FreeCAD Logo FreeCAD 1.0
  • English Afrikaans Arabic Belarusian Catalan Czech German Greek Spanish Spanish Basque Finnish Filipino French Galician Croatian Hungarian Indonesian Italian Japanese Kabyle Korean Lithuanian Dutch Norwegian Bokmal Polish Portuguese Portuguese Romanian Russian Slovak Slovenian Serbian Swedish Turkish Ukrainian Valencian Vietnamese Chinese Chinese
  • Features
  • Download
  • Blog
  • Documentation
    Documentation index Getting started Users documentation The FreeCAD manual Workbenches documentation Python coding documentation C++ coding documentation Tutorials Frequently asked questions Privacy policy About FreeCAD
  • Contribute
    How to help Sponsor Report a bug Make a pull request Jobs and funding Contribution guidelines Developers handbook Translations
  • Community
    Code of conduct Forum The FPA GitHub GitLab Codeberg Mastodon Matrix IRC IRC via Webchat Gitter Discord Reddit Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Calendar
  • ♥ Donate

Donate

$
SEPA Information
Please set up your SEPA bank transfer to:
Beneficiary: The FreeCAD project association
IBAN: BE04 0019 2896 4531
BIC/SWIFT: GEBABEBBXXX
Bank agency: BNP Paribas Fortis
Address: Rue de la Station 64, 1360 Perwez, Belgium

While Stripe doesn't support monthly donations, you can still become a sponsor! Simply make a one-time donation equivalent to 12 months of support, and you'll gain access to the corresponding sponsoring tier. It's an easy and flexible way to contribute.

If you are not sure or not able to commit to a regular donation, but still want to help the project, you can do a one-time donation, of any amount.

Choose freely the amount you wish to donate one time only.

You can support FreeCAD by sponsoring it as an individual or organization through various platforms. Sponsorship provides a steady income for developers, allowing the FPA to plan ahead and enabling greater investment in FreeCAD. To encourage sponsorship, we offer different tiers, and unless you choose to remain anonymous, your name or company logo will be featured on our website accordingly.

from 1 USD / 1 EUR per month. You will not have your name displayed here, but you will have helped the project a lot anyway. Together, normal sponsors maintain the project on its feet as much as the bigger sponsors.

from 25 USD / 25 EUR per month. Your name or company name is displayed on this page.

from 100 USD / 100 EUR per month. Your name or company name is displayed on this page, with a link to your website, and a one-line description text.

from 200 USD / 200 EUR per month. Your name or company name and logo displayed on this page, with a link to your website and a custom description text. Companies that have helped FreeCAD early on also appear under Gold sponsors.

Instead of donating each month, you might find it more comfortable to make a one-time donation that, when divided by twelve, would give you right to enter a sponsoring tier. Don't hesitate to do so!

Choose freely the amount you wish to donate each month.

Please inform your forum name or twitter handle as a notein your transfer, or reach to us, so we can give you proper credits!

Introduction

The graphical user interface workflow for the Drawing Workbench is limited, so the scripting API is more interesting.

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(20,85,100)))

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

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

Parametric example

Create the body

import FreeCAD
import Part
import Drawing

# 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 ViewSVG

That leads to the following result:

General dimensioning and tolerancing

See also: Drawing Dimensioning Addon

Drawing dimensions an tolerances are still under development but you can get some basic functionality with a bit of work.

First you need to get the gdtsvg python module from here (WARNING: This could be broken at any time!):

https://github.com/jcc242/FreeCAD

To get a feature control frame, try out the following:

import gdtsvg as g # Import the module, I like to give it an easy handle
ourFrame = g.ControlFrame("0","0", g.Perpendicularity(), ".5", g.Diameter(), g.ModifyingSymbols("M"), "A",  
           g.ModifyingSymbols("F"), "B", g.ModifyingSymbols("L"), "C", g.ModifyingSymbols("I"))

Here is a good breakdown of the contents of a feature control frame: http://www.cadblog.net/adding-geometric-tolerances.htm

The parameters to pass to control frame are:

  1. X-coordinate in SVG-coordinate system (type string)
  2. Y-coordinate in SVG-coordinate system (type string)
  3. The desired geometric characteristic symbol (tuple, svg string as first, width of symbol as second, height of symbol as third)
  4. The tolerance (type string)
  5. (optional) The diameter symbol (tuple, svg string as first, width of symbol as second, height of symbol as third)
  6. (optional) The condition modifying material (tuple, svg string as first, width of symbol as second, height of symbol as third)
  7. (optional) The first datum (type string)
  8. (optional) The first datum's modifying condition (tuple, svg string as first, width of symbol as second, height of symbol as third)
  9. (optional) The second datum (type string)
  10. (optional) The second datum's modifying condition (tuple, svg string as first, width of symbol as second, height of symbol as third)
  11. (optional) The third datum (type string)
  12. (optional) The third datum's material condition (tuple, svg string as first, width of symbol as second, height of symbol as third)

The ControlFrame function returns a type containing (svg string, overall width of control frame, overall height of control frame)

To get a dimension, try out the following:

import gdtsvg
ourDimension = linearDimension(point1, point2, textpoint, dimensiontext, linestyle=getStyle("visible"), 
               arrowstyle=getStyle("filled"), textstyle=getStyle("text")

Inputs for linear dimension are:

  1. point1, an (x,y) tuple with svg-coordinates, this is one of the points you would like to dimension between
  2. point2, an (x,y) tuple with svg-coordinates, this is the second point you would like to dimension between
  3. textpoint, an (x,y) tuple of svg-coordinates, this is where the text of your dimension will be
  4. dimensiontext, a string containing the text you want the dimension to say
  5. linestyle, a string containing svg (i.e. css) styles, using the getStyle function to retrieve a preset string, for styling the how the lines look
  6. arrowstyle, a string containing svg (i.e. css) styles, using the getStyle function to retrieve a preset string, for styling how the arrows look
  7. textstyle, a string containing svg (i.e. css) styles, using the getStyle function to retrieve a preset string, for styling how the text looks

With those two, you can proceed as above for displaying them on the drawing page. This module is very buggy and can be broken at any given moment, bug reports are welcome on the github page for now, or contact jcc242 on the forums if you post a bug somewhere else.

This page is retrieved from https://wiki.freecad.org/Drawing_API_example

Get in touch!
Forum GitHub Mastodon Matrix IRC Gitter.im Discord Reddit Twitter Facebook LinkedIn

© The FreeCAD Team. Homepage image credits (top to bottom): ppemawm, r-frank, epileftric, regis, rider_mortagnais, bejant.

This project is supported by: , KiCad Services Corp. and other sponsors

GitHubImprove this page on GitHub