FreeCAD is primarily a 3D modelling tool. There are times, however, when we must produce 2D drawings for documentation, contracts, permits, etc. The Technical Drawing workbench (TechDraw) is used to produce basic technical drawings based on the 3D model. Each drawing is a Page, and a Page contains many Views of Drawable Objects. The list of Drawable Objects includes Part::Features, PartDesign::Bodies, App::Part groups and Document Object groups.
Dimensions and hatched areas can be added to Views.
Note if your primary goal is the production of complex 2D drawings, you may wish to consider a dedicated tool such as LibreCad, QCad, TurboCad, etc.
Contents
Pages
These are tools for creating Pages.
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New Default: Adds a new Page using the default Template.
Views
These are tools for creating Views.
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New View: Adds a 2D View of a one or more Drawable Objects.
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New Projection Group: Invokes a dialog for creating Views of one or more Drawable Objects from multiple directions.
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New Section: Adds a cross-section View of one or more Drawable Objects.
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New Detail: Adds a detail View of a portion of an existing View.
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New Annotation: Adds a text block to a Page.
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New Draft: Adds a View of a Draft module object.
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New Arch: Adds a View of a Arch module Section Plane object.
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Spreadsheet: Inserts a view of a selected spreadsheet into a drawing.
Clips
These are tools to create and manage clipped views.
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Clip: Inserts a clip group into a Page.
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ClipPlus: Adds a View to a clip group.
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ClipMinus: Removes a View from a clip group.
Dimensions
These are tools for working with Dimensions. Linear dimensions can be based on two points, one line or two lines.
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New Length: Adds a Length Dimension.
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New Horizontal: Adds a horizontal distance dimension.
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New Vertical: Adds a vertical distance dimension.
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New Radius: Adds a Radius dimension to a circle or circular arc.
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New Diameter: Adds a Diameter dimension to a circle or a circular arc.
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New Angle: Adds an Angle dimension between two straight edges.
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New Links: Links 1 or more Dimensions to 3D geometry.
Import/Export
These are tools for exporting Pages to other applications.
Decoration
These are tools for changing the appearance of Pages and Views.
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Hatch Area: Applies a hatch pattern from a file to a Face.
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Geometric Hatch: Hatches a Face using an Autodesk PAT specification.
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New Symbol: Inserts an SVG symbol into a Page.
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New Image: Inserts a png/jpg image into a Page.
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Toggle Frames: Turns View frames and labels on or off in a Page.
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Redraw Page: Redraws a Page without recalculating.
Additional features
- Hatching: TechDraw supports a number of hatching techniques.
- Line Groups: default weights can be assigned to various line types.
Preference settings
The TechDraw module has a preferences screen to adjust default values.
Scripting
The TechDraw module features a Python API so you can use its functions in scripts and macros.
Limitations
- TechDraw drawings and Python API are not interchangeable with the Drawing module. It is possible to convert Drawing Pages to TechDraw Pages using Python (moveViews.py). It is possible to have both TechDraw and Drawing Pages in the same FreeCAD document.
- There are minor differences in specifying Editable Texts in Templates compared to the Drawing module. See forum discussion here.
- TechDraw is available starting with FreeCAD 0.17.
- Do not Cut/Copy/Paste TechDraw objects. This does not generally work out well.
Workarounds
- None required at the moment.
Keep up with TechDraw plans and developments. Visit the TechDraw Roadmap.