487215d2f5
OCC currently does not reliably enforce linear deflection on curved surfaces, especially curved lofts over nurbs splines. To avoid surprises when tight tolerances are needed, replace the static default angular deflection of 0.5 radians (~28 degrees), with a more sensible angular deflection derived from the provided linear deflection tolerance. By adding the default heuristic to TopoShape, we can keep typical tessellate() and STL export functionality users simple, and also avoid the need to implement similar heuristics in many places. If more explicit control over angular deflection is needed for some use cases, then we could still choose to expose the option to override the derived default explicitly. The hope is that OCC's linear deflection enforcement will be more reliable at some point, at which point this heuristic will no longer be needed.
Your own 3D parametric modeler
Website • Documentation • Forum • Bug tracker • Git repository
This project receives generous infrastructure support from
Overview
-
Freedom to build what you want FreeCAD is an open-source parametric 3D modeler made primarily to design real-life objects of any size. Parametric modeling allows you to easily modify your design by going back into your model history and changing its parameters.
-
Create 3D from 2D & back FreeCAD allows you to sketch geometry constrained 2D shapes and use them as a base to build other objects. It contains many components to adjust dimensions or extract design details from 3D models to create high quality production ready drawings.
-
Designed for your needs FreeCAD is designed to fit a wide range of uses including product design, mechanical engineering and architecture. Whether you are a hobbyist, a programmer, an experienced CAD user, a student or a teacher, you will feel right at home with FreeCAD.
-
Cross platform FreeCAD runs on Windows, Mac and Linux
-
Underlying technology
- OpenCASCADE A powerful geometry kernel, the most important component of FreeCAD
- Coin3D library Open Inventor-compliant 3D scene representation model
- Python FreeCAD offers a broad Python API
- Qt Graphical User Interface built with Qt
Installing
Precompiled (installable) packages are available for Windows and Mac on the Releases page.
On most Linux distributions, FreeCAD is directly installable from the software center application.
Other options are described at the wiki Download page.
Build Status 
| Master | 0.18 | Translation |
|---|---|---|
|
 |
|
Compiling
Compiling FreeCAD requires installation of several libraries and their development files such as OpenCASCADe, Coin and Qt, listed in the pages below. Once this is done, FreeCAD can be simply compiled with cMake. On Windows, these libraries are bundled and offered by the FreeCAD team in a convenient package. On Linux, they are usually found in your distribution's repositories, and on Mac OSX and other platforms you will usually need to compile them yourself.
The pages below contain up-to-date build instructions:
Usage & Getting help
The FreeCAD wiki contains documentation on general FreeCAD usage, Python scripting, and development. These pages might help you get started:
The FreeCAD forum is also a great place to find help and solve specific problems you might encounter when learning to use FreeCAD.