d.dll from LIBPACK/bin
python25.zip from LIBPACK/bin
make a copy of Python25.zip and rename it to Python25_d.zip
QtCore4.dll from LIBPACK/bin
QtGui4.dll from LIBPACK/bin
boost_signals-vc80-mt-1_34_1.dll from LIBPACK/bin
boost_program_options-vc80-mt-1_34_1.dll from LIBPACK/bin
xerces-c_2_8.dll from LIBPACK/bin
zlib1.dll from LIBPACK/bin
coin2.dll from LIBPACK/bin
soqt1.dll from LIBPACK/bin
QtOpenGL4.dll from LIBPACK/bin
QtNetwork 4.dll from LIBPACK/bin
QtSvg4.dll from LIBPACK/bin
QtXml4.dll from LIBPACK/bin
When using a LibPack with a Python version older than 2.5 you have to copy two further files:
zlib.pyd and zlib_d.pyd from LIBPACK/bin/lib. This is needed by python to open the zipped python library.
_sre.pyd and _sre_d.pyd from LIBPACK/bin/lib. This is needed by python for the built in help system.
If you don't get it running due to a Python error it is very likely that one of the zlib*.pyd files is missing.
Additional stuff
If you whant to build the source code documentation you need DoxyGen (http://www.stack.nl/~dimitri/doxygen/) .
To create an intstaller package you need WIX (http://wix.sourceforge.net/) .
During the compilation some Python scripts get executed. So the Python interpreter has to work properly.
For more details have also a look to README.Linux in your sources.
First of all you should build the Qt plugin that provides all custom widgets of FreeCAD we need for the Qt Designer. The sources are
located under
//src/Tools/plugins/widget//.
So far we don't provide a makefile -- but calling
qmake plugin.pro
creates it. Once that's done, calling mak e will create the library
//libFreeCAD_widgets.so//.
To make this library known to your Qt Designer you have to copy the file to
//$QTDIR/plugin/designer//.
On recent linux distributions, FreeCAD is generally easy to build, since all dependencies are usually provided by the package manager.
Basically, you'll just need to get the FreeCAD source, then install the dependencies listed below, then issue:
./autogen.sh && ./configure && make
or
./cmake . && make
to get FreeCAD built, depending on what build system you prefer to use (autotools (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_build_system) or
cmake (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMake) ). Below, you'll find detailed explanations of the whole process and particularities you might
encounter. Before you get too bogged down in details, there is also a shellscript that you can use to follow along. If you find anything
wrong in it or here below, please help us correcting it.
Getting the source
Before you can compile FreeCAD, you must get the source code. First install subversion (http://subversion.tigris.org/) . Then, from the
directory of your choice (for example your user directory), do:
svn co https://free-cad.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/free-cad/trunk freecad
This will perform an anonymous checkout of the current development version in a new directory called "freecad". Alternatively you can
download a source tarball (https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=49159) but they could be already quite old so it's
probably better to always get the latest sources via subversion. Note, though, that the subversion version is the FreeCAD version currently
being worked on, and it might contain bugs or even fail to compile.
Prerequisites
To compile FreeCAD under Linux you have to install all libraries mentioned in Third Party Libraries first. You also need the GNU gcc
compiler version equal or above 3.0.0. g++ is also needed because FreeCAD is completely written in C++. Both gcc and g++ are included
in the build-essential package listed below. During the compilation some Python scripts get executed. So the Python interpreter has to
work properly.
To avoid any linker problems during the build process it would be a good idea to have the library paths either in your LD_LIBRARY_PATH
variable or in your ld.so.conf file. This is normally already the case in recent distributions.
For more details have also a look to README.Linux in your sources.
Debian/Ubuntu and most recent distributions
On Debian based systems it is quite easy to get all needed dependencies installed. Most of the libraries are available via apt-get or
synaptic package manager. Below are listed all packgages you need to install. On other distributions, the package names can vary, but
usually you'll be able to find them all too:
build-essential
python
libcoin60-dev
libsoqt4-dev
libxerces-c2-dev (or libxerces28-dev depending on your system)
libboost-dev
libboost-date-time-dev
libboost-filesystem-dev
libboost-graph-dev
libboost-iostreams-dev
libboost-program-options-dev
libboost-serialization-dev
libboost-signals-dev
libboost-regex-dev
libboost-thread-dev
libqt4-dev
qt4-dev-tools
python2.5-dev (or higher version if available)
libopencascade-dev
libf2c2-dev
gfortran
To simply install all these libraries in one step, just copy/paste the following text in a terminal (only for debian/ubuntu based systems) as
root:
aptitude install build-essential python libcoin60-dev libsoqt4-dev libxerces-c2-dev

libboost-dev libboost-date-time-dev libboost-filesystem-dev libboost-graph-dev libboost-iostreams-dev
libboost-program-options-dev libboost-serialization-dev libboost-signals-dev libboost-regex-dev libboost-thread-dev
libqt4-dev qt4-dev-tools python2.5-dev libopencascade-dev libf2c2-dev gfortran
3 4
Another simple way, if your debian-based distribution already has a freecad package, is to do:
apt-get build-dep freecad
which will fetch all packages needed to build freecad. Beware that some new packages might be needed since last version, that you still
need to install manually.
optionally you can also install
libsimage-dev (to make Coin to support additional image file formats)

checkinstall (to register your installed files into your system's package manager, so yo can easily uninstall later)
python-pivy (needed for the 2D Drafting module)
python-qt4 (needed for the 2D Drafting module)
doxygen and libcoin60-doc (if you intend to generate source code documentation)
3 4
Fedora
To build & install FreeCAD on Fedora 13, a few tips and tricks are needed:
Install a bunch of required packages, most are available from the Fedora 13 repositories
Download and build xerces
Download and build OpenCascade. Need to point it to xmu: ./configure --with-xmu-include=/usr/include/X11/Xmu --with-xmu-
library=/usr/lib
Download and build Pivy. You have to remove 2 references to non existent "SoQtSpaceball.h" from pivy/interfaces/soqt.i
Commenting out those two lines allow the build & install to work.
Configure Freecad. You will need to point it to a few things: ./configure --with-qt4-include=/usr/include --with-qt4-bin=/usr/lib/qt4/bin
--with-occ-lib=/usr/local/lib --with-occ-include=/usr/local/inc --with-xercesc-lib=/usr/local/lib
make - hits a problem where the build is breaking because the ldflags for soqt are set to "-LNONE" which made libtool barf. My
hackish workaround was to modify /usr/lib/Coin2/conf/soqt-default.cfg so that the ldflags are "" instead of "-LNONE". After this ->
success !
make install
Older and non-conventional distributions
On older distributions, however you might not find the following libraries:
OpenCASCADE
Not all Linux distributions have an official OpenCASCADE package in their repositories. You have to check yourself for your distribution if
one is available. At least from Debian Lenny and Ubuntu Intrepid on an official .deb package is provided. For older Debian or Ubuntu
releases you may get unofficial packages from here (http://lyre.mit.edu/~powell/opencascade) . To build your own private .deb packages
follow these steps:
wget http://lyre.mit.edu/~powell/opencascade/opencascade_6.2.0.orig.tar.gz
wget http://lyre.mit.edu/~powell/opencascade/opencascade_6.2.0-7.dsc
wget http://lyre.mit.edu/~powell/opencascade/opencascade_6.2.0-7.diff.gz
dpkg-source -x opencascade_6.2.0-7.dsc
# Install OCC build-deps

sudo apt-get install build-essential devscripts debhelper autoconf
automake libtool bison libx11-dev tcl8.4-dev tk8.4-dev libgl1-mesa-dev
libglu1-mesa-dev java-gcj-compat-dev libxmu-dev
#Build Opencascade packages. This takes hours and requires

# at least 8 GB of free disk space
cd opencascade-6.2.0 ; debuild
# Install the resulting library debs

sudo dpkg -i libopencascade6.2-0_6.2.0-7_i386.deb
libopencascade6.2-dev_6.2.0-7_i386.deb
Alternatively, you can download and compile the latest version from opencascade.org (http://www.opencascade.org) :
Install the package normally, be aware that the installer is a java program that requires the official java runtime edition from Sun (package
name: sun-java6-jre), not the open-source java (gij) that is bundled with Ubuntu. Install it if needed:
sudo apt-get remove gij

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre
Be careful, if you use gij java with other things like a browser plugin, they won't work anymore. If the installer doesn't work, try:
java -cp path_to_file_setup.jar <-Dtemp.dir=path_to_tmp_directory> run
Once the package is installed, go into the "ros" directory inside the opencascade dir, and do
./configure --with-tcl=/usr/lib/tcl8.4 --with-tk=/usr/lib/tk8.4
Now you can build. Go back to the ros folder and do:
make
It will take a long time, maybe several hours.
When it is done, just install by doing
sudo make install
The library files will be copied into /usr/local/lib which is fine because there they will be found automatically by any program. Alternatively,
you can also do
sudo checkinstall
which will do the same as make install but create an entry in your package management system so you can easily uninstall later. Now
clean up the enormous temporary compilation files by doing
make clean
Possible error 1: If you are using OCC version 6.2, it is likely that the compiler will stop right after the beginning of the "make" operation. If
it happens, edit the "configure" script, locate the CXXFLAGS="$CXXFLAGS " statement, and replace it by CXXFLAGS="$CXXFLAGS -
ffriend-injection -fpermissive". Then do the configure step again.
Possible error 2: Possibly several modules (WOKSH, WOKLibs, TKWOKTcl, TKViewerTest and TKDraw) will complain that they couldn't
find the tcl/tk headers. In that case, since the option is not offered in the configure script, you will have to edit manually the makefile of
each of those modules: Go into adm/make and into each of the bad modules folders. Edit the Makefile, and locate the lines
CSF_TclLibs_INCLUDES = -I/usr/include and CSF_TclTkLibs_INCLUDES = -I/usr/include and add /tcl8.4 and /tk8.4 to it so they read:
CSF_TclLibs_INCLUDES = -I/usr/include/tcl8.4 and CSF_TclTkLibs_INCLUDES = -I/usr/include/tk8.4
SoQt
The SoQt library must be compiled against Qt4, which is the case in most recent distributions. But at the time of writing this article there
were only SoQt4 packages for Debian itself available but not for all Ubuntu versions. To get the packages built do the following steps:
wget http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/s/soqt/soqt_1.4.1.orig.tar.gz
wget http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/s/soqt/soqt_1.4.1-6.dsc
wget http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/s/soqt/soqt_1.4.1-6.diff.gz
dpkg-source -x soqt_1.4.1-6.dsc
sudo apt-get install doxygen devscripts fakeroot debhelper libqt3-mt-dev qt3-dev-tools libqt4-opengl-dev
cd soqt-1.4.1
debuild
sudo dpkg -i libsoqt4-20_1.4.1-6_i386.deb libsoqt4-dev_1.4.1-6_i386.deb libsoqt-dev-common_1.4.1-6_i386.deb
If you are on a 64bit system, you will probably need to change i386 by amd64.
Pivy
Pivy is not needed to build FreeCAD or to run it, but it is needed for the 2D Drafting module to work. If you are not going to use that
module, you won't need pivy. At the time of writing, Pivy is very new and might not have made its way into your distribution repository. If
you cannot find Pivy in your distribution's packages repository, you can grab debian/ubuntu packages on the FreeCAD download page:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/free-cad/files/FreeCAD%20Linux/
or compile pivy yourself:
Pivy compilation instructions
Compile FreeCAD
The autotools way
You must have automake and libtool installed on your system; on Debian/Ubuntu:
aptitude install automake libtool
If you got the sources with subversion then the very first step must be
./autogen.sh
that creates the configure script and more. For the build process itself we provide a configure script.
Just type
./configure
To get everything configured. If you want an overview of all options you can specify, you can type
SourceForge bug tracker: Finding
./configure --help. compile bugs
Normally you need none of them - unless you have one of your libraries installed in a really uncommon directory. After configuration has
finished, compiling FreeCAD is as simple as
make
If any error occurs while building from sources, please double-check this page and README.Linux file, then you could jump to the Bug
Tracker on SourceForge, choose Any for status and click the Browse button to see previous reports on compile problems. After having
built FreeCAD successfully, do
make install
to install it onto your machine. The default install directory is
~/FreeCAD
It will be installed in a FreeCAD folder in your home folder, so you don't need root privileges. Instead of make install, you can also do
checkinstall
In this way FreeCAD will be installed by your package management system, so you can uninstall it easily later. But since all of FreeCAD
installation resides into one single directory, just removing the FreeCAD directory is a valid way to uninstall too.
The cMake way
cMake is a newer build system which has the big advantage of being common for different target systems (Linux, Windows, MacOSX,
etc). FreeCAD is progressively switching to the cMake system, and you can already build FreeCAD in that way. Like with autotools, the
process goes in two steps : first you configure the source, and then you build the program proper.
In the first step, cMake checks that every needed programs and libraries are present on your system and sets up all that's necessary for
the subsequent compilation. You are given a few alternatives detailed below, but FreeCAD comes with sensible defaults and, assuming
cMake is installed on your system, for a first compilation you can just switch to your FreeCAD source folder and issue:
cmake .
to have the source configured (Don't forget the dot! It's a parameter to the cmake command). Then issue:
make
to have FreeCAD built. A proper system-wide installation of FreeCAD still cannot be made with cmake, but you can run FreeCAD simply
by issuing
./bin/FreeCAD
Out of source build:
If you intend to follow the fast evolving SVN versions and maybe contribute to the code, cMake allows for out of source builds. Just create
a build directory distinct from your freecad root folder, switch to this directory and there issue:
cmake path-to-freecad-root
make
The effect is that every file generated at configure time goes in your build directory, and does not get mixed with the sources checked-out
from SVN. The management of your local copy of the sources is greatly eased.
Configuration options:
There are a number of experimental or unfinished modules you may have to build if you want to work on them. To do so, you need to set
the proper options for the configuration phase. Do it either on the command line, passing -D <var>:<type>=<value> options to cMake or
using one of the availables gui-frontends (eg for Debian, packages cmake-qt-gui or cmake-curses-gui).
As an example, to configure on the command line with the Assembly module built, issue:
cmake -D FREECAD_BUILD_ASSEMBLY:BOOL=ON path-to-freecad-root
Possible options are listed in FreeCAD's root CmakeLists.txt file.
Optional parts
If you want to develop Qt stuff for FreeCAD, you'll need the Qt Designer plugin that provides all custom widgets of FreeCAD. Go to
freecad/src/Tools/plugins/widget
So far we don't provide a makefile -- but calling
qmake plugin.pro
creates it. Once that's done, calling
make
will create the library libFreeCAD_widgets.so. To make this library known to Qt Designer you have to copy the file to
$QTDIR/plugin/designer
If you feel bold enough to dive in the code, you could take advantage to build and consult Doxygen generated FreeCAD's Source
documentation
Troubleshooting
Note for 64bit systems
When building FreeCAD for 64-bit there is a known issue with the OpenCASCADE 64-bit package. To get FreeCAD running properly you
might need to run the ./configure script with the additional define _OCC64 set:
./configure CXXFLAGS="-D_OCC64"
For Debian based systems this workaround is not needed when using the prebuilt package because there the OpenCASCADE package
is built to set internally this define. Now you just need to compile FreeCAD the same way as described above.
Automake macros
The configure script of FreeCAD makes use of several automake macros that are sometimes not installed with their packages:
bnv_have_qt.m4, coin.m4, and gts.m4. If needed (error while configuring), google for them and you will find them easily. They are just
simple scripts that you need to put in your /usr/share/aclocal folder.
Making a debian package
If you plan to build a Debian package out of the sources you need to install those packages first:
dh-make
devscripts
lintian (optional, used for checking if packages are standard-compliant)
To build a package open a console, simply go to the FreeCAD directory and call
debuild
Once the package is built, you can use lintian to check if the package contains errors
lintian your-fresh-new-freecad-package.deb (replace by the name of the package you just created)
Automatic build scripts
Here is all what you need for a complete build of FreeCAD. It's a one-script-approach and works on a fresh installed distro. The
commands will ask for root password (for installation of packages) and sometime to acknowledge a fingerprint for an external repository
server or https-subversion repository. This scripts should run on 32 and 64 bit versions. They are written for distinct version, but are also
likely to run on a later version with or without minor changes.
If you have such a script for your preferred distro, please send it! We will incorporate it into this article.
Ubuntu 9.10 - Karmic Koala / Ubuntu 10.04 LTS - Lucid Lynx / Ubuntu 10.10 Maveric
sudo apt-get install build-essential python libcoin60-dev libsoqt4-dev \

libxerces-c2-dev libboost-dev libboost-date-time-dev libboost-filesystem-dev \
libboost-graph-dev libboost-iostreams-dev libboost-program-options-dev \
libboost-serialization-dev libboost-signals-dev libboost-regex-dev libboost-thread-dev \
libqt4-dev qt4-dev-tools python2.6-dev libopencascade-dev libsoqt4-dev \
libode-dev subversion cmake libeigen2-dev libsimage-dev python-qt4 \
libtool autotools-dev automake bison flex libf2c2-dev gfortran
# checkout the latest source

# go to source dir
cd freecad
# build configuration
cmake .
# build FreeCAD
make
# test FreeCAD
cd bin
./FreeCAD -t 0
# use FreeCAD
./FreeCAD
Ubuntu 9.04 - Jaunty Jackalope

# get the needed tools and libs
libboost-serialization-dev libboost-signals-dev libboost-regex-dev \
libboost-thread-dev libqt4-dev qt4-dev-tools python2.6-dev \
libsimage-dev libopencascade-dev \
libsoqt4-dev libode0-dev subversion cmake libeigen2-dev python-pivy \
libtool autotools-dev automake

# go to source dir
cd freecad
cmake .
# build FreeCAD
make
# test FreeCAD
cd bin
./FreeCAD -t 0
OpenSuse 11.2
This script is not working at the moment because:
libXerces-c-devel seams to be disappeared ....
# install needed packages for development

sudo zypper install gcc cmake subversion OpenCASCADE-devel \
libXerces-c-devel python-devel libqt4-devel python-qt4 \
Coin-devel SoQt-devel boost-devel libode-devel libQtWebKit-devel \
libeigen2-devel gcc-fortran f2c
# get the source

# go to source dir
cd freecad
cmake .
# build FreeCAD
nice make
# test FreeCAD
cd bin
./FreeCAD -t 0
OpenSuse 11.1
# additional repository (for OpenCascade)
sudo zypper -p http://packman.unixheads.com/suse/11.1/
# install needed packages for development

sudo zypper install gcc cmake subversion OpenCASCADE-devel \
libXerces-c-devel python-devel libqt4-devel python-qt4 \
Coin-devel SoQt-devel boost-devel libode-devel libQtWebKit-devel \
libeigen2-devel
# get the source

# go to source dir
cd freecad
cmake .
# build FreeCAD
nice make
# test FreeCAD
cd bin
./FreeCAD -t 0
Debian Squeeze
# get the needed tools and libs

libboost-serialization-dev libboost-signals-dev libboost-regex-dev \
libqt4-dev qt4-dev-tools python2.5-dev \
libsimage-dev libopencascade-dev \
libsoqt4-dev libode-dev subversion cmake libeigen2-dev python-pivy \
libtool autotools-dev automake libf2c2-dev gfortran

# go to source dir
cd freecad
cmake .
# build FreeCAD
make
# test FreeCAD
cd bin
./FreeCAD -t 0
Compiling FreeCAD on a Mac isn't much different from the steps on Linux or other UNIX variants. The biggest challenge is really getting all
of the dependencies installed. In the following sections, I (lhagan) will detail the exact steps I had to go through to get this application to
compile on Leopard and Snow Leopard using an Intel Mac (PowerPC should be feasible, but requires recompiling some binary libraries
that I haven't got to yet). As far as I know, I'm the only one to successfully build FreeCAD on a Mac recently, so please post on the
discussion forum (http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/free-cad/viewforum.php?f=8) if these steps work for you, on the help forum
(http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/free-cad/viewforum.php?f=4) if they don't, or edit this page if you find errors.
Download the FreeCAD sources
First you need to get a copy of the FreeCAD source tree. Just check out the latest revision from the Sourceforge subversion repository
using this command in the terminal:
svn co http://free-cad.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/free-cad/trunk freecad
This will put the FreeCAD source and related files in your home folder (~/freecad/). Location is not important if you'd rather put it
somewhere else, you just need full access to the files.
Install MacPorts and Library Dependencies
Next, if you don't already have it, install MacPorts. MacPorts is a system that allows you to download, compile, and install many
common open-source applications with a single command. Similar applications from the UNIX/Linux world are PKGSRC and APT. To
install, just download the disk image from the MacPorts site and follow the directions:
http://www.macports.org/install.php
Whether or not you just installed MacPorts, you'll probably want to make sure it's up to date. Run:
sudo port selfupdate
Now that MacPorts is installed and up to date, you can start installing some of FreeCAD's required packages:
ode
xercesc
boost
gts
opencv
The following command will compile/install all required libraries. If MacPorts produces errors, you may want to try installing them one at a
time.
sudo port install ode xercesc boost gts opencv
On Snow Leopard, opencv does not currently build. You can, however, proceed without opencv.
Install Frameworks and OpenCASCADE
FreeCAD has other dependencies (see CompileOnUnix), but the rest are either included by default in OS X Leopard or can be installed
using Installer packages. Download and install the following:
Qt http://qt.nokia.com/downloads
Get the "Framework Only" version unless you plan to develop using Qt (it's much smaller). FreeCAD compiles on OS X Leopard
with Qt 4.5. Installs in /Library/Frameworks and /usr/bin.
Coin http://www.coin3d.org/lib/coin/releases/
Install Coin.pkg AND CoinTools.pkg. FreeCAD compiles on OS X Leopard with Coin 3.1.0. Installs in /Library/Frameworks.
SoQt http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/103808/FreeCAD/SoQt-1.4.1.dmg
Install SoQt.pkg AND SoQtTools.pkg. For some reason, the SoQt framework is not provided as an official binary. For convenience,
I'm providing the above compiled version. If you'd like to compile your own, download the latest source from
http://www.coin3d.org/lib/soqt/releases and follow the directions in README.MACOSX. FreeCAD compiles on OS X Leopard with
SoQt 1.4.1. Installs in /Library/Frameworks.
OpenCASCADE http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/103808/FreeCAD/OpenCASCADE_i386_6.3.0_20091128.dmg
The above OCC 6.3.0 binary distribution is a modified version of the one provided by the maintainers of PythonOCC
http://www.pythonocc.org/. You can use the version from PythonOCC, however changes to the .la files are needed in order for the
FreeCAD build process to properly link to it and you'll need to download the OCC source separately. I have not yet successfully
built OpenCASCADE myself, but would like to eventually -- this would be key to providing a PowerPC distribution (if that's even
possible). If you get OpenCASCADE to build on OS X, let me know how. Installs in /usr/local/lib/OCC and /usr/local/include/OCC.
UPDATED 2009-11-28 with fixes for Snow Leopard. If you installed OCC prior to this date, it is recommended that you
manually delete the old files and install the new package.
sudo rm -r /usr/local/lib/OCC
sudo rm -r /usr/local/include/OCC
Download and 'install' the FreeCAD.app template
The following archive contains an application bundle template for FreeCAD. This is not strictly necessary, but it makes working with
FreeCAD more convenient than the default installation configuration. Mine is in the /Applications folder, but you should be able to put it
anywhere you want -- just remember that the bundle can't be moved after FreeCAD is complied and installed (without some further
modifications). Running make install using the configuration below will install into this bundle.
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/103808/FreeCAD/FreeCAD_bundle_template_20091128.tar.gz
UPDATED 2009-11-28 with the new FreeCAD application icon
Compile
Now configure, compile, and install FreeCAD using the following commands from within the root FreeCAD folder. If you put your
FreeCAD.app bundle somewhere other than /Applications (or aren't using the bundle), change the 'PREFIX' line accordingly.
./autogen.sh
PREFIX=/Applications/FreeCAD.app/Contents
./configure --with-xercesc-lib=/opt/local/lib --with-xercesc-include=/opt/local/include --with-boost-lib=/opt/local/lib \

--with-boost-include=/opt/local/include --with-qt4-bin=/usr/bin --with-qt4-framework=/Library/Frameworks \
--with-occ-lib=/usr/local/lib/OCC --with-occ-include=/usr/local/include/OCC --with-coin=/Library/Frameworks \
--with-soqt=/Library/Frameworks --prefix=$PREFIX --bindir=$PREFIX/MacOS --libdir=$PREFIX/Frameworks/FreeCAD \
--includedir=$PREFIX/Resources/include --datarootdir=$PREFIX/Resources/share
make LDFLAGS=-Wl,-headerpad_max_install_names
make install
3 4
Depending on your machine, the make step can take quite a while.
Run
If everything went properly, double-clicking the .app bundle should start FreeCAD. If you have any issues, post the details on the help
forum (http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/free-cad/viewforum.php?f=4) .
Overview
These are libraries which are not changed in the FreeCAD project. They are basically used unchanged as a dynamic link library (*.so or
*.dll). If there is a change necessary or a wrapper class is needed, then the code of the wrapper or the changed library code have to be
moved to the FreeCAD base package. The used libraries are:
Consider using LibPack instead of downloading and installing all the stuff on your own.
Links
Link table
Lib name Version needed Link to get it
Python >= 2.5.x http://www.python.org/
OpenCasCade >= 5.2 http://www.opencascade.org
Qt >= 4.1.x http://www.qtsoftware.com
Coin3D >= 2.x http://www.coin3d.org
ODE >= 0.10.x http://www.ode.org
SoQt >= 1.2 http://www.coin3d.org
Xerces-C++ >= 2.7.x < 3.0 http://xml.apache.org/xerces-c/
GTS >= 0.7.x http://gts.sourceforge.net/
Zlib >= 1.x.x http://www.zlib.net/
Boost >= 1.33.x http://www.boost.org/
Eigen2 >= 2.0.5 http://eigen.tuxfamily.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
Details
Python
Version: 2.5 or higher
License: Python 2.5 license
You can use the source or binary from http://www.python.org/ or use alternetivly ActiveState Python from http://www.activestate.com/
though it is a little bit hard to get the debug libs from ActiveState.
Description
Python is the primary scripting language and is used throughout the application. For example:
Implement test scripts for testing on:

memory leaks
ensure presents of functionality after changes
post build checks
test coverage tests
Macros and macro recording
Implement application logic for standard packages
Implementation of whole workbenches
Dynamic loading of packages
Implementing rules for design (Knowledge engineering)
Doing some fancy Internet stuff like work groups and PDM
And so on ...
Especially the dynamic package loading of Python is used to load at run time additional functionality and workbenches needed for the
actual tasks. For a closer look to Python see: www.python.org Why Python you may ask. There are some reasons: So far I used different
scripting languages in my professional life:
Perl
Tcl/Tk
VB
Java
Python is more OO then Perl and Tcl, the code is not a mess like in Perl and VB. Java isn't a script language in the first place and hard
(or impossible) to embed. Python is well documented and easy to embed and extend. It is also well tested and has a strong back hold in
the open source community.
Credits
Goes to Guido van Rossum and a lot of people made Python such a success!
OpenCasCade
Version: 5.2 or higher
License: OCTPL
OCC is a full-featured CAD Kernel. Originally, it's developed by Matra Datavision in France for the Strim (Styler) and Euclid Quantum
applications and later on made Open Source. It's a really huge library and makes a free CAD application possible in the first place, by
providing some packages which would be hard or impossible to implement in an Open Source project:
A complete STEP compliant geometry kernel

A topological data model and all needed functions to work on (cut, fuse, extrude, and so on. . . )
Standard Import- / Export processors like STEP, IGES, VRML
3D and 2D viewer with selection support
A document and project data structure with support for save and restore, external linking of documents, recalculation of design
history (parametric modeling) and a facility to load new data types as an extension package dynamically
To learn more about OpenCasCade take a look at the OpenCasCade page or http://www.opencascade.org.
Qt
Version: 4.1.x or higher
License: GPL v2.0/v3.0 or Commercial (from version 4.5 on also LPGL v2.1)
I don't think I need to tell a lot about Qt. It's one of the most often used GUI toolkits in Open Source projects. For me the most important
point to use Qt is the Qt Designer and the possibility to load whole dialog boxes as a (XML) resource and incorporate specialized widgets.
In a CAX application the user interaction and dialog boxes are by far the biggest part of the code and a good dialog designer is very
important to easily extend FreeCAD with new functionality. Further information and a very good online documentation you'll find on
http://www.qtsoftware.com.
Coin3D
Version: 2.0 or higer

License: GPL v2.0 or Commercial
Coin is a high-level 3D graphics library with a C++ Application Programming Interface. Coin uses scenegraph data structures to render
real-time graphics suitable for mostly all kinds of scientific and engineering visualization applications.
Coin is portable over a wide range of platforms: any UNIX / Linux / *BSD platform, all Microsoft Windows operating system, and Mac OS
X.
Coin is built on the industry-standard OpenGL immediate mode rendering library, and adds abstractions for higher-level primitives, provides
3D interactivity, immensely increases programmer convenience and productivity, and contains many complex optimization features for
fast rendering that are transparent for the application programmer.
Coin is based on the SGI Open Inventor API. Open Inventor, for those who are not familiar with it, has long since become the de facto
standard graphics library for 3D visualization and visual simulation software in the scientific and engineering community. It has proved it's
worth over a period of more than 10 years, its maturity contributing to its success as a major building block in thousands of large-scale
engineering applications around the world.
We will use OpenInventor as 3D viewer in FreeCAD because the OpenCasCade viewer (AIS and Graphics3D) has serios limitations and
performace bottlenecks, especially when it goes in large-scale engineering rendering. Other things like textures or volumetric rendering
are not really supported, and so on ....
Since Version 2.0 Coin uses a different licence model. It's not longer LGPL. They use GPL for open source and a commercial licence for
closed source. That means if you want to sell your work based on FreeCAD (extension modules) you need to purchase a Coin licence!
ODE (Open dynamic engine)
Version: 0.10.0 or higher
License: LGPL v2.1 or later or BSD
ODE is an open source, high performance library for simulating rigid body dynamics. It is fully featured, stable, mature and platform
independent with an easy to use C/C++ API. It has advanced joint types and integrated collision detection with friction. ODE is useful for
simulating vehicles, objects in virtual reality environments and virtual creatures. It is currently used in many computer games, 3D
authoring tools and simulation tools.
Credits
Russell Smith is the primary author of ODE.
SoQt
License: GPL v2.0 or Commercial
SoQt is the Inventor binding to the Qt Gui Toolkit. Unfortunately, it's not longer LGPL so we have to remove it from the code base of
FreeCAD and link it as a library. It has the same licence model like Coin. And you have to compile it with your version of Qt.
Xerces-C++
License: Apache Software License Version 2.0
Xerces-C++ is a validating XML parser written in a portable subset of C++. Xerces-C++ makes it easy to give your application the ability to
read and write XML data. A shared library is provided for parsing, generating, manipulating, and validating XML documents.
Xerces-C++ is faithful to the XML 1.0 recommendation and many associated standards (see Features below).
The parser provides high performance, modularity, and scalability. Source code, samples and API documentation are provided with the
parser. For portability, care has been taken to make minimal use of templates, no RTTI, and minimal use of #ifdefs.
The parser is used for saving and restoring parameters in FreeCAD.
GTS
Version: 0.7.x
License: LGPL v2.0 or later
GTS stands for the GNU Triangulated Surface Library. It is an Open Source Free Software Library intended to provide a set of useful
functions to deal with 3D surfaces meshed with interconnected triangles. The source code is available free of charge under the Free
Software LGPL license.
Actually not needed to compile FreeCAD. You can switch on the usage with a proprocessor switch in FCConfig.h.
Zlib
Version: 1.x.x
License: zlib License
zlib is designed to be a free, general-purpose, legally unencumbered -- that is, not covered by any patents -- lossless data-compression
library for use on virtually any computer hardware and operating system. The zlib data format is itself portable across platforms. Unlike the
LZW compression method used in Unix compress(1) and in the GIF image format, the compression method currently used in zlib
essentially never expands the data. (LZW can double or triple the file size in extreme cases.) zlib's memory footprint is also independent
of the input data and can be reduced, if necessary, at some cost in compression.
Boost
Version: 1.33.x
License: Boost Software License - Version 1.0
The Boost C++ libraries are a collection of peer-reviewed, open source libraries that extend the functionality of C++. The libraries are
licensed under the Boost Software License, designed to allow Boost to be used with both open and closed source projects. Many of
Boost's founders are on the C++ standard committee and several Boost libraries have been accepted for incorporation into the Technical
Report 1 of C++0x.
The libraries are aimed at a wide range of C++ users and application domains. They range from general-purpose libraries like SmartPtr, to
OS Abstractions like FileSystem, to libraries primarily aimed at other library developers and advanced C++ users, like MPL.
In order to ensure efficiency and flexibility, Boost makes extensive use of templates. Boost has been a source of extensive work and
research into generic programming and meta-programming in C++.
See: http://www.boost.org/ for details.
LibPack
LibPack is a convenient package with all the above libraries packed together. It is currently available for the Windows platform on the
Download page! If you're working under Linux you don't need a LibPack, instead of you should make use of the package repositories of
your Linux distribution.
FreeCADLibs7.x Changelog
Using QT 4.5.x and Coin 3.1.x

Eigen template lib for Robot added
SMESH experimental
Tool Page
For every serious software development you need tools. Here is a list of tools we use to develop FreeCAD:
Platform independend tools
Qt-Toolkit
The Qt-toolkit is a state of the art, plattform independend user interface design tool. It is contained in the LibPack of FreeCAD, but can
also be downloaded at www.trolltech.com (http://www.trolltech.com) .
InkScape
Great vector drawing programm. Adhers to the SVG standard and is used to draw Icons and Pictures. Get it at www.inkscape.org
(http://www.inkscape.org) .
Doxygen
A very good and stable tool to generate source documentation from the .h and .cpp files.
The Gimp
Not much to say about the Gnu Image Manipulation Program. Besides it can handle .xpm files which is a very convenient way to handle
Icons in QT Programms. XPM is basicly C-Code which can be compiled into a programme.
Get the GIMP here: www.gimp.org (http://www.gimp.org/)
Tools on Windows
Visual Studio 8 Express
Although VC8 is for C++ development not really a step forward since VisualStudio 6 (IMO a big step back), its a free development system
on Windows. For native Win32 applications you need to download the PlatformSDK from M$.
So the Express edition is hard to find. But you might try this link (http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualc/default.aspx)
CamStudio
Is a Open Source tool to record Screencasts (Webcasts). Its a very good tool to create tutorials by recording them. Its far not so boring
as writing documentation.
See camstudio.org (http://camstudio.org/) for details.
Tortoise SVN
This is a very great tool. It makes using Subversion (our version control system on sf.net) a real pleasure. You can throught out the
explorer integration, easily manage Revisions, check on Diffs, resolve Confilcts, make branches, and so on.... The commit dialog itself is
a piece of art. It gives you an overview over your changed files and allows you to put them in the commit or not. That makes it easy to
bundle the changes to logical units and give them an clear commit message.
You find ToroiseSVN on tortoisesvn.tigris.org (http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/) .
StarUML
A full featured Open Source UML programm. It has a lot of features of the big ones, including reverse engeniering C++ source code....
Download here: staruml.sourceforge.net (http://staruml.sourceforge.net/en/)
Tools on Linux
TODO
This page shows the different ways to start FreeCAD and the most important configuration features.
Starting FreeCAD from the Command line

FreeCAD can be started normally, by double-clicking on its desktop icon or selecting it from the start menu, but it can also be started
directly from the command line. This allows you to change soem of the default startup options.
Command line options
The command line options are subject of frequent changes, therefore it is a good idea to check the current options by typing:
FreeCAD --help
From the response you can read the possible parameters:

Usage:
FreeCAD [options] File1 File2 .....
Allowed options:
Generic options:
-v [ --version ] print version string
-h [ --help ] print help message
-c [ --console ] start in console mode
Configuration:
-l [ --write-log ] arg write a log file
-t [ --run-test ] arg test level
-M [ --module-path ] arg additional module paths
-P [ --python-path ] arg additional python paths
--response-file arg can be specified with '@name', too
Response and config files
FreeCAD can read some of these options from a config file. This file must be in the bin path and must be named FreeCAD.cfg. Be aware
that options specified in the command line override the config file!
Some operating system have very low limit of the command line length. The common way to work around those limitations is using
response files. A response file is just a configuration file which uses the same syntax as the command line. If the command line specifies
a name of response file to use, it's loaded and parsed in addition to the command line:
FreeCAD @ResponseFile.txt
or:
FreeCAD --response-file=ResponseFile.txt
Hidden options
There are a couple of options not visible to the user. These options are e.g. the X-Window parameters parsed by the Windows system:
-display display, sets the X display (default is $DISPLAY).

-geometry geometry, sets the client geometry of the first window that is shown.
-fn or -font font, defines the application font. The font should be specified using an X logical font description.
-bg or -background color, sets the default background color and an application palette (light and dark shades are calculated).
-fg or -foreground color, sets the default foreground color.
-btn or -button color, sets the default button color.
-name name, sets the application name.
-title title, sets the application title.
-visual TrueColor, forces the application to use a TrueColor visual on an 8-bit display.
-ncols count, limits the number of colors allocated in the color cube on an 8-bit display, if the application is using the
QApplication::ManyColor color specification. If count is 216 then a 6x6x6 color cube is used (i.e. 6 levels of red, 6 of green, and 6
of blue); for other values, a cube approximately proportional to a 2x3x1 cube is used.
-cmap, causes the application to install a private color map on an 8-bit display.
Running FreeCAD without User Interface

FreeCAD normally starts in GUI mode, but you can also force it to start in console mode by typing:
FreeCAD -c
from the command line. In console mode, no user interface will be displayed, and you will be presented with a python interpreter prompt.
From that python prompt, you have the same functionality as the python interpreter that runs inside the FreeCAD GUI, and normal access
to all modules and plugins of FreeCAD, excepted the FreeCADGui module. Be aware that modules that depend on FreeCADGui might
also be unavailable.
Running FreeCAD as a python module

FreeCAD can also be used to run as a python module inside other applications that use python or from an external python shell. For that,
the host python application must know where your FreeCAD libs reside. The best way to obtain that is to temporarily append FreeCAD's
lib path to the sys.path variable. The following code typed from any python shell will import FreeCAD and let you run it the same way as in
console mode:
import sys sys.path.append("path/to/FreeCAD/lib") # change this by your own FreeCAD lib path import FreeCAD
Once FreeCAD is loaded, it is up to you to make it interact with your host application in any way you can imagine!
The Config set

On every Startup FreeCAD examines its surrounding and the command line parameters. It builds up a configuration set which holds the
essence of the runtime information. This information is later used to determine the place where to save user data or log files. It is also very
important for post postmortem analyzes. Therefore it is saved in the log file.
User related information
User config entries

Config var name Synopsis Example M$ Example Posix (Linux)
Path where FreeCAD stores C:\Documents and
UserAppData User Related application Settings\username\Application /home/username/.FreeCAD
data. Data\FreeCAD
File where FreeCAD stores C:\Documents and
UserParameter User Related application Settings\username\Application /home/username/.FreeCAD/user.cfg
data. Data\FreeCAD\user.cfg
C:\Documents and
File where FreeCAD stores
SystemParameter Settings\username\Application /home/username/.FreeCAD/system.cfg
Application Related data.
Data\FreeCAD\system.cfg
C:\Documents and Settings\username\My
UserHomePath Home path of the current user /home/username
Documents
Command line arguments
User config entries

Config var name Synopsis Example
LoggingFile 1 if the logging is switched on 1
C:\Documents and
LoggingFileName File name where the log is placed Settings\username\Application
Data\FreeCAD\FreeCAD.log
This indicates how the main loop will work. "Script" means that the given
script is called and then exit. "Cmd" runs the command line interpreter.
RunMode "Cmd"
"Internal" runs an internal script. "Gui" enters the Gui event loop. "Module"
loads a given python module.
FileName Meaning depends on the RunMode
ScriptFileName Meaning depends on the RunMode
Verbose Verbosity level of FreeCAD "" or "strict"
OpenFileCount Holds the number of files opened through command line arguments "12"
AdditionalModulePaths Holds the additional Module paths given in the cmd line "extraModules/"
System related
User config entries

Example Posix
Config var name Synopsis Example M$
(Linux)
c:/Progam
AppHomePath Path where FreeCAD is installed /user/local/FreeCAD_0.7
Files/FreeCAD_0.7
Holds a list of paths which python search modules. This is at
PythonSearchPath
startup can change during execution
Some libraries need to call system environment variables. Sometimes when there is a problem with a FreeCAD installation, it is because
some environment variable is absent or set wrongly. Therefore, some important variables get duplicated in the Config and saved in the log
file.
Python related environment variables:
PYTHONPATH
PYTHONHOME
TCL_LIBRARY
TCLLIBPATH
OpenCascade related environment variables:
CSF_MDTVFontDirectory
CSF_MDTVTexturesDirectory
CSF_UnitsDefinition
CSF_UnitsLexicon
CSF_StandardDefaults
CSF_PluginDefaults
CSF_LANGUAGE
CSF_SHMessage
CSF_XCAFDefaults
CSF_GraphicShr
CSF_IGESDefaults
CSF_STEPDefaults
System related environment variables:
PATH
Build related information
The table below shows the availible informations about the Build version. Most of it comes from the Subversion repository. This stuff is
needed to exactly rebuild a version!
User config entries

Major Version number of the Build. Defined in
BuildVersionMajor 0
src/Build/Version.h.in
Minor Version number of the Build. Defined in
BuildVersionMinor 7
src/Build/Version.h.in
SVN Repository Revision number of the src in the Build.
BuildRevision 356
Generated by SVN
BuildRevisionRange Range of differnt changes 123-356
https://free-cad.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/free-
BuildRepositoryURL Repository URL
cad/trunk/src
BuildRevisionDate Date of the above Revision 2007/02/03 22:21:18
BuildScrClean Indicates if the source was changed ager checkout Src modified
BuildScrMixed Src not mixed
Branding related
These Config entries are related to the branding mechanism of FreeCAD. See Branding for more details.
User config entries

ExeName Name of the build Executable file. Can diver from FreeCAD if a different main.cpp is used. FreeCAD.exe
ExeVersion Over all Version shows up at start time V0.7
AppIcon Icon which is used for the Executable, shows in Application MainWindow. "FCIcon"
ConsoleBanner Banner which is prompted in console mode
SplashPicture Name of the Icon used for the Splash Screen "FreeCADSplasher"
SplashAlignment Alignment of the Text in the Splash dialog Left"
SplashTextColor Color of the splasher Text "#000000"
StartWorkbench Name of the Workbech which get started automaticly after Startup "Part design"
HiddenDockWindow List of dockwindows (separated by a semicolon) which will be disabled "Property editor"
Build Support Tools
The FreeCAD build tool or fcbt is a python script located at
trunc/src/Tools/fcbt.py
It can be used to simplify some frequent tasks in building, distributing and extending FreeCAD.
Usage
With Python correctly installed, fcbt can be invoked by the command
python fbct.py
It displays a menu, where you can select the task you want to use it for:
FreeCAD Build Tool

Usage:
fcbt <command name> [command parameter]
possible commands are:
- DistSrc (DS) Build a source Distr. of the current source tree
- DistBin (DB) Build a binary Distr. of the current source tree
- DistSetup (DI) Build a Setup Distr. of the current source tree
- DistSetup (DUI) Build a User Setup Distr. of the current source tree
- DistAll (DA) Run all three above modules
- NextBuildNumber (NBN) Increase the Build Number of this Version
- CreateModule (CM) Insert a new FreeCAD Module in the module directory
For help on the modules type:

fcbt <command name> ?
At the input promt enter the abbreviated command you want to call. For example type "CM" for creating a module.
DistSrc
The command "DS" creates a source distribution of the current source tree.
DistBin
The command "DB" creates a binary distribution of the current source tree.
DistSetup
The command "DI" creates a setup distribution of the current source tree.
DistSetup
The command "DUI" creates a user setup distribution of the current source tree.
DistAll
The command "DA" executes "DS", "DB" and "DI" in sequence.
NextBuildNumber
The "NBN" command increments the build number to create a new release version of FreeCAD.
CreateModule
The "CM" command creates a new application module.
Creating a new application module in FreeCAD is rather simple. In the FreeCAD development tree exists the FreeCAD Build Tool
(fcbt) that does the most important things for you. It is a Python script located under
trunk/src/Tools/fcbt.py
When your python interpreter is correctly installed you can execute the script from a command line with
python fcbt.py
It will display the following menu:
FreeCAD Build Tool

Usage:
fcbt <command name> [command parameter]
possible commands are:
- DistSrc (DS) Build a source Distr. of the current source tree
- DistBin (DB) Build a binary Distr. of the current source tree
- DistSetup (DI) Build a Setup Distr. of the current source tree
- DistSetup (DUI) Build a User Setup Distr. of the current source tree
- DistAll (DA) Run all three above modules
- BuildDoc (BD) Create the documentation (source docs)
- NextBuildNumber (NBN) Increase the Build Number of this Version
- CreateModule (CM) Insert a new FreeCAD Module in the module directory
For help on the modules type:

fcbt <command name> ?
At the command prompt enter CM to start the creation of a module:
Insert command: CM
You are now asked to specify a name for your new module. Lets call it TestMod for example:
Please enter a name for your application: TestMod
After pressing enter fcbt starts copying all necessary files for your module in a new folder at
trunk/src/Mod/TestMod/
Then all files are modified with your new module name. The only thing you need to do now is to add the two new projects "appTestMod"
and "appTestModGui" to your workspace (on Windows) or to your makefile targets (unix). Thats it!
Test first
Before you go through the pain off debugging use the test framework to check if the standard tests work properly. If not there is maybe a
broken installation.
command line
The debugging of FreeCAD is supported by a few internal mechanisms. The command line version of FreeCAD provides to options for
debugging support:
-v
With the "v" option FreeCAD gives a more verbose output.
-l
With the "l" option FreeCAD writes additional information to a logfile.
Introduction
FreeCAD comes with an extensive testing framework. The testing bases on a set of Python scripts which are located in the test module.
This article describes the Branding of FreeCAD. Branding means to start your own application on base of FreeCAD. That can be only
your own executable or splash screen till a complete reworked program. On base of the flexible architecture of FreeCAD it's easy to use it
as base for your own special purpose program.
General
Most of the branding is done in the MainCmd.cpp or MainGui.cpp. These Projects generate the executable files of FreeCAD. To make
your own Brand just copy the Main or MainGui projets and give the executable an own name, e.g. FooApp.exe. The most important
settings for a new look can be made in one place in the main() function. Here is the code section that controls the branding:
int main( int argc, char ** argv )

{
// Name and Version of the Application
App::Application::Config()["ExeName"] = "FooApp.exe";
App::Application::Config()["ExeVersion"] = "0.7";
// set the banner (for loging and console)

App::Application::Config()["ConsoleBanner"] = sBanner;
App::Application::Config()["AppIcon"] = "FCIcon";
App::Application::Config()["SplashPicture"] = "FooAppSplasher";
App::Application::Config()["StartWorkbench"] = "Part design";
App::Application::Config()["HiddenDockWindow"] = "Property editor";
App::Application::Config()["SplashAlignment" ] = "Bottom|Left";
App::Application::Config()["SplashTextColor" ] = "#000000"; // black
// Inits the Application

App::Application::Config()["RunMode"] = "Gui";
App::Application::init(argc,argv);
Gui::BitmapFactory().addXPM("FooAppSplasher", ( const char** ) splash_screen);
Gui::Application::initApplication();
Gui::Application::runApplication();
App::Application::destruct();
return 0;
}
The first Config entry defines the program name. This is not the executable name, which can be changed by renaming or by compiler
settings, but the name that is displayed in the task bar on windows or in the program list on Unix systems.
The next lines define the Config entries of your FooApp Application. A description of the Config and its entries you find in Start up and
Configuration.
Images
All image resources are compiled into FreeCAD. This reduces delayed loading and keeps the installation compact. The images are
included in XPM-Format which is basically a text format that uses C-syntax. You can basically draw this images with a text editor, but it
is more comfortable to create the images with your favorite graphics program and convert it later to XPM format.
The GNU image program Gimp (http://gimp.org/) can save XPM file.
For conversion you can use the ImageConv tool which is included with freecad. You can find it under
/trunk/src/Tools/ImageTools/ImageConv
It can not only convert images but also automatically update the BmpFactoryIcons.cpp file, where the images are registered. The typical
usage is as simple like the following example:
ImageConv -i InputImage.png -o OutputImage.xpm
This converts the file InputImage.png in XPM-format and writes the result to file OutputImage.xpm.
The line:
Gui::BitmapFactory().addXPM("FooAppSplasher", ( const char** ) splash_screen);

in the main() then include the image in the BitmapFactory of FreeCAD.
Icons
The main application icon FCIcon that appears in window titles and other places is defined in
/trunk/src/Gui/Icons/images.cpp
and starts with the line
static const char *FCIcon[]={
Replace it with your favourite icon, recompile freecad and the next step to create your own brand is done. There are many other icons in
this file that you might change to your gusto.
If you need to add new icons, you have to register it in
/trunk/src/Gui/Icons/BmpFactoryIcons.cpp
so that you can access from FreeCAD.
Background Image
The background image appears, when no document window is open. Like the splash screen it is defined in developers.h in the section
starting with:
static const char* const background[]={
You should choose a low contrast image for the background. Otherwise it might irritate the user.
Localisation is in general the process of providing a Software with a multiple language user interface. In FreeCAD you can set the
language of the user interface under EditPreferencesApplication. FreeCAD uses Qt to enable multiple language support. On
Unix/Linux systems, FreeCAD uses the current locale settings of your system by default.
Helping to translate FreeCAD

One of the very important things you can do for FreeCAD if you are not a programmer, is to help to translate the program in your
language. To do so is now easier than ever, with the use of the Crowdin (http://crowdin.net) collaborative on-line translation system.
How to Translate
Go to the FreeCAD translation project page on Crowdin (http://crowdin.net/project/freecad) ;

Login by creating a new profile, or using a third-party account like your GMail address;
Click on the language you wish to work on;
Start translating by clicking on the Translate button next to one of the files. For example, FreeCAD.ts contains the text strings for
the FreeCAD main GUI.
You can vote for existing translations, or you can create your own.
Note: If you are actively taking part in translating FreeCAD and want to be
informed before next release is ready to be launched,
so there is time to review your translation, please subscribe
to this issue: http://sourceforge.net/apps/mantisbt/free-cad/view.php?id=137
Translating with Qt-Linguist (old way)
The following information doesn't need to be used anymore and will likely become obsolete. It is being kept here so that programmers
may familiarize themselves with how it works.
Open all of the language folders of FreeCAD shown below

Verify that a .ts file with your language code doesn't exist ("fr" for french, "de" for german, etc...)
If it exists, you can download that file, if you want to modify/review/better the translation (click the file, then download)
If it doesn't exist, download the .ts file without language code (or any other .ts available, it will work too)
Rename that file with your language code
Open it with the Qt-Linguist program
Start translating (Qt Linguist is very easy to use)
Once it's completely done, save your file
send the files to us (http://sourceforge.net/apps/mantisbt/free-cad/main_page.php) so we can include them in the freecad source
code so they benefit other users too.
Available translation files
FreeCAD main GUI (http://free-cad.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/free-cad/trunk/src/Gui/Language/)

Complete Workbench (http://free-cad.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/free-cad/trunk/src/Mod/Complete/Gui/Resources/translations/)
Drawing Workbench (http://free-cad.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/free-cad/trunk/src/Mod/Drawing/Gui/Resources/translations/)
Draft Workbench (http://free-cad.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/free-cad/trunk/src/Mod/Draft/Languages/)
Reverse Engineering Workbench (http://free-cad.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/free-
cad/trunk/src/Mod/ReverseEngineering/Gui/Resources/translations/)
FEM Workbench (http://free-cad.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/free-cad/trunk/src/Mod/Fem/Gui/Resources/translations/)
Robot Workbench (http://free-cad.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/free-cad/trunk/src/Mod/Robot/Gui/Resources/translations/)
Image Workbench (http://free-cad.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/free-cad/trunk/src/Mod/Image/Gui/Resources/translations/)
Sketcher Workbench (http://free-cad.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/free-cad/trunk/src/Mod/Sketcher/Gui/Resources/translations/)
Mesh Workbench (http://free-cad.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/free-cad/trunk/src/Mod/Mesh/Gui/Resources/translations/)
Test Workbench (http://free-cad.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/free-cad/trunk/src/Mod/Test/Gui/Resources/translations/)
Points Workbench (http://free-cad.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/free-cad/trunk/src/Mod/Points/Gui/Resources/translations/)
Raytracing Workbench (http://free-cad.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/free-cad/trunk/src/Mod/Raytracing/Gui/Resources/translations/)
Part Workbench (http://free-cad.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/free-cad/trunk/src/Mod/Part/Gui/Resources/translations/)
PartDesign Workbench (http://free-cad.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/free-cad/trunk/src/Mod/PartDesign/Gui/Resources/translations/)
Assembly Workbench (http://free-cad.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/free-cad/trunk/src/Mod/Assembly/Gui/Resources/translations/)
MeshPart Workbench (http://free-cad.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/free-cad/trunk/src/Mod/MeshPart/Gui/Resources/translations/)
Preparing your own modules/applications for translation

Prerequisites
To localise your application module your need to helpers that come with Qt. You can download them from the Trolltech-Website
(http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/downloads) , but they are also contained in the LibPack:
qmake
Generates project files
lupdate
Extracts or updates the original texts in your project by scanning the source code
Qt-Linguist
The Qt-Linguist is very easy to use and helps you translating with nice features like a phrase book for common sentences.
Project Setup
To start the localisation of your project go to the GUI-Part of you module and type on the command line:
qmake -project
This scans your project directory for files containing text strings and creates a project file like the following example:
######################################################################
# Automatically generated by qmake (1.06c) Do 2. Nov 14:44:21 2006
######################################################################
TEMPLATE = app
DEPENDPATH += .\Icons
INCLUDEPATH += .
# Input
HEADERS += ViewProvider.h Workbench.h
SOURCES += AppMyModGui.cpp \
Command.cpp \
ViewProvider.cpp \
Workbench.cpp
TRANSLATIONS += MyMod_de.ts
You can manually add files here. The section TRANSLATIONS contains a list of files with the translation for each language. In the above
example MyMod_de.ts is the german translation.
Now you need to run lupdate to extract all string literals in your GUI. Running lupdate after changes in the source code is allways safe
since it never deletes strings from your translations files. It only adds new strings.
Now you need to add the .ts-files to your VisualStudio project. Specifiy the following custom build method for them:
python ..\..\..\Tools\qembed.py "$(InputDir)\$(InputName).ts"

"$(InputDir)\$(InputName).h" "$(InputName)"
Note: Enter this in one command line, the line break is only for layout purpose.
By compiling the .ts-file of the above example, a header file MyMod_de.h is created. The best place to include this is in
App<Modul>Gui.cpp. In our example this would be AppMyModGui.cpp. There you add the line
new Gui::LanguageProducer("Deutsch", <Modul>_de_h_data, <Modul>_de_h_len);
to publish your translation in the application.
Setting up python files for translation
To ease localization for the py files you can use the tool "pylupdate4" which accepts one or more py files. With the -ts option you can
prepare/update one or more .ts files. For instance to prepare a .ts file for French simply enter into the command line:
pylupdate4 *.py -ts YourModule_fr.ts
the pylupdate tool will scan your .py files for translate() or tr() functions and create a YourModule_fr.ts file. That file can the be translated
with QLinguist and a YourModule_fr.qm file produced from QLinguist or with the command
lrelease YourModule_fr.ts
Beware that the pylupdate4 tool is not very good at recognizing translate() functions, they need to be formatted very specifically ( see the
Draft module files for examples). Inside your file, you can then setup a translator like this (after loading your QApplication but BEFORE
creating any qt widget):
translator = QtCore.QTranslator()
translator.load("YourModule_"+languages[ln])
QtGui.QApplication.installTranslator(translator)
Optionally, you can also create the file XML Draft.qrc with this content:
<RCC>
<qresource prefix="/translations" >
<file>Draft_fr.qm</file>
</qresource>
</RCC>
and running pyrcc4 Draft.qrc -o qrc_Draft.py creates a big Python containing all resources. BTW this approach also works to put icon files
in one resource file
Translating the wiki

This wiki is hosting a lot of contents. The most up-to-date and interesting material is gathered in the manual. So the first step is to check
if the manual translation has already been started for your language (look in the left sidebar, under "manual"). If not, head to the forum
(http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/free-cad/) and say that you want to start a new translation, we'll create the basic setup for the
language you want to work on.
You must then gain wiki edit permission.
If your language is already listed, see what pages are still missing a translation (they will be listed in red). The technique is simple: go into
a red page, and copy/paste the contents of the corresponding English page, and start translating. Do not forget to include all the tags and
templates from the original English page. Some of those templates will have an equivalent in your language (for example, there is a
French Docnav template called Docnav/fr). Look at other already translated pages to see how they did it.
Then, once you translated a page, you must add to the original English page a link to your translation, so readers know that there is a
translated version available, using the {{languages}} template. Look at how other translators did it to do the same.
And if you are unsure, head to the forums and ask people to check what you did and tell you if it's right or not.
Three templates are commonly used in manual pages. These 3 templates have localized versions (Template:Docnav/fr, Template:fr, etc...)
Template:Docnav : it is the navigation bar at the bottom of the pages, showing previous and next pages
Template:Languages : this template must be placed on original pages, to indicate the reader that a translation exists. The
localised version must in return be placed on the translated page, to link to the original English page.
Template:en : there is one of these for each language. They must be placed inside the language template.
Page Naming Convention
Please take note that, due to limitations in the Sourceforge implementation of the MediaWiki engine, we require that your pages all keep
their original English counterpart's name, appending a slash and your language code. For example, the translated page for About
FreeCAD should be About Freecad/es for Spanish, About FreeCAD/pl for polish, etc. The reason is simple: so that if translators go away,
the wiki's administrators, who do not speak all languages, will know what these pages are for. This will facilitate maintenance and avoid
lost pages.
If you want the Docnav template to show linked pages in your language, you can use redirect pages. They are basically shortcut links to
the actual page. Here is an example with the French page for About FreeCAD.
The page About FreeCAD/fr is the page with content

The page propos de FreeCAD contains this code:
#REDIRECT [[About FreeCAD/fr]]
In the About FreeCAD/fr page, the Docnav code will look like this:
{{docnav/fr|Bienvenue sur l'aide en ligne|Fonctionnalits}}
The page "Bienvenue sur l'aide en ligne" redirects to Online Help Startpage/fr, and the page "Fonctionnalits" redirects to Feature list/fr.
If you are unsure how to proceed, don't hesitate to ask for help in the forum (http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/free-cad/) .
The python interpreter inside FreeCAD can easily be extended by adding new modules to your system's python installation. Those
modules will be automatically detected and used by FreeCAD.
All pyhton modules can be used from within FreeCAD, but several of them, listed below, have a special importance because they allow
python programs complete access to core functionality of FreeCAD. Examples of use of those modules can also be found on the Code
snippets page.
Note: of the following modules, Pivy is now fully integrated into any FreeCAD installation package, and PyQt4 is also integrated in the
Windows installation package.
PyQt4
homepage: http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/pyqt
PyQt (version 4) is a python bindings library which allow programs to access, create or modify Qt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_(toolkit))
interfaces. Since the FreeCAD interface is built with Qt, installing PyQt4 on your system allow python programs inside FreeCAD to
access all the interface, modify its parts, create new widgets or gather info from interface parts.
PyQt is released under a multiple licensing system, same system as used by Qt (http://trolltech.com/products/qt) . To resume, there is a
commercial version and a free GPL version. If you want to use it to make commercial (closed source) programs, you need to purchase the
commercial license, otherwise you can simply install and use freely the GPL version.
Installation
Before installing PyQt4, you obviously need a python environment installed and working.
Linux
The simplest way to install PyQt4 is through your distribution's package manager. On Debian/Ubuntu systems, the package name is
generally python-qt4, while on RPM-based systems it is named pyqt4. The necessary dependencies (Qt and SIP) will be taken care of
automatically.
Windows
The program can be downloaded from here (http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/pyqt/download.php) . You'll need to install the Qt and
SIP libraries before installing pyqt4 (to be documented).
Usage
Once it is installed, you can check that everything is working by typing in FreeCAD python console:
import PyQt4
To access the FreeCAD interface, type:
from PyQt4 import QtCore,QtGui

app = QtGui.qApp
FreeCADWindow = app.activeWindow()
Now you can start to explore the interface with the dir() command. You can add new elements, like a custom widget, with commands
like:
FreeCADWindow.addDockWidget(QtCore.Qt.RghtDockWidgetArea,my_custom_widget)
Documentation
More pyQt4 tutorials (including how to build interfaces with Qt Designer to use with python):
http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/static/Docs/PyQt4/html/classes.html - the official PyQt4 API Reference
http://www.rkblog.rk.edu.pl/w/p/introduction-pyqt4/ - a simple introduction
http://www.zetcode.com/tutorials/pyqt4/ - very complete in-depth tutorial
Pivy
homepage: http://pivy.coin3d.org/
Pivy is a coin (http://www.coin3d.org) bindings library for python, officially supported by coin. Coin itself is a toolkit for building 3D
applications in OpenGL. It is the toolkit that FreeCAD uses to draw its 3d Scene on the screen. Installing Pivy on your system will allow
python programs to access the FreeCAD scenegraph, draw new objects on the scene and use the wide range of available Coin tools for
drawing operations. Coin is based on the open Inventor scene description language. Pivy is used by the 2D drafting module of FreeCAD
(and also by the complete module), so it is needed if you want to use any tool of those modules.
It is important to know that FreeCAD only uses coin for representation of objects on the screen, which is separated from the definition of
objects. This means that pivy won't be able to modify existing objects, neither to create valid FreeCAD objects. But it can be used to draw
all kind of temporary things on screen, such as axis, grids, manipulators, construction geometry, etc...
Pivy, as well as Coin, is released under a GPL license.
Installation
Debian & Ubuntu
Starting with Debian Squeeze and Ubuntu Lucid, pivy will be available directly from the official repositories, saving us a lot of hassle. In the
meantime, you can either download one of the packages we made (for debian and ubuntu karmic) availables on the Download pages, or
compile it yourself.
The best way to compile pivy easily is to grab the debian source package for pivy and make a package with debuild. It is the same source
code from the official pivy site, but the debian people made several bug-fixing additions. It also compiles fine on ubuntu karmic:
http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/python-pivy (download the .orig.gz and the .diff.gz file, then unzip both, then apply the .diff to the
source: go to the unzipped pivy source folder, and apply the .diff patch:
patch -p1 < ../pivy_0.5.0~svn765-2.diff
then
debuild
to have pivy properly built into an official installable package. Then, just install the package with gdebi.
Other linux distributions
First get the latest sources from the project's repository:
svn co https://svn.coin3d.org/repos/Pivy/trunk Pivy
Then you need a tool called SWIG to generate the C++ code for the Python bindings. It is recommended to use version 1.3.25 of SWIG,
not the latest version, because at the moment pivy will only function correctly with 1.3.25. Download a 1.3.25 source tarball from
http://www.swig.org. Then unpack it and from a command line do (as root):
./configure
make
make install (or checkinstall if you use it)
It takes just a few seconds to build.
After that go to the pivy sources and call
python setup.py build
which creates the source files. You may run into a compiler error where a 'const char*' cannot be converted in a 'char*'. To fix that you just
need to write a 'const' before in the appropriate lines. There are six lines to fix. After that, install by issuing (as root):
python setup.py install (or checkinstall python setup.py install)
That's it, pivy is installed.
Windows
Assuming your are using Visual Studio 2005 or later you should open a command prompt with 'Visual Studio 2005 Command prompt'
from the Tools menu. If the Python interpreter is not yet in the system path do
set PATH=path_to_python_2.5;%PATH%
To get pivy working you should get the latest sources from the project's repository:
svn co https://svn.coin3d.org/repos/Pivy/trunk Pivy
Then you need a tool called SWIG to generate the C++ code for the Python bindings. It is recommended to use version 1.3.25 of SWIG,
not the latest version, because at the moment pivy will only function correctly with 1.3.25. Download the binaries for 1.3.25 from
http://www.swig.org. Then unpack it and from the command line add it to the system path
set PATH=path_to_swig_1.3.25;%PATH%
and set COINDIR to the appropriate path
set COINDIR=path_to_coin
On Windows the pivy config file expects SoWin instead of SoQt as default. I didn't find an obvious way to build with SoQt, so I modified
the file setup.py directly. In line 200 just remove the part 'sowin' : ('gui._sowin', 'sowin-config', 'pivy.gui.') (do not remove the closing
parenthesis).
After that go to the pivy sources and call
python setup.py build
which creates the source files. You may run into a compiler error several header files couldn't be found. In this case adjust the INCLUDE
variable
set INCLUDE=%INCLUDE%;path_to_coin_include_dir
and if the SoQt headers are not in the same place as the Coin headers also
set INCLUDE=%INCLUDE%;path_to_soqt_include_dir
and finally the Qt headers
set INCLUDE=%INCLUDE%;path_to_qt4\include\Qt
If you are using the Express Edition of Visual Studio you may get a python keyerror exception. In this case you have to modify a few
things in msvccompiler.py located in your python installation.
Go to line 122 and replace the line
vsbase = r"Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\%0.1f" % version
with
vsbase = r"Software\Microsoft\VCExpress\%0.1f" % version
Then retry again. If you get a second error like
error: Python was built with Visual Studio 2003;...
you must also replace line 128
self.set_macro("FrameworkSDKDir", net, "sdkinstallrootv1.1")
with
self.set_macro("FrameworkSDKDir", net, "sdkinstallrootv2.0")
Retry once again. If you get again an error like
error: Python was built with Visual Studio version 8.0, and extensions need to be built with the same version of the comp
3 4
then you should check the environment variables DISTUTILS_USE_SDK and MSSDK with
echo %DISTUTILS_USE_SDK%
echo %MSSDK%
If not yet set then just set it e.g. to 1
set DISTUTILS_USE_SDK=1
set MSSDK=1
Now, you may run into a compiler error where a 'const char*' cannot be converted in a 'char*'. To fix that you just need to write a 'const'
before in the appropriate lines. There are six lines to fix. After that copy the generated pivy directory to a place where the python
interpreter in FreeCAD can find it.
Usage
To have Pivy access the FreeCAD scenegraph do the following:

App.newDocument() # Open a document and a view
view = Gui.ActiveDocument.ActiveView
FCSceneGraph = view.getSceneGraph() # returns a pivy Python object that holds a SoSeparator, the main "container" of the
FCSceneGraph.addChild(coin.SoCube()) # add a box to scene
3 4
You can now explore the FCSceneGraph with the dir() command.
Documentation
Unfortunately documentation about pivy is still almost inexistant on the net. But you might find Coin documentation useful, since pivy
simply translate Coin functions, nodes and methods in python, everything keeps the same name and properties, keeping in mind the
difference of syntax between C and python:
http://doc.coin3d.org/Coin/classes.html - Coin3D API Reference
http://www-evasion.imag.fr/~Francois.Faure/doc/inventorMentor/sgi_html/index.html - The Inventor Mentor - The "bible" of Inventor scene

description language.
You can also look at the Draft.py file in the FreeCAD Mod/Draft folder, since it makes big use of pivy.
Credits
Here an overview which people or companies contribute to FreeCAD. The credits for the used libraries see Third Party Libraries.
Developer
Lead developer
Only the lead developers are able to commit code in the SVN repository. Currently these are:
Jrgen Riegel
Werner Mayer
Later on there may be responsibilities on module base.
Developers
People who contributed a notable amount of code:
Yorik van Havre

Graeme van der Vlugt
Berthold Grupp
Georg Wiora
Martin Burbaum
Jacques-Antoine Gaudin
Ken Cline
Dmitry Chigrin
Companies
Companies which donated Code or Developer:
Imetric 3D
Retrieved from "http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/free-cad/index.php?title=Manual"

Categories: User Documentation | Poweruser Documentation | Python Code | Developer Documentation | Developer
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Manual

Welcome to the FreeCAD on-line help

FreeCAD features tools similar to Catia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catia) , SolidWorks

FreeCAD is multi-platform. It runs and behaves exactly the same way on

FreeCAD is a full GUI application. FreeCAD has a complete Graphical

FreeCAD also runs as a command line application, with low memory

Undo/Redo framework: Everything is undo/redoable, with access to the

Transaction management: The undo/redo stack stores document

Parametric associative document objects: All objects in a FreeCAD

Compound (ZIP based) document save format: FreeCAD documents

Application specific features

Primitive creation (box, sphere, cylinder, etc), offset (trivial or after

Import of the following formats: ASCII or binary STL (Stereo lithography

Extensive Python scripting API.

Annotations like texts or dimensions

Parametric primitive shapes like box, sphere, cylinder, cone or torus.

Topological components like vertices, edges, wires and planes (via

Modeling with straight or revolution extrusions, sections and fillets.

Extensive Python scripting API.

Import and Export of the following formats: STEP

FreeCAD installer is delivered in .msi (Windows Installer) format.

Command Line Installation

With the command line

msiexec /i FreeCAD-2.5.msi TARGETDIR=r:\FreeCAD25

Limited user interface

The default TARGETDIR is [WindowsVolume\Programm Files\]FreeCAD<version>.

Installation for All Users

DefaultFeature - install the software proper, plus the core libraries

ADDLOCAL - list of feature to be installed on the local machine

With these options, adding

msiexec /jm FreeCAD<version>.msi

Automatic Installation on a Group of Machines

1. Log on to the domain controller

Installation on Linux using Crossover Office

sudo apt-get install freecad

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:freecad-maintainers/freecad-daily

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:freecad-maintainers/freecad-dev

More information on the Download#Ubuntu_PPA_packages page

Debian, Mint and other debian-based systems

sudo apt-get install freecad

FreeCAD is typically installed with:

zypper install FreeCAD

FreeCAD can be built/installed simply by issuing:

Manual install on .deb based systems

sudo dpkg -i Name_of_your_FreeCAD_package.deb

changing Name_of_your_FreeCAD_package.deb by the name of the file you downloaded.

Installing on other Linux/Unix systems

Then, from the terminal, run:

Navigating in the 3D space

These are tools for creating objects.

2-point Line: Draws a line segment from 2 points

Wire (multiple-point line): Draws a line made of multiple line segments

Circle: Draws a circle from center and radius

Rectangle: Draws a rectangle from 2 opposite points

Polygon: Draws a regular polygon from a center and a radius

BSpline: Draws a B-Spline from a serie of points

Text: Draws a multi-line text annotation

Dimension: Draws a dimension annotation

Move: Moves object(s) from one location to another

Rotate: Rotates object(s) from a start angle to an end angle