Hello Carlopav, this is a great initiave, we are already somewhat familiar with the general potential of the 3D modeling aspect of Freecad, however what is heavily underlooked is it's 2D drafting and annotation potential for serious documentation. And like you've pointed out the current workflow doesn't work. Freecad initially was meant to be a promissing solution for BIM and documenation, but right now it fails on documentation and that perhaps where i'm very very very dissappointed by freecad and always feel the need to revert to commercial applications. I'm certain this is the feeling of other proffessionals when ever they take a look at freecad for the first time, the question is can i do serious with it, and when they see they can't do serious work, they run away like a gazelle running away from a leopard.
First of all, freecad text, i'm not sure what's happening under the hood, but on my system i'm unable to change the font for a font I wish. This used to be a major issue when i worked on linux, and now that i'm on windows i find the same issue. I've looked through all possible documentation on the forum addressing this issue and all of them did not work for me. So it's just painful that I imagine every user having this issue when it is supposed to work right out of the box intuitively. So perhaps we can think of a different way even for text fonts in freecad?
carlopav wrote: ↑Wed May 13, 2020 1:23 pm
A big concern to me is how to properly produce 2d documentation of architectural models.
I 100% agree here, everytime i want to get serious with work, i end up spending hours and hours just trying to fix what was already working before and looking for different ways to address what isn't optimal, in this kind of option Freecad is not useful, freecad is not efficient, freecad is not measuring up to the 'least' standards when it comes to documentation. So i agree with you that serious input need to be given to this area of freecad.
carlopav wrote: ↑Wed May 13, 2020 1:23 pm
So being able to handle proper annotations (expecially in arch models) can quickly become problematic.
This has been my main problem ever since i started with freecad.
carlopav wrote: ↑Wed May 13, 2020 1:23 pm
Think about a model with 1000 object: quite common. If we have 500 lines drawn over it it means we are already at 1500 obj. If we have 2 plans and 2 sections, everyone of them with dimensions, detailing, etc. we could reach quite quickly 3000-4000 objects.
Couldn't agree more.
carlopav wrote: ↑Wed May 13, 2020 1:23 pm
The point with annotations is that we do not really need to have those objects have a shape, so they can be 100% coin and they can be 2d, really just laying on a SectionPlane, so we do not need them to have a Z coordinate.
This is a good idea, i'm sure there is some hidden results that can come out of this.
carlopav wrote: ↑Wed May 13, 2020 1:23 pm
But anyway it would be nice to improve annotations in the 3d view.
This is also what i think is essential, improving annotation in the 3D view, WHY? because
1. currently doing the annotations in techdraw is not up to the architectural mindset,
2. Techdraw can start to drag Freecad and make it super slow, everty time it has to generate a change made in the intial model, and yes even if you toggle off the generate, and have to come and generate the changes do it manually in techdraw, it is still terribly slow when the projects gains in maturity and size.
3. Techdraw is a flat 2D generating inskscape vector stuffs, in most programs like revit you are still able to edit the model in the sheets views, which is hightly useful and efficient. So working directly in 3D allows for such possibility of editing what needs to be edited in 3D and see the changes real time being updated and tweaked using the general move, scale, mirror..... etc etc tools that are areadly available + less time to generate the 3d.
I still think there is potential in techdraw, but how i see techdraw is more as a placement space, where there are things like align the drawings positioned, importing templates made from inscape (which is great because once the template is created it's set and so all kinds of creative templates can be made in inkscape). I see tech draw more like Scribus, where once you have everything nicely created you can come and place them nicely and export everything at once, but everything of good and changes must happen in 3D view. I also like tecdraw because i can export drawings and they will appear in inkscape with transparency on them. Currently if we were to apply the picture snapping mode to take pictures of the scaled view drawing in freecad, it doesn't have that vector ability to take a picture and apply clean proper vector transparency on the model, it does scalar transparency so when you zoom on it, the picture is pixelized. Not great at all.
Currently the way I use Techdraw is to scale my drawings to the size i want because i'm not sure how it will fit on paper at a certain scale. (one way to get around that is to have a scale view directly in 3D where when the scale is applied, some view camera created in 3D view zooms in to the scale and what ever fits in that box allows us to determine in which scale the drawing or object is in.
carlopav wrote: ↑Wed May 13, 2020 1:23 pm
It would be a bit like having a 2d LibreCAD sheet into FreeCAD 3d View... (or imagine importing a huge drafting 2d sheet and be able to show as a single object, but divided with layers )
I also played a little bit with Qcad and Librecad to understand the possibily of doing sheet editing on there after i export the dxf, I think if freecad just had 1/5th of Librecad text and annotation possibilities, it would be a
major step forward. Literally no kidding. Right now the workflow is not so great because
1. you must learn librecad when you already took the time to learn freecad, this might not make it so interesting for people (and especially me) to always have an extra stuffs to learn just for the sake of productivity when we need to design and focus on acheiving the design we need,
2. No real time instant updates as when the drawing changes as it is often in the architecture world, changes are made on the minute basis, so if every time you need to go and update something in 2D, then it's pattetically painful and less attractive. We will never stand a chance of convicing someone to jump on freecad when they see the ease of commercial softs when it comes to documentation (no to mention that the 3D modeling it self is not rocket science as it's still in developments i.e still needing smooth hatches, smooth textures, smooth materialities etc etc.
So in summary here is what my tinkering experiences suggests if it is possible from the Code point of view
1. Everything Annotation and dimension must happen in 3D View directly
2. The Section/Elevation should be enhanced further
As for wether everything must be layed on it or not I think that's relative, there are advantages and disadvantages, but in general having a type of sheet like/page that is position exactly where the cut occurs where it can host every annotation created (and this page can be now hosted to move with the section, that would be great.
3. The Section/Elevation should be flexible, i.e we should be able to drag the edges and size it up as we need it. This is especially useful for stuffs like interior elevation plans or 'section boxes' like in revit or 'marquee selection section' like in archicad for viewing a small section part of a project.
4. An ability to scale a view, I like the way blender does it in that it has a camera and everything concerning that view happens in that camera, so if you scale a view in the camera, it doesn't affect the main view. Why do we need scaled view, because it is useful to know what size we are dealing with and have accurate exports of drawings, let's say in inkscape, or dxf for further enchancement in another projects.
5. An ability to have transparency of the objects viewed by the camera, aswell as have the ability to apply background color to that view if desired.
6. The camera can actually be where the Sheet is placed and sized, so it is somewhat invisible or semi transparent while we are working in 3d view and can see what happening when we are placing drawings views and sections on it. etc etc.
So that's my 2 cent suggestions, I hope i'm not asking for anything impossible.