FreeCAD Software – Free cad software Download

What is FreeCAD Software ?

FreeCAD is a free and open-source (under the LGPLv2+ license) general-purpose parametric 3D CAD modeler and a building information modeling (BIM) software with finite-element-method (FEM) support. FreeCAD is aimed directly at mechanical engineering product design but also expands to a wider range of uses around engineering, such as architecture or electrical engineering. FreeCAD can be used interactively, or its functionality can be accessed and extended using the Python programming language and is currently in a beta stage of development.

FreeCAD is a powerful 3D CAD modeler and drawing tool which is targeted squarely at the mechanical engineering and product design fields. The program’s 0.12 version number tells you it’s not yet ready for prime time, but if you’re interested in this area – particularly if you’re familiar with Python scripting – then there’s already plenty to explore here.

If you’ve samples to hand then FreeCAD can already import DXF, OCA/ GCAD, SVG, STP/ STEP, IGS/ IGES and other formats, a quick way to get started and see what the program can do.

But if you prefer then you can also create a new document from scratch. FreeCAD supports 2D objects like lines, rectangles, arcs or circles, as well as various 3D primitives (box, sphere, cylinder, cone, torus), each of which can then be manipulated in various ways (translation, rotation, mirroring, scaling, offset and more).

There are also plenty of mesh tools; a drawing module which exports projected views of your geometry to a 2D SVG document; and a raytracing module which exports your work for rendering in POV-Ray.

And Python code underlies all of this. Everything you do within the interface will issue some Python command, which you can examine. You can freely enter Python commands yourself if you need a little more flexibility, or even create macros by recording any particularly useful Python for replay later.

FreeCAD features tools similar to Autodesk Revit, CATIA, Creo, Autodesk Inventor, SolidWorks or Solid Edge, and therefore also falls into the category of Building Info Modeling (BIM), Mechanical computer-aided design (MCAD), PLM, CAx and CAE. It is intended to be a feature-based parametric 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 modelers, it will have a 2D component in order to extract design details from the 3D model to create 2D production drawings, but direct 2D drawing (like AutoCAD LT) is not the focus, neither are animation or organic shapes (like Blender, Maya, 3ds Max or Cinema 4D), although, thanks to its wide adaptability, FreeCAD might become useful in a much broader area than its current focus.

FreeCAD is intended to make use of other open-source libraries from the field of scientific computing. Among them are Open CASCADE (a CAD kernel), Coin3D (an incarnation of Open Inventor), the Qt GUI framework, and Python, a popular scripting language. FreeCAD itself can also be used as a library by other programs.

Supported file formats

Freecad’s own main file format is FreeCAD Standard file format (.FCStd). It is a standard zip file that holds files in a certain structure. Document.xml file has all geometric and parametric objects definitions. GuiDocument.xml then has visual representation details of objects. Other files include brep-files for objects and thumbnail of drawing.

Besides FreeCAD’s own file format, files can be exported and imported in the following file formats: DXF, SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), STEP, IGES, STL (STereoLithography), OBJ (Wavefront), DAE (Collada), SCAD (OpenSCAD), IV (Inventor) and IFC

Specification: FreeCAD 0.17.13522:
Platforms:Windows 7 (32 bit),Windows 7 (64 bit),Windows 8,windows 10,Mac OS X, Linux

Version:0.17.13522

Licence:Open Source

Developer: FreeCAD

Date Added:May 15, 2018