FreeCAD Forum

Hello guys, is this the right place to throw an idea?

As I start to love working with the datum planes and the super duper nice capabilities of attaching them to anything, I found myself always guessing wrong which is the xyz orientation of that datum plane. Is it possible to add a graphic of the axis orientation? Like the one is showing up when you press Right click/Transform. Or the nice orientation cube 0.18 has.

Just an idea, not that you already are not full with your stuff, but I just though to throw it here.
Hmm, hopefully I am not copying someone else! I didn't search that!

Good idea.. This would make it much easier. I would add that datum planes should change visibilities somehow, depending on the "camera" viewpoint, to easily distint if you look from Birdseye (Camera Z is positive ) or from under ground ( Camera Z is negative ) to the plane.

You might want to check out this thread:
https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2604

EDIT: TL;DR: what you are asking for looks like Local coordinate system (LCS). Such an object exists in freecad, but it's not accessible through gui, and isn't too usable. Lattice2 add-on workbench offers another one, that is quite a bit more usable at the moment.

In PartDesign there exists a local coordinate system implemented as a datum object. Recently someone requested to make it accessible from the GUI because it's needed in the Assembly add-on.

I played a bit with it and to me it looks pretty useful so I added to the PD toolbar.

wmayer wrote: ↑Fri Jan 11, 2019 3:08 pm I played a bit with it and to me it looks pretty useful so I added to the PD toolbar.

we need a LIKE button

HarryGeier wrote: ↑Fri Jan 11, 2019 10:01 pm

wmayer wrote: ↑Fri Jan 11, 2019 3:08 pm I played a bit with it and to me it looks pretty useful so I added to the PD toolbar.

we need a LIKE button

No, we don't. We are not on Facebook here

Thank you very much Werner.

wmayer wrote: ↑Fri Jan 11, 2019 3:08 pm In PartDesign there exists a local coordinate system implemented as a datum object.

yes, but you can't use it to directly map a sketch. You can use it for assembly, but if you want to draw a sketch you first need to attach the Datum Plane to the LCS, and only then can you draw the sketch. Therefore, having an arrow showing the normal to the Datum Plane would be a nice feature to have. Or, as you say, be able to select an LCS and directly specify one of its XY - XZ - YZ planes to draw a sketch, that would be cool too (for example, when selecting axis X of the LCS you would draw on plane YZ)

wmayer wrote: ↑Fri Jan 11, 2019 3:08 pm In PartDesign there exists a local coordinate system implemented as a datum object.

Zolko wrote: ↑Tue Jan 22, 2019 8:43 am but you can't use it to directly map a sketch.

Actually, you can: add a Sketch, then select in the Properties "MapMode", then select the LCS as atachment object, and select "Object's XZ" which will therefore be the LCS's XZ plane.

These Datum Coordinate Systems are really powerful features

Could you give some preferably simple or very simple examples which show the power of LCSs?