Updated PartDesign workflow

[ickby]

As of now the FreeCAD 0.17 development version provides a largely updated PartDesign workbench. As workflow changed in many aspects here a overview of the most important new concepts:

1. Body. A body is a single solid created from multiple individual PartDesign features. It does group all features used for its creation beneath it in the tree. It does provide an Origin (Planes and axis) which can be used in the features as references. Furthermore it can be freely moved without making it nesseccary to move the individual features.
2. Part. A part is not related to PartDesign but is a new general FreeCAD element. It provides a local coordinate system and can be used to group any kind of FreeCAD stuff and move it as one unit. This will be the future basis for assemblies.
3. Active objects: There is now the notion of active objects. for example your file can hold multiple Bodies. If you create a new feature the feature is added to the active one. To activate a body double click it, the state will be indicated in the tree by background color.
4. It is now possible to create datum planes/lines/points and attach them to features. Those datums can be used as basis for sketches or as revolution axis etc. There are a multitude of attachment possibilities for datums, try them out
5. It is not needed anymore that a sketch is located on a face of a feature. Even if created anywhere in the 3d space the features get added / subtracted from the body
6. Sketch based tools (pad, revolve, ...) now work not only with sketches but also with faces of a feature
7. Cross referencing: It is now possible to reference things from a body in annother body via datums. for example the datum shape binder allows to copy over faces from a body as reference in annother one. This should make it easy to build a box with fitting cover in two different bodies. FreeCAD helps you to not accidently link to other bodies and inqueries your intend.
8. Additional toolset: all relevant tools formerly exclusive to the Part workbench are now also available in PartDesign. The do have the usual different behavior: always creating solids, automatic adding or subtracting to the body.
9. Migration: Files created with older freecad versions can still be opened and edited. If pure part design feature based they can be converted to the new style via the menu ->PartDesign -> Migrate. If they are mixed Part / Part Design/ Draft the conversion will most likely fail.

Any bugs encountered should be reportet n the mantis bug tracker under the project PartDesign and should be assigned to me.

[triplus]

Congratulations and thanks for the quick overview!

[nemesis]

It Sounds very Attractive!
Congratulation for the job.

I'm testing it right now.
How do we know if it's a real bug, or a not yet added function? (I already find some)

do we have to put some [bug?] on each topic subject, and update it to [bug-confirmed] or [pending function] (or something else) once we have devs answers?

[NormandC]

Hi,

DeepSOIC had written a summary back in September 2015 and I think it gives complementary details:

What's new in PartDesign Next

[TT-RS]

ickby - Thanks!

FreeCAD is getting better and better (especially in last period of time).

[pablogil]

I have just played a bit with all new features and I really like it.
Congratulations!

[llyodsinfrasystems]

Very Nice...!! FreeCAD is getting very better on every passing day

[JTa]

So this is the reason I messed up one old project.

My own mistake really since I didn't notice I had opened the 0.17.7469 version when I edited one project before I hit some bug and wasn't able to pad/pocket with any sketch. I then went and saved (big mistake) the project and opened it with 0.16 version and now all the sketches have lost linking to the pads/pockets.

I guess this can be fixed by editing the Document.xml but hopefully there's some other way. Perhaps "Save as" and option to select old style FCstd file type..?

[jmaustpc]

So this is the reason I messed up one old project.

My own mistake really since I didn't notice I had opened the 0.17.7469 version when I edited one project before I hit some bug and wasn't able to pad/pocket with any sketch. I then went and saved (big mistake) the project and opened it with 0.16 version and now all the sketches have lost linking to the pads/pockets.

I guess this can be fixed by editing the Document.xml but hopefully there's some other way. Perhaps "Save as" and option to select old style FCstd file type..?

Hi, welcome to the FreeCAD forums.

Look and see if you have any files that have the frecad extension plus a number.... These are auto backup files,.....edit the extension back to fcstd and you will be able to open them....this might or might not help in you case.

[DeepSOIC]

I then went and saved (big mistake) the project and opened it with 0.16 version and now all the sketches have lost linking to the pads/pockets.

Yes, it's normal that it happens. Sketches have 'Support' property, that has changed type in 0.17. In 0.17, the old property is converted automatically to the new type, but backwards conversion is not implemented anywhere. Manually editing Document.xml may be the best option.