TechDraw Workbench

From FreeCAD Documentation

FreeCAD is primarily a 3D modelling tool. There are times, however, when we must produce 2D drawings for documentation, contracts, permits, etc. The Technical Drawing workbench (TechDraw) is used to produce basic technical drawings based on the 3D model. Each drawing is a Page, and a Page contains many Views of Drawable Objects. The list of Drawable Objects includes Part::Features, PartDesign::Bodies, App::Part groups and Document Object groups.

Dimensions and hatched areas can be added to Views.

Note if your primary goal is the production of complex 2D drawings, you may wish to consider a dedicated tool such as LibreCad, QCad, TurboCad, etc.

introduced in version 0.17


Pages

These are tools for creating Pages.

Views

These are tools for creating Views.

Clips

These are tools to create and manage clipped views.

Dimensions

These are tools for working with Dimensions. Linear dimensions can be based on two points, one line or two lines.

Import/Export

These are tools for exporting Pages to other applications.

Decoration

These are tools for changing the appearance of Pages and Views.

Additional features

  • Hatching: TechDraw supports a number of hatching techniques.
  • Line Groups: default weights can be assigned to various line types.

Preference settings

The TechDraw module has a preferences screen to adjust default values.

Scripting

The TechDraw module features a Python API so you can use its functions in scripts and macros.

Limitations

  • TechDraw drawings and Python API are not interchangeable with the Drawing module. It is possible to convert Drawing Pages to TechDraw Pages using Python (moveViews.py). It is possible to have both TechDraw and Drawing Pages in the same FreeCAD document.
  • There are minor differences in specifying Editable Texts in Templates compared to the Drawing module. See forum discussion here.
  • TechDraw is available starting with FreeCAD 0.17.
  • Do not Cut/Copy/Paste TechDraw objects. This does not generally work out well.

Workarounds

  • None required at the moment.


Keep up with TechDraw plans and developments. Visit the TechDraw Roadmap.


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