New Module for Technical Drawings (TechDraw)

Info about new community or project announcements, implemented features, classes, modules or APIs. Might get technical!
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mrlukeparry
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Re: New Module for Technical Drawings (TechDraw)

Post by mrlukeparry »

I just saw the announcement via Facebook of all places. I thought, it cannot be what I spent time working on, but indeed it is!! Admittedly it did bring a huge smile on my face!

Just a little update, I am in the process of wrapping up my PhD towards the end of the year (fingers crossed), so will be starting the thesis write-up in the next month or too. I've been out of the community for a long time, but it is great to see everything in FreeCAD, and this module is starting to come nicely together. Over the past two years, I have learned a lot of programming skills and knowledge, but I also have gained an idea of where future research and development for tools and design is heading. 3D Printing/AM is bringing a complete different design methodology and will require a new set of tools and thinking.

BTW, I am still waiting for the FreeCAD world conference to happen!

I wish to give a big thank you to Ian, wandererfan, Yorik, and those I am not aware of, for keeping this alive and developing this into a mature feature since its inception over three years ago.

Bravo!!
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wandererfan
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Re: New Module for Technical Drawings (TechDraw)

Post by wandererfan »

The father speaks! :D

Welcome back. I'd send you a cigar if I could.

wf
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saso
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Re: New Module for Technical Drawings (TechDraw)

Post by saso »

Awesome work everyone! Another great step forward for FreeCAD and one more important check on the path to a great 0.17 release!

Do I already hear some thoughts on python3, Qt5? :lol:
triplus
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Re: New Module for Technical Drawings (TechDraw)

Post by triplus »

mrlukeparry wrote:I just saw the announcement via Facebook of all places. I thought, it cannot be what I spent time working on, but indeed it is!! Admittedly it did bring a huge smile on my face!

Just a little update, I am in the process of wrapping up my PhD towards the end of the year (fingers crossed), so will be starting the thesis write-up in the next month or too. I've been out of the community for a long time, but it is great to see everything in FreeCAD, and this module is starting to come nicely together. Over the past two years, I have learned a lot of programming skills and knowledge, but I also have gained an idea of where future research and development for tools and design is heading. 3D Printing/AM is bringing a complete different design methodology and will require a new set of tools and thinking.

BTW, I am still waiting for the FreeCAD world conference to happen!

I wish to give a big thank you to Ian, wandererfan, Yorik, and those I am not aware of, for keeping this alive and developing this into a mature feature since its inception over three years ago.

Bravo!!
Nice to hear from you and good luck with your PhD!
ian.rees
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Re: New Module for Technical Drawings (TechDraw)

Post by ian.rees »

Good to see this in the main line finally! Congrats and thanks to all involved, especially Luke for getting it started and Wandererfan for bringing it all together.
saso wrote:Do I already hear some thoughts on python3, Qt5?
Sounds good to me! I may tidy up AMF export support when I get some time, but am definitely interested in working on moving to Qt5. -Ian-
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NormandC
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Re: New Module for Technical Drawings (TechDraw)

Post by NormandC »

ian.rees wrote:I may tidy up AMF export support when I get some time
I've read that 3MF is the thing now. ;)
liutas4x4
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Re: New Module for Technical Drawings (TechDraw)

Post by liutas4x4 »

Hi,

Simple , may not very smart question:
Are the bold fat dots on crossing lines in drawing, created using TechDraw, feature or kind or bug? If those dots have a meaning for someone, let them be. But in this case I must to have option disable or at least control a size/visibility of them.
Bulbs for Childs.png
Bulbs for Childs.png (12.93 KiB) Viewed 4582 times
Eugenijus

P.S. Current version have a terrible lag.
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wandererfan
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Re: New Module for Technical Drawings (TechDraw)

Post by wandererfan »

liutas4x4 wrote:Are the bold fat dots on crossing lines in drawing, created using TechDraw, feature or kind or bug? If those dots have a meaning for someone, let them be. But in this case I must to have option disable or at least control a size/visibility of them.
They are there because the coder is an old man with poor eyesight who can't select tiny vertices. :D

They are turned off before printing, or you can push the
toggleframe.png
toggleframe.png (6.15 KiB) Viewed 4542 times
button to hide them.
If they should work differently, you can add a feature request on Mantis.
liutas4x4 wrote:P.S. Current version have a terrible lag.
Details? Test file?

wf
liutas4x4
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Re: New Module for Technical Drawings (TechDraw)

Post by liutas4x4 »

wandererfan wrote: They are there because the coder is an old man with poor eyesight who can't select tiny vertices. :D
It seems because of the same reason I not found this wonderful button by myself :)
TNX x 2.
wandererfan wrote: Details? Test file?
Mine or yours?
If mine, let it be this
AR-011 (MA 40x20 MV).FCStd
(545.06 KiB) Downloaded 128 times
one.

While near instant update on 0.15 + Drawing + Drawing Dimensioning (working set before 0.17 + TechDraw), just changing the scale took about 8 to 12 sec. Because of raw code?

Eugenijus
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wandererfan
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Re: New Module for Technical Drawings (TechDraw)

Post by wandererfan »

liutas4x4 wrote:While near instant update on 0.15 + Drawing + Drawing Dimensioning (working set before 0.17 + TechDraw), just changing the scale took about 8 to 12 sec. Because of raw code?
Drawing stores the page result as SVG in the FCSTD file. So on load, it has nothing to calculate. TechDraw rebuilds the drawing from the model at load time. That is why one is faster to load than the other.

That said, it does seem like a long time to rebuild. Your file will be quite useful for testing. Thanks for sharing it.

wf
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