A workbench to draw all kind of tubes, gutters, ducts etc.

[Zef Glória]

Hello everybody interested in a workbench for tube design "round rectangular or any used shapes", important for civil engineering in a wide variety of specialities.
What I suggest is something like draw a line "path" and turn it into a tube, duct etc, giving it the parameters, parameters can be changed at any time if one gets to the conclusion that certain parameter or parameters is/are not enough for what it's purpose, put fittings, accessories where needed, these can be drawn once and some how kept for future use, add to the work by a button or similar. Define materials thickness of the tube, duct etc, geometry. Be able at any time to introduce a fitting, divide a tube duct "example break point" so one can get two lengths and/or two diameters before and after etc. At the end get useful data like length, diameter, area of a section, height and length for rectangular shapes, etc.
Have a way to relate the object "3D" to its symbol, not all countries have same representation.
As for plotting one could be able to plot the drawing in the 3D aspect or get it printed in symbols, example like in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWhYl_nH0mA, have a way to print in one or both ways in same paper or separate. This would be very good. Even better one could define by rectangular that could be hidden for detailed representation in different scale using the same drawing.
Please, more civil engineers comment on such a workbench.
Thanks

[yorik]

Hi Zef,

Interesting... I see basically 2 kinds of tools in this video: a "tube" tool, and a "block" tool which inserts all kinds of connectors. The tube tool is very easy to do in freecad. There are all kinds of functions to extrude a tube along a centerline. The other one is less easy. Basically someone would need to model all these connectors, ideally parametrically, so you can change their dimensions on the fly. This is no small task.

The other part, which is producing drawings from this, with annotations and dimensions and bill of materials, is something for which the available functionality is still sparse in FreeCAD, I would say this will come in time, but will not happen tomorrow.

I could try modelling one of those parametric connectors, one of these days, to serve as an example. Would you have some detailed drawing of such a connector?

Another thing I'm wondering: In the video, the guy places the connectors, then draws portions of tube between them. There is therefore no "continuity" between the pieces of tube, and also no relationship anywhere. I wonder how all this could become more continuous and related... Like, you would draw one big schematic line drawing, then make tubes out of the straight lines, and connectors out of certain points. This could become interesting, but not sure if it is very flexible and easy to manipulate...