I made this using v0.16 and windows 10 on a dell xps 13 laptop, with extensive use of Flamingo and Assembly 2.
I compiled the latest Linux version on Centos 7 and it it greatly reduced the exported (DXF) file sizes so the individual pipe runs can be dimensioned.
The FreeCAD people have come up with a great product! This is almost like Linux when it first came out in the 90's.
Thank you - I would like to contribute to FreeCAD's effort, but I wasn't sure if I am up to speed, maybe I am. I started on FreeCAD last October and knew nothing about Python, but have lots of experience with VB6 and Autocad in 2d. Python is the bomb!!!! The amount of code to required to draw a part is tiny.
This may be not the correct place to reply - but I'd like to contribute - maybe you can direct me to the correct forum. So far I can make the drawing quickly, make a bill of materials, calculate the center-of-gravity location, but I am stumbling on detail dimensioning. I know that the docs advise that freecad is not the tool for detailing large assemblies, but I think it can be done. The problem is that exporting to SVG or DXF the files get very large.
Could you show some examples of how do such detail drawings look like?
Indeed in that regard things can quickly become heavy and slow in FreeCAD. That's definitely an area with a lot of space for improvement. But often there are tricks and ways to optimize things or reduce the problems a lot...
In any case I also think a lot can be done already.
Yorik,
Attached is the sketch that I would use as a starting point for dimensioning and annotation. The overall dimensions of this project is about 10 meters long X 3 meters wide X 3 meters tall.
The exported lines are broken into small polyline segments, which makes snapping to the end of a line almost impossible.
There was a tremendous improvement from V0.16 for windows to last weeks latest build for linux as the lengths of the line segments get longer with a corresponding decrease in processing time.
For a start, I am going to try two things:
1) Filter the exported files so that straight polylines are converted to lines with only a start and end point.
2) Write a script that exports several views of each group of piping.
Again, thank you for your interest and responses.
Joe
Yorik,
I was able to get a 2d view of the piping, I used the part>compound>make compound tool for groups of the piping. Then I used draft> shape 2d view to make the desired views on all of the compound items. The problem I was having is that certain items were causing the view to fail. It might work in View 1, but fail on view 3 and so on. I looked at the 2dviews, guesed at which item caused the problem, corrected the rotation placement and then it worked great!!!!. Attached sampldxf1 file seems to work fine and reduces a dxf file by around 60%, and makes it easy to snap to the end of a line or center of the circle. The paramCG file could be used to generate a bill of material.
I still camn't believe how FC was able to put this program together! well done!
