Power users hub



This is the place to come if you want to have a deeper insight into FreeCAD. Here you can learn about customizing FreeCAD for your needs.

These pages are in early stage of development. If you can't find the information you are looking for, or have found useful information somewhere we have not linked to, then please leave a comment on the talk page, or, why not? Add some more content here yourself!

One of the nicest features of FreeCAD is that you can script and extend it extremely far without the need to compile anything or touch the source code. All the scripting part is done in python, a very powerful but simple programming language. With simple python scripts, you have total access to about any part of Freecad. For example, you can:
 * Create and modify geometry: There is a kind of special object you need but that's not present in the default FreeCAD installation? You can easily create a new object type, either from scratch eiter from adapting an existing type.
 * Create custom tools and commands: At the moment, FreeCAD already has extensive functionality, but there aren't many convenient tools and commands for the final user yet. But it is already easy to create your own sets of tools.
 * Modify the interface: The FreeCAD user interface is still very basic at this stage. But everything is there for you to extend it to your needs. You can, for example, create toolbars to put your own tools, create special panels for interacting with your tools, etc.
 * Modify the scene representation: FreeCAD has separate processes for building up and computing the geometry and displaying that geometry on your screen. You have full access to the way the scene contents are displayed on screen, therefore you can modify that representation, interact with it, or add all kinds of custom behaviours and screen widgets, like information, draggers, anchors or temporary entities.

Currently we have here an already good section about scripting, and, for the most adventurous users, pages explaining how to compile FreeCAD yourself, if you want to.

Scripting in FreeCAD

 * Scripting : Everything about scripting in FreeCAD
 * FreeCAD Scripting Basics : Well, the basics...
 * Mesh Scripting : How to interact with the Mesh Module
 * Topological data scripting : How to interact with the Part Module
 * Gui Command : Adding custom commands to the GUI

Examples

 * Line drawing function
 * Dialog creation

Misc

 * Start up and Configuration : Startup and command line options
 * Install on Windows : Using the windows installer
 * Compiling FreeCAD on Windows and Compiling FreeCAD on Unix