CAD for Blender is FINALLY HERE! (Free Blender Add-On!)

In this video, we check out CAD Sketcher - a tool designed to bring CAD functionality like lines, shapes, dimensions, and much more!
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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Introduction
0:11 - Where to Download CAD Sketcher
0:55 - Installing/Enabling CAD Sketcher
1:28 - Adding Sketch Planes for Modeling
1:52 - Adding CAD objects with CAD Sketcher
3:12 - Adding shapes with CAD Sketcher
4:37 - Constraints in CAD Sketcher
5:30 - Converting Sketches to Meshes
6:18 - Adding measurements to objects in CAD Sketcher
7:04 - Adding modifiers to CAD Sketcher Meshes

[@TheCGEssentials]

Hi everyone! Let me know what you think about CAD Sketcher in the comments below! :)

[@_ytuser]

waited for a tool like this. seems useful. thanks a lot for sharing !

[@otherhopeind579]

hai,, how to render distance?

[@Jarandhih]

I've tried for hours but it din't find the solver module, i've instaleld the latest version of Python and neather the pip installation or the manual one (i've searched a lot but can't find the right file) solved the problem. Help please :-(

[@karlburmeister1552]

@@Jarandhih You need to run blender as administrator.

[@mttr4003]

@@Jarandhih in linux mint I used in the terminal >>>> pip install py-slvs and now it shows as register in blender

[@Albert_Sierra]

Finally, Awesome!. Imagine a well-made hybrid softwarre or addon between any nice CAD and blender, or just being able to make clean bevels after booleans and cool advanced parametric shapes for industrial design... Really this topic has my attention and support.

[@donaldkhogan]

Thanks for highlighting this tool! It will definitely be useful in my industrial design pipeline within blender.

[@Thinkingshop]

Always great content. Thanks for getting out so quickly and showing us how to use the new add-on.

[@TerenceKearns]

This is a very interesting development. I did cadd 30 years ago when cadd was new. I like that you can bounce between blender space and solve space and all the solve data remains in tact.

[@HowieStephens]

Very cool tool, was messing with it last night and already designed and printed a functional part. The tangent constraint applied to a line+arc is great for making nice looking curves and surfaces.

[@TheCGEssentials]

Awesome!

[@afrosymphony8207]

can we see what you made

[@user-wr1zs7tn9s]

great video this clears up a lot for me i didnt know where to start ,thanks for your help keep it up looking forward for more

[@samguest6421]

ROTHER, YOU ARE THE BEST!!! You oooh really helped me!! THANK YOU VERY MUCH!This is cool, well done!

[@bbkorp]

Thanks again for all your job and discovering tutorials!

[@TheCGEssentials]

Glad you like them!

[@MortissCoffin]

I just saw a video on this add on this morning as well & was thinking, "Justin should hear about this new CAD add on for Blender." And here he's already made a video on it lol So glad to see him go into more detail about using it. Great job!

[@TheCGEssentials]

:)

[@donfelicella3567]

Another great video! Does it have the ability to create a polyline or only a curve and straight lines?

[@MrWanted000]

I'd like to ask you a question since you work a lot with CAD software, and CAD software pans around with mouse wheel clicks. (Unlike blender, which rotates with the mouse wheel) Do you utilize the default navigation in Blender, or do you change the shortcuts to move around with the wheel button and rotate with shift+mouse-whell?

[@Cambodia-images]

I'm a design engineer - 3d Solid Edge / Solid Works -, struggling with blender, but slowly getting there, it's confusing not having constraints etc. Watching 3d artists going the other way is ummm... This has huge potential, full parametric modeling :). I hope it gets slick, early days..

[@GJoseeph]

Best tutorial for learning measures for 3d Printing objects?

[@dudleybarker2273]

join their discord - they need all the help they can get

[@FuriousImp]

Half a year later. Any big changes?

[@kennmacintosh2627]

Ya, Blender is really designed for creating game assets. Not parametric modeling. I come from an Autocad background. Got tired of paying annual subscription fees. Looking forward to what this addon can do for Blender.

[@christianholl7924]

Is there a way to control the output resolution? For rounded shapes it would be greate to be able to set the amount of steps

[@coleystill9039]

Man just so you know if you don't already. We really appreciate you!!!

[@TheCGEssentials]

Glad I've been able to help!

[@kennmacintosh2627]

At 8:00, instead of adding the cylinders to do the boolean cuts, just add two circles to the 2D drawing. When you add the solidify modifier, the holes are there. You can, if you want, go back and modify the circles in the 2D drawing. Easypeasy!

[@Savenya_Amari]

That's exactly the thing this addon allowes, yet he still goes back to the usual way xD

[@hasanbasryand6880]

Hello. Although I have installed this plugin in blender, I cannot see it on the right when I press the n key. I checked it in Preferences, it seems to be approved. Have a nice day.

[@Fan_tome.]

thanks for this great video content i really helps

[@brockly7916]

Love Bforartists 3 the younger brother of blender works amazing.. thankyou for the video..

[@summerWTFE]

I hope this could eventually replace my use of fusion 360

[@luke_fabis]

Unless you only ever make things on a home FDM printer, it can't really replace Fusion.

[@leecyrille]

More likely this would just make it easier for fusion users to not lose their minds trying to use blender for modelling. Realizing how archaic dimensioning is for most 3d modelling is compared to parametric modelling software makes it feel weak to try and recreate real life environments. This would help that

[@TheCGEssentials]

Yeah - I find it difficult to imagine replacing Fusion with this - this kind of thing is what Fusion is built for

[@apollomarconi]

Having had a Fusion 360 subscription for the last 4 years I agree with you. The other replies may have missed that you wrote "replace my use" (not replace everyone else's use) -- this is key. For instance, each time I'm in AF360 I've got a slightly different use-case, and for some of them I drop everything and come over to Blender. This will make more of that possible, as we all know most of these 3 dimensional tools are seldom being used at or even close to their limits.

[@justtestingonce]

@@luke_fabis no true, also Blender allows you to do way more cooler stuff using their programmatic api. If you’re maker, Blender will blow your mind from robotics, virtual reality, electronic interfaces, interfacing between real world and digital, plus there are so many cad addons besides this. If you invest the time in Blender it will blow fusion away but you get what you put in, with Fusion you get what they give you.

[@Duckers_McQuack]

hey, is there a function to convert mesh to sketch and extrusions? So i can just quick import a stl, convert to cad, then adjust what's needed from there?

[@rizamoriza9931]

Thanks !!

[@afrosymphony8207]

soo interesting, that click to add vertex feature could be a really good retopology tool, for me at least.

[@vizionthing]

This looks very cool, I have been using blender for CAD for some years now, always wondered if a CAD addon was practical

[@vizionthing]

ooooh its just getting better and better, you can align sketch plane to any mesh face in the scene.

[@TheCGEssentials]

Oops...yeah meant to mention that

[@benveasey7474]

What do you use to produce drawings?

[@StephenBoyd21]

A good first step

[@naneocosplay]

This is wonderfull? does anyone know if we can make curves?

[@mind_of_a_darkhorse]

Great video! It looks very promising! Another good one is construction lines!

[@TheCGEssentials]

That's a really good one too! :)

[@ConorFenlon]

I also highly recommend CAD Transforms.

[@mind_of_a_darkhorse]

@@ConorFenlon I am not familiar with that one. Where do you find it?

[@HowieStephens]

@@mind_of_a_darkhorse it's another one put out by Maker Tales via gumroad. I can't live without it, highly recommended.

[@mind_of_a_darkhorse]

@@HowieStephens I will give it a look! Maker Tales is very CAD-oriented, thanks!

[@PeterMoueza]

5:43 sketch to mesh 6:31 constraint color 7:50 thickness

[@marvinbadalanimations9182]

How can you be precise with the measure ments with this while drawing ?Say i wanna draw a wall 0f 10 meters exactly.

[@nielsencs]

Interesting tool. Thanks for the video. I'm new here, what's with the dog? 🐕

[@dlleb]

Can you snap those cylinders exactly in the center of that circle when making holes in the object ? How could you do that kind of operation?

[@TheAethur]

It looks like there is an anchor?/vert in the center of the arc, I would guess you can select it then move the 3d cursor to it before creating the cylinder on the 3d cursor.

[@MarcosBaldin]

Wow! 🤯

[@letsmakethis]

It was just a few years ago that I dropped into a blender forum and suggested that a CAD pluggin would be really useful for some. I was resoundingly shot down. "Blender is for ARTISTS! What are you, and engineer? You’re kind isn’t welcome here."

[@el_fucko]

Well I really can't blame those people, everyone knows that engineering requires no creativity whatsoever... irony off.

[@rxzxqx6982]

@@el_fucko i won't say CAD software is only for engineer and blender is only for artist, some people may have different approach for making 3D assets

[@kennmacintosh2627]

Do you need to have Python loaded on your PC for this addon to work. Another tutorial said you did. I just hate loading up my rig with software I'll never use.

[@sawyercustom]

been running through your videos looking for a specific thing. How do I create 3d objects using numbers. I am wanting to design a shelf, I know the board dimensions and such, but when I actually go into blender to draw it up, nothing lines up like I want it and I can't seem to find a way to create .... say a 2x4 that's 36 inches long.. and tell it to space over 18 inches to drop a copied one in place.. I remember decades ago auto cad would let you type in dimensions of an object, I can't seem to figure this out with blender. I'm also getting back into cad after almost a 25 year break. This stuff is super advanced. I do use the adobe package so I'm familiar with some operations. Blender is just a new to me thing.

[@remacp]

Try" maker tales "videos .I've been looking for something to use instead of sketchup and it looks like this is the way to go

[@samhanks1594]

watched many videos and something is wrong with my .24 or .25 Sketcher, I draw a line, select Distance, select line, I get the distance callout, But when I right-click on the distance constraint, and change the value only the constraint updates not the line. Regardless if I select the line or the points. Back to Constructionlines addon

[@clausbohm9807]

What about BlendCad (Blender Market) addon that uses the QCAD open source software. It's a much more traditional 2D cad tool (icons and use of commands) and much easier to visualize and layout your "floor plan" then this addon.

[@sebbosebbo9794]

thx for your presentation..I miss curves since I use P3d demo beta..sadly that blender curves so limited .. I think curves with a good simple workflow like moi3d or the New p3d is the way to go for people the want to modeling exact thinks..hope you test p3d and show other people...

[@VanessaSosnierz]

Can you please make a video for architecture?

[@cnucnu3462]

nice addon.in the future ，we can model in blender like fussion 360！

[@aquadarkskull3248]

I ran into a problem where it is unable to find the PIP, I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or I'm missing something, but overall it's very annoying.

[@dreadbread7667]

Im pressing the 'N' Key but getting no sidebar. What is the element called in the settings?

[@daha9546]

What can I do if the solvespace select doesn't work? It just doesn't let me choose a solvespace?

[@mustafakemalpasha983]

Is FreeCad still good at parametric modeling? because the Blender looks so complicated

[@rodolflum3444]

you can put a circle and cut the plane and it wiil do a bolean.

[@carolsmith9478]

The "Sketch" is not showing up for me when I pick "Add Sketch". Help!

[@anbujacid1]

hi How to install in Mac book Pro

[@kentrebeccadavis4631]

Would you like to fix everything Cad Sketcher THEME (add-ons) so edge can see bright any color without too black edge on youtube when everyone are on youtube too. Also you can get download (Screencast Key) to help for deaf people watch your youtube how to tutor about Cad Sketcher.

[@mackokYO]

Can it export file as a STEP format?

[@luke_fabis]

No. It's not a "real" CAD tool. It really just gives you 2D sketching capability to Blender, but it otherwise relies on Blender's mesh modelling tools to make objects. You wouldn't get NURBS data for a format like STEP.

[@xuyanyue7459]

this works like solidworks

[@DanielNevilleDSouza]

Nice

[@TheCGEssentials]

:)

[@cnucnu3462]

we need to bevel and chamfer the cad sketch corner

[@Semi-Cyclops]

its the best every thing works in relation to each other that was the only thing that was missing from blender.

[@dawah2233]

When click 'install from pip' Then show this massage 'Can not install package: py-slvs' Can any body help me?

[@karlburmeister1552]

Run blender as administrator.

[@vegaset4038]

having trouble with the solver installation

[@karlburmeister1552]

Run blender as administrator.

[@cnucnu3462]

this two addon have some nice feature to draw sketch .hope your team can mix some nice function like this two addon//// Constructin Lines------>easy to draw an arc...and circle;nice UI Curve Cad tool-------->able to bevel corner， break the straight line to curve ...

[@TheCGEssentials]

Well I'm not the developer, so I can't really make changes

[@cnucnu3462]

@@TheCGEssentials ok~😅

[@toapyandfriends]

make follow path animation easy!😆

[@meinbherpieg4723]

It won't work for me. The Price text box is greyed out and the "I want it button" doesn't do anything. Oh well

[@ConorFenlon]

Correction: "Zip archive"

[@HowieStephens]

You just have to manually type "0" in the box

[@TheCGEssentials]

0:33 in the video, to be precise :)

[@meinbherpieg4723]

@@HowieStephens Yeah that's what I'm trying to say, it won't let me enter 0. The cursor changes to a circle with a line through it like it's prohibiting me from entering a value. Unsure why.

[@jakeperl5857]

This looks awesome but I see a Cease and Desist coming from Trimble's attorneys 😁

[@TheCGEssentials]

Lol - highly doubt it - these features are pretty generic to CAD programs in general

[@jakeperl5857]

@@TheCGEssentials I'm talking about use of the name "Sketcher" in a cad-like product

[@TheSmashingDoc1]

crap doesnt want to install, some error

[@patrickdegenaar9495]

Hmm. I really want to be able to set real dimensions in blender, but I never liked the autodesk inventor constraint system and would not want to turn blender into inventor.

[@TheCGEssentials]

I appreciate this viewpoint - I hear way too often "Well with a little work, Blender could be exactly like 'x' software" - my response is usually...would you want it to be though?

[@vizionthing]

Autodesk: has entered the chat

[@TheCGEssentials]

I mean - to be up front, it's not going to have the same capabilities of a Fusion 360 or an AutoCAD or something like that - they're just built to be different tools, BUT if you're looking to add some better functions to Blender for this kind of thing, it's a good start

[@andriooxsb]

@@TheCGEssentials Can you manually add dimensions to lines etc.? Like in Solidworks or Fusion, where dimensions adjust the size of a line, diameter, angle etc.?

[@samduss4193]

need more Dev

[@lazaredurand6675]

So basically it is like sketchup drawing.

[@TheCGEssentials]

Not exactly - but it's kind of moving in that direction

[@lazaredurand6675]

@@TheCGEssentials Ok

[@andrewbarney5503]

Been waiting for this for years. Freecad sucks, openscad has limits, solidworks and fusion 360 don't work on linux and are too expensive, but work well.

[@BrunodeSouzaLino]

Blender still needs a lot of work before it can be even considered for parametric modelling. For starters, it has extremely primitive NURBS support. Without proper NURBS, you cannot guarantee Boolean operations won't break your mesh. Also, Blender and its internals still use single precision floats while every other CAD package uses doubles. Blender would either need an entire different engine just for CAD or be more procedural without being more complicated, like the current "all nodes" stuff they've been putting.

[@sonario6489]

What they need is actual support from CAD developers.

[@linezgames3893]

Blender needs a lot of work? Where have you been in the past decade??? Tf??? Its only the highly used program out of all 3d software.

[@BrunodeSouzaLino]

@@linezgames3893 Yes. It's important to not confuse things here. NURBS is a not an optional feature for 3D CAD. It is a requirement, as regular meshes would end up with all sorts of topological and manifold problems as soon as you start working in a parametric way on them. Plasticity, MoI and Rhino 3D are the only 3D modellers with decent NURBS support outside of 3D CAD programs like Fusion 360, Solidworks and so on.

[@CiruPlays]

"we've talked about this before, just find and enable it" okay it's not in the list, what now?

[@th3engineer]

Why you sound just like Eric Strebel ?

[@markvincentcocjin]

I don't understand how the developers of this plugin can't just mimic every functionality of an old version of Autocad, like from the year 2000. Could you try to make a video of you, drawing a basic house floor plan with this plugin?

[@lukydj1]

yo uso autocad y no me convence

[@justtestingonce]

So the uploader is clearly is new to Blender, there are way more better cad addons.

[@cekuhnen]

It might be time to let go the term CAD / this add-on is also only a very basic sketch solver - nothing more ! While good to have this is not equal CAD

[@s1ider]

Oh. . .that "you've talked about before". Welp, where is that link. I just spent 10 bucks on an addon you chose not to describe OR LINK to on how to add. Disappointed.

[@s1ider]

OK, found out from their site on how to do this. Make sure your install path is the .zip you downloaded from within preferences>addon>->install, (e.g.CAD_Sketcher-main_0.25.0). You don't need to unzip it first before installation, as it recognizes the zip. There.

[@henrychan720]

This just looks painful...

[@yos0525]

Too heavy & many crash 日本語環境で落ちやすい上に英語環境でも重い