#Freecad assembly 4 tutorial install#
#Freecad assembly 4 tutorial trial#

Our intention is to start a broad conversation. Having multiple competing assembly options is the opposite of that.

But collaboration implies using the same tools and standards. Moreover, there is a strong demand for technical design tools where collaboration is easy. Moreover, having this many competing solutions leads to development fragmentation, makes following tutorials confusing, and makes progress on the core slower as developers have to consider the impact on multiple approaches to assembly. The expectation that this much choice is good for them seems unrealistic.

#Freecad assembly 4 tutorial trial#

This effectively means that instead of launching FreeCAD, creating an assembly, and loading parts into it for aligning, users are expected to first explore at least half a dozen options by trial and error. And then there are several more workbenches like Manipulator or Part-o-magic, that can be used to align parts in some way. In fact, there are 3 competing workbenches and 1 more workbench that has been unmaintained for almost 4 years now. However in FreeCAD, this feature is only available as a separately installed workbench. It‘s commonly required when designing something more complex than a simple replacement part. Meanwhile users expect major features to be immediately available and be specialization-agnostic, easy to use, robust, performant, and well-documented.Ĭreating an assembly is one of those essential features. The drawback of developing major features as 3rd party workbenches is that these features are not part of the out-of-box user experience and thus tend to be niche-oriented, less tested, have more bugs, lack documentation etc.

#Freecad assembly 4 tutorial install#

Since v0.17, FreeCAD makes it very easy to install and update various workbenches developed by its passionate community. The obvious benefit of that is that creating and deploying a solution for a particular user group does not require syncing with FreeCAD’s release cycle that can be as long as a few years. This is great for creating a healthy ecosystem of add-ons and catering to a diverse group of users: tinkerers, professional mechanical engineers, architects, furniture designers etc. FreeCAD is an inherently modular program where major features can be developed by 3rd parties as workbenches.