BIM with FreeCAD - Expressions

[@wpegley]

Hey Yorik, big thx to all the FC team, the spreadsheet window could be detachable from the main window, frèeing up model space,. That and the report view keeps stealing model space also. I cant imagine what a developer goes thru, and especially on a shoestring budget. Just making suggestions to get the UI more comfortable, if a designer rocks up to work & says boss im more happier in FC, then the employer will be likely to donate to FC. Thats why i believe the glass feature also needs to be a permanent feature. Thx again, your all changing the world.

[@moussahachemi4875]

This software looks really good, and it has the potential to be a real bim software alternative to the big ones. You're doing a big job @Yorik, keep it up. Thank you

[@maksimryndin992]

Yorik, excellent work! Thanks a lot!

[@leandroschenone7253]

Woooowww.. all this is very versatile and useful.. Good job team !! :D

[@MdMozammelHossain]

You are Awesome !

[@oalfernandes]

Yorik, muito obrigado por compartilhar suas aulas. Acabei de conhecer o FreeCad e estou impressionado com o que ele já pode fazer e o potencial dele. Conheci um pouco da sua grande colaboração no projeto FreeCad. Sou designer de interiores e gostaria de saber como posso colaborar também de alguma forma com a comunidade e em especial com os módulos de arquiterura/designer de interiores.

[@YorikvanHavre]

Todo desenvolvimento é feito de forma aberta, principalmente no fórum do FreeCAD, tem uma seção especial para BIM/arq. em forum.freecadweb.org/viewforum.php?f=23 Discutimos tudo ali. Se você fala um mínimo de ingles, entre la e participe! Tem uma seção em português no mesmo forum, mas poucos participantes ainda. Seria outra área boa de desenvolver. Também tem a tradução da documentação em www.freecadweb.org/wiki/ onde faltam braços. Mas basicamente qualquer esforço é sempre bem vindo

[@oalfernandes]

​@@YorikvanHavre Sim, Yorik. Eu falo inglês razoavelmente. Acabei de me inscrever no forum. Obrigado pelas dicas!

[@irtoantoniocrocetti8634]

Very great job!!

Good presentation of features I could not leave without as they drive each and every of my models! Practice led me to put all of my data and expressions in a spreadsheet with aliases and only refer to these in object properties because it's much easier to mass modify when you want to derive a design from another. Today, when starting a design, the very first thing I do is creating the 'Data' spreadsheet and throw in the few basic dimensions I already know. Then only I begin adding objects, with aliases refs right from the start. A little slower in the beginning but earned back a 100 times on the long run. Extension of the expression engine and spreadsheet module would surely dev effort worthly invested. Another path could be linking/integration with LibreOffice spreadsheets to benefit from its powers and furthermore ease the sharing of sheets/data between design files. I know expressions can use data accross files, but being able to have master sheets of all centralizing project data together with power of a full featured spreadsheet app would be a game changer! Finally, this could eventually pave the way to integration of database connections for collaborative/shared editing?! 😋 Anyway, thank you for all

[@YorikvanHavre]

Actually this is on my radar too already. The approach I tried with the Arch Schedule tool (basically,produce a spreadsheet inside freecad, to be edited further outside) is a bit clumsy, no way to produce a nice-looking spreadsheet. I now wonder if a more interesting path wouldn't be to do it all in libreoffice, that is, from there be able to open a FreeCAD file and lookup quantities... Need to experiment with that.

@@YorikvanHavre Some have already work on this and, IIRC, I think one guy managed to establish a two way link between FreeCAD and a LibreOffice spreadsheet using Python UNO interface and LO server mode. I have bookmarks on my laptop. Will share them ASAP...

@@YorikvanHavre here is the links I have: freecadweb.org/tracker/view.php?id=2474 forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=23863 freecad-tutorial.blogspot.com/2011/10/oosheet-as-freecad-and-libreoffice.html forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=25691 forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?t=12981#p103992 Considering the need for Python 3, advent of 0.18 release may make this more possible than ever :)

Seems like a major evolution is coming from Assembly 3 branch github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3/wiki/Expression-and-Spreadsheet

[@IGBeTix-Electronique]

Hi Yorik. I tried this and it's powerfull. A lower object in the tree can reference a higher object but the contrary si not possible (because the lower object is drawned AFTER the higher). A simple question : why can't we see the name property of object in the tree (read only of course) ? I use python console to see this name. Only the label is visible.

[@YorikvanHavre]

Hi! It is not based on the drawing order, but on a tree logic. There can be no circular dependency. So object A can depends on object B that depends on object C, but object A cannot depend on object B who dependson object A. That would be a circular dependency which is prohibited in FreeCAD. The dependency graph under Tools menu can help figuring out the dependencies. The Name property is actually more like an internal ID, and less important to the user... But if you hover your mouse over an object in the tree, you'll see the internal name in the status bar.

[@IGBeTix-Electronique]

@@YorikvanHavre Ah ok, thanks for this valuable answer.

[@laureano213]

Estamos aguardando pela versao 18.

[@MustafaHalil]

wonderful job.

[@alexandr-spb]

How input dinstance when make or drag a line, wall or another object?

[@YorikvanHavre]

You can simply use TAB to get to the "Length" field

[@alexandr-spb]

​@@YorikvanHavre спасибо, получилось! Но есть 2 вопроса: Как сделать, чтобы во время ввода значения длины курсор мыши был заморожен и направление стены не могло случайно измениться? 2 вопрос: кнопку "TAB" нужно нажать 4 раза, а ввод значения - 2 раза. Можно ли изменить порядок пооей и поле длина сделать первым? Он используется чаще всего. X, Y поля не очень нужны: можно нажать shift и заморозить курсор мыши.

[@YorikvanHavre]

@@alexandr-spb There is no real way to freeze the mouse, but I think this could help: Under edit -> preferences -> Draft -> general settings: "Set focus on length instead of XY coordinates"

Nice feature.

[@alencardesigner811]

Ola pessoal eu estou com uma grande dificuldede, eu não consigo editar as paredes " altura largura e comprimento"

[@russhensel]

This video is now referenced on the FreeCad Wiki on a page: '''[wiki.freecadweb.org/Best_Practices_with_SpreadSheets Best Practices with SpreadSheets - FreeCAD Documentation ]'''. You or your viewers may want to take a look at that page and read/evaluate/learn from it. It is a wiki so you can change the page, or comment in its discussion tab. You can message me, the guy who made this comment.

[@YorikvanHavre]

Awesome job @russhensel!

[@kuntalpcelebi2251]

mind blown !