FreeCAD Tutorial Conditional Statements in Spreadsheets

[@michaelspooren9213]

Great solution.

[@QEngineering]

The beta version of FreeCAD v1.0 has an offset tool that makes this process much easier, I'll do an update video once the release date is closer. 🍻

[@brianprice7020]

Thank you for highlighting another of things we can do with FreeCAD .

[@QEngineering]

And thank you for tunning in. It's fun figuring out these things. 🍻

[@avejst]

Great walkthrough Thanks for sharing your experiences with all of us :-)

[@QEngineering]

Thank you for running in and leaving a comment 😃 🍻

[@ruapaneboy3812]

Hi Quin, thanks for your well explained and very useful video on this subject. I've made good use of it in helping to avoid bad data going through my spreadsheet and model. Nice work😊

[@QEngineering]

Thank you. I'm glad the video came in handy. I really wish that you could add these limits to the dimensions themselves, it would be a kickass features for going back to old designs years later. 🍻

[@ruapaneboy3812]

​@@QEngineering Hi again Quin, I've been meaning to get back to you regarding spreadsheets in Freecad. I was well through a model with a large spreadsheet when I found your video and incorporated conditional statements into my existing sheet. As I said, it was already a large spreadsheet plus I wanted all the info in one sheet only, so I had to work around a bit to get it to function- a confusing phase until eventually a light turned on. That done, the spreadsheet looked like something out of a horror movie, Frankenstein came to mind! But it worked and I was happy about that. Since then I've created a few simple practice models driven by spreadsheets using conditional statements. Over time, I've managed to refine the sheets to the point they look fairly simple and entirely respectable. Now I need to go back to my initial project and rebuild or start again on a better spreadsheet layout, one I can come back to in the future and not be totally confused when I look at it! Cheers.

[@freecadfundamentals292]

Excellent thinking and execution. Will put this to use.

[@QEngineering]

Glad you likes it 😊 🍻

[@andrzejhelowicz886]

Dziękuję i na zdrowie

[@jcdock]

I really like this concept. Could be very useful

[@QEngineering]

Yeah it was a gem that was too good not to share. It would be nice if this caught on, that way people who don't want to learn FreeCAD could simply tune tolerances and such via the input spreadsheet knowing that it woun't break anything. 🍻

[@jcdock]

@@QEngineering that's what I was thinking

[@gweliver]

Nice, Just revisited this tutorial again, to brush up on creating 2 spreadsheets, UserInput & Math. I found myself working on a project and only had 1 spreadsheet, well it got real confusing fast. I also did all my calculation in the sketch while dimensioning and referring to the spreadsheet and created the calculation in there, which is burdensome. I will now go back and create a "UserInput" and a "Math" spreadsheets, first to group all anything that needs User Input to a cleaner Spreadsheet with fewer choices, right, and secondly to get a little more precise with my condition statements. I want to be able to take a given length that needs circle placed at a give space apart, i.e. length = 105mm and the space apart space=20mm, so 105mm/20mm=5.25 #/circle, so ceil(#/circle) will automatically be rounded to "count" of 5 circles. You got me thinking! The remainder will create a leftover space at the end though? Not really a deal breaker! what is white and floating in your brandy snifter? I am not a connoisseur... Thanks G_Dub

[@QEngineering]

Wow sounds like a cool solution. I love how FreeCAD is giving us the power to do you're own thing without having 20 old guys telling you that's not the way ... I'm looking at you Catia! I'm a big whiskey guy but I love the Brandy style glasses. I switch it up between scotch: Glenfiddich 15, Bourbon: Buffalo Trace and Rye: Lot 40 copper pot. So I can't remember what I was enjoying in that video. 🍻

[@onlyeyeno]

Thanks for another great tutorial. _(Edited, after installing other "distribution" of the program)_ I don't know if it's a version or OS (or me) issue, I' using FreeCad V.021.2. But it's a "Snap-package", on PopOS v.22.04 But when ever I copy a "cell-name" to make the "Alias", regardless if I right click over the cell, OR double click and copy the "content". It gives me the "name" BUT puts a "single-quote" (like this ' ) At the very start. Which "breaks the reference", All You have to do is delete the "single quote", not hard to do, but annoying, especially before I figured out what caused the "break". *Edited:* -What is worse is that using "Named-references" between spreadsheets and cells (like You do in this tutorial) seems utterly broken in "my FreeCad" :/ Instead I'm "forced" to use the "literal-references", i.e. the "original-name" of the spreadsheet, and then the "cell", e.g. "=Spreadsheet.B2"- -Which isn't "hard" but inconvenient if You have many references as You "lose track" when You have no descriptive names in the references... And IF I want to use "renamed" spreadsheets, I have to somehow "keep track" of what order they were created in to be able to "figure out" their original name (i.e. if it's "Spreadsheet001 or spreadsheet002 or some other one... ;/)- The "referencing problems that I had WAS indeed a "symptom" of the "platform/version" I used. I had a "Snap-package"(not flatpak as I originally wrote). After uninstalling that and instead using an "App-image" of the same version (v.021.2) of the program, the "name-referencing" worked as intended (and as You show) But You still can not use "." in Your Names, as that still "breaks the reference" (which on consideration is easy to understand, but I did it out of habit habit.. which caused me another "snag") Just wanted to point these things out, in the unlikely case that someone else gets the same problems. Best regards.

[@QEngineering]

I make my tutorials on a base install of FreeCAD for this very reason, while versions such as real thunders are great the do come with bugs that may not be constant across different platforms. Happy that you got it going 😁. 🍻

[@jmemusic]

3:56 > This doen't work for me. It is not showing the names on UserInput. I updated to 0.21.2 and it still the same. I figured out that if the cell is empty on UserInput (no value was set), you won't see the name from the Math spreadsheet. Putting a value makes it visible. Is the same for you? It looks like is either a but or they change the behaviour. It looks like that if you delete the value on UserInput, Math will keep the last value.

[@QEngineering]

For the longest time the expression engine had an issue with things not showing up in the drop down but if you knew the exact name you could still type it in and get the value. That being said my workflow is to type in the values first then reference them later, no reason for it, I just like doing it that way.

[@GDub1958]

Wow, I like this, you have re-directed my thinking... Your videos are great! I have an existing model (2"x48" belt grinder) that I am going back over the dimensions and converting to a spreadsheet. The existing dimensions just need to be whole numbers, and my dimensions are, except for one R16.5mm but that will work out for the diameter. Anyway with my dimensions I'm trying to just use a percentage of the total distance (i.e. total width is 265mm with a 65mm offset from the Origin(LowerLeftCorner) and then the 200mm base begins over to the right corner) so 200/265= 0.7547169811, it starts out as whole numbers but freecad is not allowing zero decimal points so I end up with a dimension with 3 or more decimal points and I can live with just rounding up or down, maybe I will try the "ceil" command? I would like to have a small, medium and large size of Grinder, that's why I am using percentages. I am thinking I will just enlarge everything globally by the percent I choose. I have never done this before... as you can tell... any suggestions ? Thanks G-Dub

[@gweliver]

Yes, this is what I was looking for, VERY HELPFUL!!!

[@QEngineering]

I'm glad I got your imagination going, knowledge is golden but imagination is priceless. It sounds like your 100% on the right path, the solution you have sounds very logical and if it works for you that's amazing. Keep doing what makes sense for you. Personally what I've started doing in some designs is using 3 fields, 1 is the dimension, 2nd is an offset and the 3rd is the total on both. I then use the total as the volume. I like this because I can maintain my optimal dimensions and see the offset which is compensation for my 3d printer tolerance, it works well for me because I can take a look at the design years later and know what's going on. Which is basically what your seem to be doing but I like dealing with hard values (ie 0.1mm) while you like percentages, which is simply a personal style. Keep up the great work really sounds like you're rockin FreeCAD. 🍻

[@yakdaymar6659]

Good👍👍👍👍👍💯

[@QEngineering]

Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment. You rock. 🍻

[@mrdr9534]

Thanks for another great tutorial, useful and entertaining. And if it wasn't for Your good-humoured presentation I think I would have given up. Since FreeCad (Once again) refused to ""play along"". First it refused to show the names on the spreadsheets after having renamed them, it ((for it's own inscrutable reasons)) just displayed the name of the "FreeCad-file" in their "windowHeader"...This was "corrected" by closing and reopening their windows... But after that they refused to find their the values "by referencing he aliases... The "names" (UserInput and Math) came up as "auto.complete" but none of their aliased cells came up, and if I filled them in they (ofcourse) didn't work...And this wasn't resolved regardless of how many times I "erased and redid" the "setup"..First after closing and reopening the file it all worked (without me having to change anything !!?? so what had not worked when I saved and closed it worked when reopened... Cheechhh.....)

[@rebeltaz123]

I don't suppose there's a way to hide the math spreadsheet form the user? Otherwise, they can just edit that one themselves and still break the model. Excellent video, though!

[@QEngineering]

You could refer to it's original name spreadsheet, spreadsheet001 ... Etc. But realistically they can go into the sketch and remove the reference to the spreadsheet and put in their own numbers into the dimensions. There are 2 types of people in the world, people who break things because they don't know any better and people who break things who think they know better ... 2e call those people Engineers 😂 It would be awesome if you could lock a spreadsheet via password, and lock functions as well (so they can't be changed). 🍻

[@ДядькаГлюк]

Russians never says "Na zdorovie", only "Za zdorovie". * When drinking.

[@QEngineering]

Poles always say "na zdrowie" when drinking 🇵🇱. I bleed red and white x2.

[@yuoga6920]

i havent tried it in a lot of applications but you should be able to use more than 1 if statements for me it worked like this "=VarOpt == 1 ? VarChoice1 : (VarOpt == 2 ? VarChoice2 : (VarOpt == 3 ? VarChoice3 : VarChoice4))"

[@QEngineering]

I'll didn't even think of doing that 🤯, definitely sounds like a fun thing to try !!! 🍻