
FreeCAD BIM development news December 2018 - buovjaga
https://github.com/yorikvanhavre/BIM_Workbench/wiki/FreeCAD-BIM-development-news-21---December-2018
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watchdogtimer
BIM = building information modelling

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_information_modelin...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_information_modeling)

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sgt
Not related to BIM, but FreeCAD has intrigued me these last few days of
Christmas vacation. My dad bought a 3D printer and I've helped him with it, so
I've realized it's time I buy one as well.

Most people recommended Fusion 360 but I personally found it a bit annoying to
work with, especially seeing that it's basically a webapp. I wanted a real
native app to work with, so I went ahead and downloaded FreeCAD. It's also
open source and seems to have a thriving community.

Anyone else got some opinions or experiences to share on FreeCAD for
beginners?

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thatsaguy
I use FreeCAD whenever possible. It's a very capable cad, despite the
limitations.

My main complaint is that history management in FreeCAD is poor, and the
ability to assemble parts is very, very limited currently.

That is: create a sketch, extrude, and fillet 2 edges at random. FreeCAD seem
to use some incredibly naive edge enumeration technique, which breaks
instantly as soon as you add/remove edges from the underlying sketch. This
makes design revisions almost _impossible_ currently, which is _the_ primary
reason you use a parametric cad for.

OpenCascade in itself is not as bad as people make it to be. It's a bit buggy,
but not drastically more so than fusion 360. In fact, you learn to work around
most geometric kernel issues in any parametric cad with time. All of them have
bugs and corner cases. OCC itself has never been a limitation for most of my
designs.

FreeCAD combined with CadQuery is _immensely_ more powerful than most
commercial offerings I've tried. I dream of being able to interleave CadQuery
and FreeCAD sketches at any point in history to prototype!

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andyidsinga
didn't know about CadQuery - thanks. I've been playing with openscad a bit,
looks like CadQuery is an alternative.

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andyidsinga
I used to really like google sketchup for drawing and planing remodeling
projects ..and I've been looking for an alternative for a while.

Funny thing - I've also been using FreeCAD for a while for 3d printing and
didn't even know about / understand the BIM features (I just didn't spend much
time digging around in all the features).

Thankfully I recently discovered the BIM features on youtube - and find them
very cool even if slightly more difficult to use than sketchup.

(edit) FWIW : Yorik van Havre's youtube channel demos the BIM features quite
nicely.[https://www.youtube.com/user/yorikvanhavre/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/yorikvanhavre/videos)

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rafamvc
How does this compare with Revit? It seems wrong to me to compare it to
SketchUp and blender, as they are not BIM, and just regular modeling software

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twelvechairs
They discuss this here when comparing to 'the commercial alternatives we all
know'. Key things they admit it is bad at are user friendliness and 2d output.
Both are pretty essential for serious use in the architecture / construction
industry.

Though before revit was bought by autodesk it was probably in a similar point
(2d drawing was really poor).

I think the biggest open source success in related industries is still qGIS. I
hope this can be replicated in the architectural CAD sector. If so though i
think it will have to offer something else. FreeCAD is pushing the best BIM
integration which is great. But if you talk to a lot of architects right now
they are excited about Grasshopper and Dynamo visual programming which the
attached says is yet to come in freecad. Heres hoping it turns out well. My
view is that if it does this well and picks up for 2d drawing it could be a
serious competitor

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microcolonel
Also, Revit is still hot garbage (from what I've seen as a non-full-time
user); and the data you produce in it are generally trapped forever. Even if
you have every other Autodesk product, your data don't transfer reliably out
of Revit to those, and even less do they transfer anywhere else.

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boardwaalk
This is neat! I didn't know this, or FreeCAD, existed.

For a complete layman who wants to design a house eventually, how deep should
one go with a more detailed design in FreeCAD or similar tool? Is a rough
design in something like SketchUp and getting an architect involved the way to
go? In does anyone have general tips or resources for such a project?

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walkingolof
Just use Sketchup, I did the drawings for my new office in Sketchup, took it
to a construction engineer who remodel it in some professional tool and I got
back all the numbers I needed for my permit.

I really wanted to use FreeCAD but I cant afford to spend that amount of time
needed to learn to work with it....

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justinclift
> who remodel it in some professional tool ...

One of the huge disadvantages of SketchUp, is that it doesn't create geometry
which is easily (and accurately) shared with other CAD/CAM systems. :(

Any kind of export/import to standard CAD/CAM model formats (STEP, IGES, even
JT) would do.

(Note - I last looked a few months ago, so it's possible something has changed
since then. Wouldn't bet money on it though, as it seems to be "in purpose"
but I'm not sure why.)

FreeCAD on the other hand _does_ use the right kind of geometry, and
imports/exports the right formats natively. Your construction engineer would
likely have been able to import a FreeCAD created model directly, instead of
having to remodel it from scratch. Assuming the model was created decently
well of course. ;)

That could have saved a bunch of time.

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dang
Previous discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16790814](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16790814)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480294](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480294)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11533435](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11533435)

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bacon_waffle
FreeCAD uses Open Cascade, currently on the HN front page:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18800503](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18800503)

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fartcannon
This is remarkable! Is the backend scriptable?

~~~
buovjaga
From
[https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Python](https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Python)

"In FreeCAD, Python code can be used to create various elements
programmatically, without needing to click on the graphical user interface.
Additionally, many tools and workbenches of FreeCAD are programmed in Python."

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mch82
Even cooler, it’s possibe to open a console while using the FreeCAD GUI and
see the Python your actions generate.

