TechDraw Roadmap

The TechDraw workbench is new and hasn't had the years of development that have benefited some other workbenches. Still, TechDraw can now "produce basic technical drawings based on the 3D model".

Here is a rough roadmap of areas to be addressed in the future (in no particular order).

Current Activity

• "slanted" dimlines for Dimensions on Axo Views.
• bug fixes.

Recent Changes

• improved Dxf export compatibility with version R12.

Draft/Arch coexistence

There are inconsistencies between the way the Draft/Arch and TechDraw modules represent shapes. This limits the suitability of TechDraw for Draft/Arch users. One notable short-coming is that TechDraw is unable to apply Dimensions to the Svg images it receives from Draft/Arch.

Templates

Making a template with editable text fields requires significant expertise with Svg and an Svg editor like Inkscape. Making the template creation process simpler will be a priority in the v0.18 development cycle.

Drawing Tools

This includes the ability to add leaders, callouts and detail highlights to Views. It is a prerequisite to many enhancements, particularly in the drawing annotation area, such as feature control frames and reference highlights for detail views.

2D Geometry

A number of 2D geometry functions were recently added to the Part module. This needs to be reviewed with an eye towards replacing custom 2D geometry code in TechDraw with standard code from Part.

Internal View Consistency

It is not currently possible to create a Detail from a Section, or a Section from a Detail due to internal differences. Changes here would allow any View type to be a BaseView.

"non-Vertex" Dimensions

There is a need for Dimensions that do not rely on specific vertex/edges, but on extrema of the figure - for example, overall width/height.

Support for Newer Dxf Version

The current Page to Dxf export function uses an older version of the Dxf spec (R12). An option to support a newer version is required.

Bug Fixes/Feature Requests

See the bug tracker for up to date information.

• the inability of Qt to export fills/hatches to SVG continues to be a problem, particularly for users of Draft and Arch workbenches.
• "broken view" - the ability to depict very large objects on the page.
• "slanted" extension lines - https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?t=22014
• helix projections - https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9513&start=10

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