FreeCAD Curves Workbench [Bonus] Trace a car body from images / photos and create a Nurbs surface

Learn how to trace the outline of a car from a series of images / photos and easily create a 3D fully editable surface for the body using the Curve workbench available in FreeCAD 0.19 and above. This is a bonus video due to the demand from a social media post I put out. We take you through how to create the car body using the freehand bspline tool and the gordon surface to create a network of curves that will be converted into the car surface. This surface can be easily adjusted and used within the part workbench or as a base feature in the part design. We only use two images, the top and the side to create our model with reference back to the front of the car to make some alterations. You will be amazed how quickly you can create and surfaces with this technique.
This video was original targeted for episode 10 of the 'Learn FreeCAD Curves Workbench' mini series being scheduled for after the multi-loft and pipe shell video's. Episode 10 will still go into the Gordon surface but we will reference back to this video and probably rename the title when the time comes. I am also planing to continue this car to completion and will be posting tutorials as I go.
If you are just joining then please make sure you have the curves workbench installed available from the add on manager.
In this mini series will learn most if not all functions of curved workbench in FreeCAD 0.19 and above along with practical examples of what they can be used for.
pixabay.com/vectors/car-ferra...
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[@flashcorp76]

Very underrated Chanel, you do seem to take a lot of your time to ´teach’ us lowlings how things work in Freecad…And I can’t stop watching, rewinding back and learning, Most helpful I can tell you👍🏻Please keep it up, I’m trying to learn so I’ll be able to design my own boats and planes and finally get to 3D print them😊Thanks a million🤚🏻and yes I’m a bit late on the comments 😊

[@MangoJellySolutions]

I think you will find alot here you can apply to planes and boats. I have a number of videos in those areas and still a load more to come. Thank you for your kind comment and glad your enjoying the channel.

[@russellw5447]

Very Nice Darren, Once again lots of useful stuff for an Modeller! Great introduction for the Individual to then expand and experiment upon.

[@imaminsyafilah6918]

Thank your chanel.... I like it...

[@guillaumevincent716]

genius. absolutely brilliant. the best freecad youtuber. on fire !

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thanks for that, glad you enjoyed !

[@andypuempel2570]

An Excellent Video! I'm just getting into the 'curves' workbench applications and have found your video series a very good resource. FreeCAD is a fantastic hobbyist tool. I have found nothing that couldn't be modeled in FreeCAD. Perhaps not as elegant as other commercial software (and even a bit quirky at times), however just a fantastic tool. Many thanks for the hours you have spent putting your tutorials together!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thanks for the kind feedback, yeh freecad is hard and sometimes it can feel like you are using a sledge hammer to model clay but it produces the results. I have a live project that I am working with someone where I am using the Curves workbench. It's been a big learning curve as the object is quite complex, I can't show it as the guy has been through patient to protect the design. But all that knowledge is going to be feed back into the channel. I have a new appreciation for the descritize edge to hang freehand b splines off allowing the curves to morph and adjust on changes to skeleton sketches. This is the third project I have taken on using the Curves workbench! Glad your enjoying the videos.

[@jackryan8588]

I love FreeCAD.

[@SeanLumly]

I NEEDED this. I love the precision of having sketcher, but some shapes defy padding. This a WONDERFUL complement. Freecad has a totally janky UI (though getting significantly better), and a bit buggy (I'm having issues with exporting), but MAN is it powerful..

[@MangoJellySolutions]

This is a pretty old video but still valid. Spending a little more time you can get a better shape. FreeCAD UI will be a lot better in the upcoming version, they have really worked on it. Glad your enjoying :)

[@SantosPerezRamos]

Muchas gracias por este bonito tutorial, hay muy poco en curvas sobre FreeCAD.

[@youroldmangaming8150]

Very good from New Zealand!

[@DanT10]

So cool! Love this.

[@kaifailo1452]

Thank you very much to demonstrate how to draw 3 d space curve which is essential for setting the main contours of curve surface.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thank you, there are some more videos coming up soon which go into it more deeply. Glad you enjoyed.

[@francovincelli2909]

thanks from Italy

[@ChristopheJaja]

Amazing

[@alperg1142]

Tanks.

[@CaraesNaur]

I'm currently at about 11:18 where you're working out how to position the side view. The issue is (maybe you'll realize this later) that the source image isn't isometric projections, it is line art made from perspective views, probably photographs. My first clue to this when I was cutting the original up into the views seeing that the top view seems foreshortened, nothing in it aligns with the side view. The second clue was that the wing mirrors aren't the same distance from center in the front and rear views. I stretched the top view so that at least the back edge of the wing was aligned in the top and side.

[@PaulHaunschmidt-yl4ph]

Thank you very much for this informative tutorial. ☺️ Have you also tried to use the tangent option of the freehand bspline menu and the table for points? I have difficulties using these functionalities but I am very interested in using them. To me these functionalities seem a bit „buggy“.

[@makewithmegma]

🔥💕😍👌👍

[@cheesedoff-with4410]

I meant to click on another one of your tutorials, but soon got sucked into this one. You make all your words count and that enlarged cursor, moving at a trackable pace, makes all the difference. It must have taken an age to produce all these tutorials. How on earth did you get to grips with all the different tools in the first place? Thanks.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thanks for your comments much appreciated. I tend to keep away from dark themes and always try to remember to increase text and cursor size. I used to do training videos as part of my job around 10 years ago and met quite a few people with sight problems so I try to use what I have learnt from working with them in my videos. In turn it makes it a lot clearer for others. Also I have worked with people who have very different learning styles so I try to find a middle ground. It's nice to be able to use this again and give back to the community. I found the time to make the videos as I have been laid off from my job for quite a long time. I wanted to a break from what I did as a day job and concentrate on my CAD as its one of my pass times, but I had to learn how to run a channel on KZbin and also edit videos again. Pretty confident now that I can return to full time work and keep the channel going at the same pace. In an. Ideal world I would love to do this for a living but being monitorize is very very low paid and you be lucky to have enough for a coffee by the end of the month so I am just doing it to help others. Just like to thank you for your support, I really appreciate the feedback.

[@TidyThreads]

Thanks man ... (:

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Happy to help

[@chetansoni6672]

EXCELLENT

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thank you

[@chetansoni6672]

@@MangoJellySolutions I am using free cad on lubuntu and this workbench is not working

[@MangoJellySolutions]

@@chetansoni6672 what version of freecad are you using?

[@chetansoni6672]

@@MangoJellySolutions freecad 0.19

[@MangoJellySolutions]

@@chetansoni6672 what happens when you try to click on the workbench, does it not open? Are there any errors coming up in the report view?

[@davidleach8535]

Great tutorial. I'm fololwing through and practicing on my own design. However, I suddenly find I cannot delete an unwanted BSpline. In fact none of the the BSplines will delete. What am I doing incorrectly?

[@ojkolsrud1]

Another thing I was wondering about, is when you made the cut for the wheel. I noticed that the cylinder was about 130mm long. If you wanted to scale up the whole thing, to say, 1:1, is that possible to do *after* the process of drawing in all the curves and making a solid voluminous surface? Or, would you have to somehow parameterize the whole thing?

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Sorry missed this one. I personally would start from the image side of this and get them into the scale you need as you can rescale the images using the scale a planner image. On that note I should of really pulled in the front image and saw it was out of scale with the side and fixed that there an then so I didn't have to go and move the fender curve. Going back to this one even if you re scale the images to something smaller say 4th of the scale you could use the draft workbench clone tool and scale up the image to the size you want as the last thing you do (there is a scale x,y,z in the data tab for the clone). Any amendments in the model will be mirrored in the clone but your computer will be wasting processing power so I would really use that with caution or turn recompute off for the clone.

[@derteufelsbraten3670]

Hey. I cant download those 4 individual pics. All i see is one pic with all 4 views in it. What am i missing?

[@peilinstephen3117]

nice. Q: Why not use a construction plane for the Centre Line?

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thanks, the centre line was a curve following the profile of the car. But if you want to use a plane then that will still work. On second look I would of created the car as one half and then mirrored the whole of one side.

[@lq_12]

Greetings sir, Firstly I would like to clarify that English is not my mother tongue. It's a very complex situation and seriously I am doing my best haha 😅. I have been trying to mix conventional sketch workbench and curves workbench. I don't like the fact that I cannot give dimensions to the freehand spline as in the sketch module so I find very handy to draw a sketch in the sketch workbench and use it as a "guide" to the freehand spline, that way I can replicate a 3d sketch without using datums and without risking to get non coincidentes points and broken Sketches warnings. I know,as you explained in the video, before to set a freehand you can select points and then select a freehand spline that way it will create one that pases through all the points. My question is the following: Can I fix one of the freehand spline point to another line point or sketch point after I create the freehand spline, like the coicident constraint of the sketch workbench?

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Yes you can. Select the vertex of the edge of your sketch and select a point on your freehand b spline and hit the s key for snap. But first Double click the freehand b spline in the treeview, this will put it into edit mode where you can add more points by clicking on your curve and pressing i. Select this new point and a vertex on your edge of say your sketch and press s. This will snap to that point. Double click the freehand b spline again in the treeview and your out of edit mode. Does that help, by the way, your English is very good.

[@lq_12]

@@MangoJellySolutions Thank you so much for answering my question. I am not exaggerating when I say that you are the best FreeCADer out there. I really appreciate your work!! PSD: It worked!!

[@ojkolsrud1]

I know this was just a demonstration, not an attempt to perfectly copy the geometry of the car, but what are you doing at around 32:00?=P The shape of the fender is now going up to the mirror, hehe

[@MangoJellySolutions]

I just made the curve of the car a bit more higher. The original blue prints seem to be a bit off with the front and side. The side of the car is lower compared to the front so just changed it a bit. This then reshapes the surface. You never know one day I might be able to afford the real car to compare my model with the real thing lol

[@angellicaharris655]

In terms of navigation what tools are you using?

[@MangoJellySolutions]

I am using the touch pad on a laptop and the touchpad controls on the navigation options. The touch pad option can also be used for the mouse. I do have a graphic tablet that I keep on meaning to try as well as a trackball.

[@owenjohn1192]

Any idea how I get the curve option in 0.19, it isn't available in the drop down menu.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

If you go to tools, add on manager you will be able to install the curves workbench from there. It's a seperate workbench that doesn't come as standard in freecad.

[@owenjohn1192]

@@MangoJellySolutions , Thank you.

[@TeeFunkable]

I cant even locate the curve workbench as it's not in the pullldown menu (v. 0.21.2). Has it been nuked or renamed?

[@MangoJellySolutions]

It's an add on workbench that needs to be onstage from the add on mannager. Hope that helps.

[@sebsonexrexflex]

hi, hoy you add skins i not have this on my computer? 27:30

[@chethank1556]

Hlo sir; You can able to send me a curves workbench link to install

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Sorry forgot to add that to the video. If you go to the tools menu > add on manager you will be able to install in for there. You will need FreeCAD 0.19 or above.

[@chethank1556]

Thank you sir