User hub



This area is the main help area for newcomers to FreeCAD.

Please note that these pages are in early stage of development. At the moment there is still not much documentation for the end user, since FreeCAD itself is still in early stage of development, and doesn't currently feature many interesting tools for the final user.

But FreeCAD is doing great, and this situation is evolving fast. So, don't feel discouraged, browse the contents of this section, and, if you cannot find the information you need, don't hesitate to ask! Among the developers or in the small but growing FreeCAD users community, there will certainly be someone who can help you. You can leave comments relate dto this wiki documentation site on the User hub talk page, or head directly to the FreeCAD help forum and ask your questions there.

And if you have some information you would like to appear here, why not help us make this manual grow and insert your information here? Editing wiki pages is easy, This page will help you to get started.

Introduction

 * Application Overview: A general overview of FreeCAD
 * Installing FreeCAD: How to install FreeCAD on Windows and Unix/Linux
 * Getting started: A quick overview of the available tools
 * FAQ: Frequently asked questions

Basic Application

 * Mouse Model: The use of the mouse to navigate in the 3D space
 * Document structure: How is a FreeCAD document organized
 * Preferences and Customization: How you can configure FreeCAD to your needs
 * Properties: How objects properties work in FreeCAD
 * Workbench Concept: How the FreeCAD interface is organized
 * Macros: How to easily automate often repeated tasks

Workbenches

 * Mesh: Deals with triangulated meshes
 * Image: Manages Bitmap images
 * Points: Lets you work with with points clouds
 * Raytracing: Allows the use of external rendering software
 * Part: Deals with BREP objects
 * 2D Drafting: A basic 2D drawing workbench
 * Drawing: Helps you to put your 3D views on a 2D sheet
 * Robot simulation: Simulate 6-Axis industry robots like Kuka, ABB and others.

Reference

 * Commands Reference: A complete list of the available FreeCAD commands.

Online Help
This is the official FreeCAD online help. Please note that the whole online help system is currently in rework. It will be used to generate a .CHM file, that will be distributed with the binary packages of FreeCAD. At the moment the online help summarizes some of the most complete sections of this wiki.
 * Online help system - Table of Contents

More

 * The Power users hub is the place to go if you would like to see more advanced use of FreeCAD
 * David is a very low cost 3D scanning system that can already work well with FreeCAD
 * Architecture workflow : An example of how FreeCAD can begin to have its preliminary place in an architecture workflow...
 * If you would like to help FreeCAD, head to the Help FreeCAD page.
 * The free-cad:Community Portal lists projects made by community members around FreeCAD.
 * The Wished tools page lists CAD tools that end-users would like to see in FreeCAD. Why not add yours there?