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Introduction

The DAG View is a directed acyclic graph (DAG) that shows the relationships between different objects in the document. It is meant primarily to show how certain objects depend on others in a complex model with many features and references, such as those that can be created with the PartDesign Workbench.

The DAG View resembles the graph that can be produced from a Git repository and its branches. Together with the standard Tree View and the Dependency Graph, the DAG View is a tool to inspect the parametric history of objects in a document.

Example

A simple model will be seen with different views.

Model with 2D and 3D shapes.

Left: objects shown in the standard Tree View. Right: objects shown in the DAG View.

Relationships between the objects shown in the Dependency Graph.

Activating the DAG View

The DAG View is an experimental feature for power users and developers to troubleshoot complex models; therefore, the DAG View is not available by default.

To use this view use the Parameter Editor. Create the following subgroup if it doesn't exist

• BaseApp/Preferences/DockWindows/DAGView

then add the parameter Enabled of type Boolean, and set it to true.

Restart FreeCAD and activate DAG View: View → Panels → DAG View.

In the Parameter Editor you can also change some properties in the following subgroup

• BaseApp/Preferences/DAGView
• FontPointSize - Set size of text font and can help with readability with high DPI displays. Set to 0 for default font size.
• SelectionMode
  • 0 - single click selects an item. Ctrl-click to add items to selection.
  • 1 - every click adds/removes item to selection.
• Direction - the order in which items are displayed.
  • 1 - child on top, parent under it
  • -1 - parent on top, children under it

Links

• DAGView, forum thread presenting this tool.
• Easter egg of PartDesign Next: DAG View, including the view together with the update to PartDesign.