New Freecad / experienced Revit user questions and workflows on starting out

A forum dedicated to the Draft, Arch and BIM workbenches development.
Forum rules
Be nice to others! Respect the FreeCAD code of conduct!
paullee
Veteran
Posts: 5097
Joined: Wed May 04, 2016 3:58 pm

Re: New Freecad / experienced Revit user questions and workflows on starting out

Post by paullee »

dimitar wrote: Fri Jul 12, 2019 11:04 pm Do you mind referencing some of those posts? i tried searching for furth and sketch, but i get a lot of info about fence, but not arch objects
No problem, a few I can find out :-

https://www.forum.freecadweb.org/viewto ... =8&t=36534

https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic. ... 75#p268580

https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=31235
User avatar
dimitar
Posts: 229
Joined: Thu Jun 13, 2019 6:10 am
Contact:

Re: New Freecad / experienced Revit user questions and workflows on starting out

Post by dimitar »

paullee wrote: Sat Jul 13, 2019 3:03 am
dimitar wrote: Fri Jul 12, 2019 11:04 pm Do you mind referencing some of those posts? i tried searching for furth and sketch, but i get a lot of info about fence, but not arch objects
No problem, a few I can find out :-

https://www.forum.freecadweb.org/viewto ... =8&t=36534

https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic. ... 75#p268580

https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=31235
Thank you for these!


I have been continuing to work with freecad and I have to report that the geometry I get from freecad is in some ways purer than what I even get from Rhino when trying to import it as a mass in Revit. I am getting familiar with the sketcher, part, and partdesign workbenches quite a bit, and I am fascinated by the parametric relationships organised in a way that someone else can comprhened in a much easier manner (even the more complex ones).

I am in love with boolean and solids all over again. Due to the destructive nature in Rhino, I have been avoiding booleans as much as I can, and in grasshopper, they slow down scripts too much. I've leaving simple boolean work to do in Blender, but now, with Freecad, I feel like I am seeing the proper potential of booleans with non-destructive workflows.

A paper cut I am experiencing at the moment is that to go to Revit from Freecad, I need to export from Freecad and IGS, import in Rhino and export as an ACIS SAT file in order to be able to import it into Revit. Another one has been fillets, but I've read quite a few threads about known limitations of the way the kernel handles them.

Now I am exploring speckle between Rhino and Revit and saw that Yorik's been playing with it in Freecad so would like to explore the relationships
User avatar
yorik
Founder
Posts: 13640
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2009 9:16 pm
Location: Brussels
Contact:

Re: New Freecad / experienced Revit user questions and workflows on starting out

Post by yorik »

What I usually do to export to Revit is set the Ifc Type of my object to "Undefined" or "Building Element Proxy" and export as IFC. Depnding on your luck, it imports in Revit without any triangulation (I still couldn't figure out the exact "decision" parameters that makes revit triangulate faces or not).

Indeed ACIS/SAT works pretty well too. The CADExchanger addon allows you to export quite reliable SAT files from FreeCAD (it needs the Cadxchanger app, which is paid). The InventorLoader addon also provides SAT import. Maybe we could talk its author into implement export too? ;)
jmplonka wrote: @jmplonka ping
paullee
Veteran
Posts: 5097
Joined: Wed May 04, 2016 3:58 pm

Re: Newbie Freecad / experienced Revit user questions about starting out

Post by paullee »

dimitar wrote: Sat Jun 15, 2019 4:23 pm So, i've created a sketch, which I wish to make into walls. However, after I hit the wall tool, not all sketch lines become a wall. Am I doing something wrong?

qiWYTiclrR.gif
Can you post this file?

I have been trying to use sketch like you do as discussed separately.

And there are a few minor bugs I happen manage to find and fix, merged by Yorik (though with very limited knowledge in python). Interested to know the reason behind.
User avatar
dimitar
Posts: 229
Joined: Thu Jun 13, 2019 6:10 am
Contact:

Re: Newbie Freecad / experienced Revit user questions about starting out

Post by dimitar »

paullee wrote: Fri Aug 09, 2019 6:30 pm
dimitar wrote: Sat Jun 15, 2019 4:23 pm So, i've created a sketch, which I wish to make into walls. However, after I hit the wall tool, not all sketch lines become a wall. Am I doing something wrong?

qiWYTiclrR.gif
Can you post this file?

I have been trying to use sketch like you do as discussed separately.

And there are a few minor bugs I happen manage to find and fix, merged by Yorik (though with very limited knowledge in python). Interested to know the reason behind.
I can't find that file, but a test in the latest daily fails. What I ended up doing is creating an overly complex sketch that I extruded, which took too much time.
old model
2019-08-10_20-38.png
2019-08-10_20-38.png (59.8 KiB) Viewed 2098 times
fresh try
2019-08-10_20-44.png
2019-08-10_20-44.png (59.1 KiB) Viewed 2098 times
this is with today's daily on ubuntu
Attachments
walltest.FCStd
(20.42 KiB) Downloaded 64 times
User avatar
dimitar
Posts: 229
Joined: Thu Jun 13, 2019 6:10 am
Contact:

Re: New Freecad / experienced Revit user questions and workflows on starting out

Post by dimitar »

It's been a while since I've posted on general progress in freecad since I have been very busy at the office on a competition that we will be wrapping up next week. Within that competition, I managed to create a 3d axonometric facade section chunk for illustrative purposes. The building has some parts that are based on radial geometry, so it was absolute please to setout the whole model on master sketch-radius and then adjust the profiles for mullions, ceiling caps, etc. The final drawing is turning out very clean. My colleagues are impressed, since I can boolean together the bits that I want in the section cut to read as one (in situ concrete walls and floors) and keep ceilings and finished floors as separate elements. The array tool also works fairly well. I do wish that there is a distance parameter in the radial array.

In this process of getting to know freecad, I have ran into some new challenges and a few paper cuts have appeared (some of them which I have reported elsewhere and they seem to be fixed, amazing!)

The biggest challenge I have hit is a logical one. I tend to always work on multi-level projects. Many elements get repeated on multiple floors - organisation of floors. I don't want to repeat myself, there is a separate thread discussing the challenges, but to summarise, I am not sure of how to group some elements (eg ceiling assembly), including sketch-based geometry. in a way to copy it on other floors. It is started to appear logical to add a host property to all arch-based elements.

Another challenge has been the constant organisation of the tree. Even though my file is well organised with floors, and everything going inside of them. Any time I create a new sketch or perform another operation (boolean, fuse, etc) in part WB the new object is outside the active floor. So then I have to rename the object and place it back in the tree. If there is an active floor element or arch component, shouldn't all new objects be created inside of the component? Also, I wonder if there could be an option for some automatic naming for operative objects. E.g if I have a wall called "core wall" and create an opening with boolean difference, the new boolean object could be called something like "core wall boolean".

Another issue that I've struggled with is the extremely long time to generate a techdraw 3d view of my model. To explain it a bit more, it consists of some imported facade geometry from Rhino, floors, walls, ceilings, some more imported internal geometry from Rhino. The total file size is 12mb, yet it took about 15 minutes to generate a view. If I change a property, like line thickness, it automatically regenerated itself without me hitting refresh. So to change a few properties took a very long time. For the time being, I am generating line drawings without patterns, so I can't comment yet on how well it works with solid colors.

A few other paper-cuts:
- cannot host a sketch on a plane
- sketch-based surface workflows seem to be rather limited. I would like to be able to perform more surface based boolean, union, etc operations and then extrude. I've filed a bug report for the draft upgrade tool, as that tools seems to closest to be able to simply create surfaces.
- since freecad is designed for small objects, every time i enter a sketch, it zooms quite in, then when i draw the size i want and exit the sketch, it zooms back in. Wishing there was a way for the sketch mode to stay the within the current viewport size and when exiting to return to what the view was prior to entering
- duplicating and object with its sketch (eg a mullion that i want to be in the same location, arrayed, but use a different profile, takes quite a few steps. This is fairly simple, and i want to see if I can start writing little python scripts here and there, as I am pretty comfortable in python.
- The facade was actually bilt in blender(with the help of the amazin tissue addon), but I couldn't import it well in Freecad, as in Blender I had performed booleans and it seems that only quads come in. Even then it only worked with the alias obj importer and noth with the arch importer. Hence me bringing it into rhino, cleaning it up, and then brings solids into Freecad.
- the UI seems to glitch every once ina while. For example if i close the reporter or the BIM views panel, they randomly reappear, or the whole UI resets itself every once in a while
- On a similar note, if I have a spreadsheet or a techdraw page, sometimes it randomly opens them when I am changing a property of an object

I also published an article on linkedin spreading some freecad awareness within my network. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/freecad- ... nikov-aia/

And I created a community forum for open source architecture. There is so much information that lives in the indepent tools's forums that it could be hard to figure out how they work together, so I've decided to create something where I will also be recording archviz style "making-of" projects. http://community.osarch.org
paullee
Veteran
Posts: 5097
Joined: Wed May 04, 2016 3:58 pm

Re: Newbie Freecad / experienced Revit user questions about starting out

Post by paullee »

dimitar wrote: Sat Aug 10, 2019 7:46 pm
fresh try

2019-08-10_20-44.png

this is with today's daily on ubuntu
Yes, there is something wrong after 0.18 - it worked see below - I just grab 0.19pre_ 16790 and it had that bug already.

Maybe ping @Yorik for a look?


I have been testing using sketches e.g. building a highrise office - similar concept as many others, a 'MasterSketch' for a typical floor plate and other dependent sketches for other non-typical floor. With 'multiple-width' feature support on sketch, it would work better (hmm need abdullah's Geometry Extension Set support).


Screenshot from 2019-08-11 07-01-46.png
Screenshot from 2019-08-11 07-01-46.png (160.62 KiB) Viewed 2075 times
Screenshot from 2019-08-11 07-04-12.png
Screenshot from 2019-08-11 07-04-12.png (256.59 KiB) Viewed 2075 times
Screenshot from 2019-08-11 07-04-33.png
Screenshot from 2019-08-11 07-04-33.png (199.92 KiB) Viewed 2075 times
Screenshot from 2019-08-11 07-07-02.png
Screenshot from 2019-08-11 07-07-02.png (280.68 KiB) Viewed 2075 times
Screenshot from 2019-04-19 11-37-05.png
Screenshot from 2019-04-19 11-37-05.png (185.93 KiB) Viewed 2075 times
paullee
Veteran
Posts: 5097
Joined: Wed May 04, 2016 3:58 pm

Re: New Freecad / experienced Revit user questions and workflows on starting out

Post by paullee »

Just notice your problem about making surface out of > 1 sketch - found alternative solution ... https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic. ... 92#p326192

BTW, @regis, an experience user had made a tremendous numbers of video of what he do with FreeCAD's features on youtube - you can spend days just finish his video :)
paullee
Veteran
Posts: 5097
Joined: Wed May 04, 2016 3:58 pm

Re: New Freecad / experienced Revit user questions and workflows on starting out

Post by paullee »

@Yoirk and other experienced Arch / BIM to discuss :)

dimitar wrote: Sat Aug 10, 2019 8:49 pm Within that competition, I managed to create a 3d axonometric facade section chunk for illustrative purposes. The building has some parts that are based on radial geometry, so it was absolute please to setout the whole model on master sketch-radius and then adjust the profiles for mullions, ceiling caps, etc. The final drawing is turning out very clean. My colleagues are impressed, since I can boolean together the bits that I want in the section cut to read as one (in situ concrete walls and floors) and keep ceilings and finished floors as separate elements.
Can have a look... after competition? :)

dimitar wrote: Sat Aug 10, 2019 8:49 pm I tend to always work on multi-level projects. Many elements get repeated on multiple floors - organisation of floors. I don't want to repeat myself, there is a separate thread discussing the challenges, but to summarise, I am not sure of how to group some elements (eg ceiling assembly), including sketch-based geometry. in a way to copy it on other floors.
...
- sketch-based surface workflows seem to be rather limited. I would like to be able to perform more surface based boolean, union, etc operations and then extrude. I've filed a bug report for the draft upgrade tool, as that tools seems to closest to be able to simply create surfaces.
...
Is it all the problem with creating Wall from Sketch just discussed above ?
Or create 'non-typical- floor layout based on 'typical floor' without repeating much works + 'parametric dependence' ?
I have been trying to use Sketch as floor layout - there are few attempts - quite intuitive as it allows adjust dimensions without much effort of moving individual walls...

dimitar wrote: Sat Aug 10, 2019 8:49 pm ...
And I created a community forum for open source architecture. There is so much information that lives in the indepent tools's forums that it could be hard to figure out how they work together, so I've decided to create something where I will also be recording archviz style "making-of" projects. http://community.osarch.org
Thanks. May be a FreeCAD Arch Team as well, for a hypothetical exercise, competition, experiment ... :D
paullee
Veteran
Posts: 5097
Joined: Wed May 04, 2016 3:58 pm

Re: New Freecad / experienced Revit user questions and workflows on starting out

Post by paullee »

yorik wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 2:41 pm
Ping, can you look at the bug at Arch Wall on Sketch likely introduced after 0.18 ?
https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic. ... 97#p326160
https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic. ... 50#p326189

I am not sure if the above ping @yorik

In addition to my test that 0.18 works without problem,
and FreeCAD_0.19-16790-Linux-Conda_Py3Qt5_glibc2.12-x86_64.AppImage had been not working ...

I had
FreeCAD_0.19.16291_Conda_Py3Qt5_glibc2.12-x86_64.AppImage
and it is not working then... :(
dimitar wrote: Sat Aug 10, 2019 7:46 pm
paullee wrote: Fri Aug 09, 2019 6:30 pm
dimitar wrote: Sat Jun 15, 2019 4:23 pm So, i've created a sketch, which I wish to make into walls. However, after I hit the wall tool, not all sketch lines become a wall. Am I doing something wrong?

qiWYTiclrR.gif
Can you post this file?

I have been trying to use sketch like you do as discussed separately.

And there are a few minor bugs I happen manage to find and fix, merged by Yorik (though with very limited knowledge in python). Interested to know the reason behind.
I can't find that file, but a test in the latest daily fails. What I ended up doing is creating an overly complex sketch that I extruded, which took too much time.
old model
2019-08-10_20-38.png
fresh try
2019-08-10_20-44.png
this is with today's daily on ubuntu
Post Reply