Part Defeaturing

Description
The Defeaturing tool is intended for removal of selected features from the model. In this context, features are meant as holes, protrusions, gaps, chamfers, fillets etc. found on the model.

The defeaturing tool can be very useful in different contexts:


 * To edit an imported solid where no history of operations is available;
 * Fixing defects in the model, e.g. filling gaps, holes etc.
 * Model simplification for numeric analysis, display on mobile devices, etc;

The removed features are filled by the extension of the adjacent faces, thus no unexpected parts should appear in the result. Please note that the result is a new shape that is not linked to the original; thus, it is non-parametric.

To be available, this tool requires FreeCAD to be based on Open Cascade 7.3.0 or greater. If it is not available in your version of FreeCAD, you may have a look at the Defeaturing Workbench add-on, which proposes similar functionality even with older versions of OCC or FreeCAD.



Usage

 * 1) Select the face(s) on the model to remove.
 * 2) Press the  button.
 * 3) A new object is created labelled Defeatured in the Model tree, and the original object is hidden from view.

Links

 * 3D Model Defeaturing, the official announcement on the Open Cascade collaborative development portal.
 * Freecad 0.18 Defeaturing, a video demonstration (in German) on a complex model on PeerTube; even without understanding the language, it is pretty easy to follow.