BIM with FreeCAD - Introduction

An introduction to the BIM tools available in FreeCAD
Tell me what you think and if you'd like more of those videos!
A couple of interesting links as mentioned in the video:
FreeCAD website: www.freecadweb.org
Shared FreeCAD files shown in this video: www.dropbox.co...
Regis's FreeCAD/BIM videos: / regisbbnt
The blog article this video is part of: yorik.uncreate...
Support me on Patreon: / yorikvanhavre

[@YorikvanHavre]

Thanks for the comments everybody! I am uploading the next one now. I couldn't make it bigger yet but will work on it. I also tried another sound setup, tell me if it's good enough. About specific questions (windows, HVAC elements, etc..) I will address them in coming videos. About deconstructing/reconstructing a building, that's a very good idea too, will think about how to do that best. Thanks all of you for the encouragements!

[@JoelGraff]

Definitely make more - a series of videos 10 minutes or less that focus on specific features / how-to's, etc. would be great. This does a great job explaining why FreeCAD can be a valuable production tool!

[@mappolon]

Thank you for your excellent contribution to FreeCad,Yorik. I am not an architect, but I do plan to design a house I may build in FreeCad and would like to see a tutorial course on the Arch workbench.

[@ju150]

why on earth did i found out about FreeCAD in 2019? and sheet metal plugin too....are you kidding me? this is awesome! Best.

[@danhalski]

C. G. And me omg omg omg

[@robertstrauss8180]

Just the idea of being able to place quick-draw Blender assets in parameterized containers is so enabling! I think this will become my preferred framework for architectural design.

[@thorfriis6284]

I'm a total newbie to BIM & CAD but this is really good. I can envisage seeing the forest for the trees.

[@paulm777888]

Great introduction to FreeCAD. Looking forward to watching other videos. I am very new to modeling tools and design in general. I am also a very new user of FreeCAD.

[@marcinose]

This is gold. Construction is a multitrillion dollar enterprise worldwide, so a large opportunity for open source.

[@Constantinesis]

I guess i lived in a cave because i never knew there was actually a free software which takes the best from every other 3D and 2D cad programs. It just needs a Grasshopper connection and its a dream!

[@YorikvanHavre]

Why not? You can write python scripts in grasshopper. So from there, you can pilot FreeCAD, create / modify geometry, open files, read properties of objects, etc.. Just needs some motivated people to try out! ;)

[@REVerbtalk]

Same here, I thought there was no such thing until today, just decided to randomly gamble for a free cad program and BOOM FreeCad

[@nunesnunes6004]

Bom dia Erick, sou arquiteto e sai do Revit por questões óbvias e ainda bem que achei seus vÍdeos, pois decidi aprender FreeCAD BIM, e o caminho é você, mesmo que seja difícil e longo. Gostei muito da sua explanação mesmo meu inglês sendo quase nada, recorri à legenda traduzida para o Português. Muito obrigado pela inciativa e Parabens, vamos em frente, no futuro? quem sabe? eu colabore com algum conhecimento em FreeCAD BIM.

[@cesarcscofano7006]

Tem vídeos do Yorik falando em português. E no site da HR Compacta tem cursos em português brasileiro.

[@DuncanLithgow]

Maybe you could make a simple video where you remove some of the building components and then show how to rebuild them. A 'renovation' I suppose. That would give us a good idea of a simple workflow.

[@eric99vigne]

exactly

[@Conta_Google]

Up

[@lindaburke8828]

Your video is fantastic and very helpful. I'm working on building my dream house and with little knowledge you have truly helped my learning curve! Looking forward to more!

[@barrakuda331]

Very good that I found this introduction. It helps me a lot to get positioned within the huge amount of functionality in FreeCAD. That's the hardest part with FreeCAD, to get started and know what to do where and not get lost. So I see many videos these days and am so thankful for your global overview your giving here. Most others concentrate on just a certain piece. This here fills the gap I often have. Many thanks!

[@shamanhealer6039]

Very informative, excellent program [freecad]. Just what i was looking for. Easy to draw whats in your head. Not follow someones else's thinking.

[@RegisNdeTene]

Great Intro. Ilike the draftsight model. really clean

[@arnaldotagliacozzo3839]

I'm just approaching at free cad. Your video is really convincing. Please, keep doing them.

[@JerryKauffman]

Thank you. Very useful after I was able to build my first 4 walls for a porch attached to my house. It gave me many hints to learn new things.

[@zyzo99]

Impressive, thank you! Waiting unpatiently for arch workflow series...))

[@jserverj]

Great job! Very informative and clear presentation. I look forward to seeing more videos. Thank you!

[@camilodeazevedo640]

I wanted it for soooo long! Thanks Yorik, I'll wait more videos.

[@---marcello68---]

Many thanks Yorik for your effort. I am trying to learn Freecad to design HVAC elements (air ducts, grids .etc.) or import them as IFC and insert in an architectural model. Any video on this subject will be very useful for me.

[@andreemcaldas]

There is hope!!! All we have to do is convince people to do things "properly". 🙂 Very, very good! Also, I went to "tools > addons manager" to install BIM. Then I see you are the maintainter/creator!!! Awesome!

[@andreemcaldas]

I am so uninformed... I just started FreeCAD from the command line. Now I know you are one of the main developers, probably one of the creators. 😍

[@LeonardoRangelCoelho]

This is amazing how useful is freecad.

[@dwylhq874]

Great intro! Thanks. Would be awesome to get an update on this for latest FreeCAD! 🙏

[@YorikvanHavre]

Yes, that's on my todo list ;)

Seems pretty good! Thanks for sharing.

[@franchitosoto]

Great work! I can't wait to see an architecture bim workflow using freecad!

[@Pentium3ddem]

Hola, voce sabe se Freecad e bom pra desenhos de Agrimensura? Nao posso pagar a licenca do Autocad mais acho muito diferente um programa do outro. Desculple meu portugues. Saludos. Obrigado.

[@borenburman6652]

I am new to BIM. This video was very useful - Thanks!

[@cyrilwaechter5065]

J'ai hâte de voir les vidéos suivantes. Merci ! J'espère qu'il y aura aussi des vidéos plus tard (beaucoup plus tard ?) pour nous aider à rentrer dans la partie Arch du code source. Créer de nouveaux objets et voir la gestion vers/depuis IFC.

[@franzdevantier3158]

Wow, what an impressive package FreeCad is. Than you for creating the Video for us.

[@catallaxy]

Thank you Yorik. Yes - make more videos of FreeCAD!

[@chriswe85]

Hello, thanks for the introduction. Can you provide a video showing how to use the window tool? I'm interested in detail how to place a window/door parametric (e.g. controlled by a sketch)

[@momobadilak]

Nice -- I'm using free cad for building objects for 3d printing . But I'm happy to see the architectural side as I've been looking for a replacement for the old google sketchup -- and this looks like it. thanks.

[@code8860]

Hi Yorik; nice video! There's a little bug I would like to comment. Drawing a line and using the units MKS for buildings, it's not using meter, it uses mm. Meter is only used in the Global Z axis. However, if I change the units to Euro Buildings (cm, m2, m3), it will use cm on all axis; so this one is ok. It would be nice if MKS used meters also in all axis (Global X, Global Y, Global Z, an Length). Angle is ok, it's "degrees". I'm using FreeCAD version 0.17, revision 13515, 32-bit. (Not sure how to fix it, so I can't send a pull request atm). This change is important I think, 'cause the workflow about buildings is always in meters. A fundamental feature IMHO. Greetings and thanks to this good software.

[@YorikvanHavre]

Indeed the MKS schema changes depending on the measurement. I agree we need one that is pure meters,will see about that when I have a moment

[@code8860]

I'm very happy to see that you improved this option. I'm using the last version, 0.18 through appimage (which is awesome as well). FreeCAD is very good! Thanks for your work. Open source is changing the world and it's nice to see how it's evolving.

[@eilivandreasmyrenribe2925]

Wow! You've made such an amazing effort! This application is becoming a really powerful tool.

[@AlbinOnishchenko-87]

This software reminds me of Revit, also great video. Would be great to see a video on creating a site plan, Thanks!

[@massimilianoalessandro2569]

Many thanks, Yorik!

[@cloudcamdrones]

Olá, sou Designer de Interiores e estou testando outros softwares livres para fazer meus projetos. Eu uso o Sketchup, porém, eu gosto muito do FreeCad e do Blender mas não tenho muito tempo para aprender a trabalhar neles. Por mim eu só usaria software livre, assim como já uso o LibreCad e o LibreOffice. Belo trabalho e um dia espero poder usar apenas o FreeCad para trabalho.

[@Gato303co]

I wonder what CAD software you showed at 12:15 is that LibreCAD? Since when LibreCAD supports different sheets for a drawing for printing, like other CAD's "paper space" ?

[@YorikvanHavre]

That was DraftSight, Unfortunately it's not free anymore... Nowadays I mostly use QCAD for pure 2D work. It hasn't the same kind of paper space as autocad, but wirh a bit of practice you can achieve things more or less as well too. The final aim is to do all this in FreeCAD of course ;)

[@Gato303co]

@@YorikvanHavre Thanks for the answer. Yeah I also had that big down with Draftsight when Dassault Systemes decided their new release was "better" than previous ones and made old versions of the free beta to stop working in both Windows and Linux. I have tried many things but I can't get past the wall of "DraftSight 2018 is free software but you need to activate" only to get a reply on my email saying "the free license server is not working anymore". I also would like to know what OS are you running FreeCAD on? Is it Ubuntu Linux? I am running it on Linux Mint 20 but nothing seems to work right, lines appear on odd places when I go Ctrl+Z and hit Recompute (Ctrl + R) and some commands just won't work. I ran it on an old Windows7 license I have and it works better, more stable, but the add-on manager doesn't load the additional benchmarks and I can't install the BIM benchmark

[@nevermind3r]

Hey man! That's awesome :D thank you so much!!! Your explication has been helpful and interesting. FreeCAD is very flexible and more powerful than other famous softwares! I hope you'll do more tuts about it... and I hope I'll do something good like you with FreeCAD! Thanks

[@gaminxden11]

I'm an Autodesk user. I googled this software and I found out that I'm just having a tutorial directly from the creator himself. Awesome!. I wish you could do an alternative software to civil3d as well. Tnx I'm gonna give my review later after I finish learning this tool.

[@joaopc21]

did you find some civil3d substitute?

[@FuckNameImagination]

Very useful. Greetings from Mexico

[@JimHenderson19]

Excellent! Extremely helpful. 19:18 Thank you!

[@fofi10000]

Hello everyone, i'll try to ask here...i have some dwg files of some buildings, how can I create some rendering videos/images from it? I'm still learning about this hard world, but it's so cool and interesting

[@catallaxy]

Excellent video, thank you, Yorik.

[@anupamprasad9507]

Thanks for the insightful video. Looking forward to more tutorial videos.

[@willembasson4125]

Please, more videos! Could you perhaps increase the resolution though, so that the icons and text is more legible - maybe from 144p, which it is currently at, to 240p ...or 360p if necessary.

[@JustinDeane222]

Fantastic intro to the Arch WB and BIM. just curious as to what issues might arise when exporting to Revit..

[@YorikvanHavre]

I'd like very much to say "No issue at all" ;) Basically there are many possible issues, as with any IFC-based transaction. I'd recommend exporting early and often to detect possible problems early. 99.9% of them can easily be solved, usually by exporting an object to another IFC type or modelling differently, or forcing BREP export.

[@JustinDeane222]

@@YorikvanHavre thank you for the advice.

[@joancabeza8063]

Excellent work! It would be a tremedous help if you could do such tutorials. For an architect that, having working with comercial BIM programs in middle size studios, has recently initated his own path and wants to work with BIM in a small scale FreeCAD is a promising tool. I've used Blender for rendering before and I just stared using FreeCAD, so I know little. One question: ¿Is at this moment possible to classify the elements in order to export ordered spreedsheets or export and IFC with an specific classification (Property Sets)? Thank you in advance

[@davidk.3450]

Can you show how I can organize, when I begin based on 2D-Floor drawings (of an existing House) and wand to "rebuild" it in Freecad? As far as parts are nothing else than groups I tried to manage Wires of the different floors and setting UP Z-Layer of that parts. Seems to be to complicated because invisible/hiding such elements will not stay. (Same when using CAD-Layers)

[@sergioromero2347]

Thanks for your time and for your job.

[@katiedotson704]

FreeCAD looks as if it may be the program I've been looking for. I hate Sketchup. Gonna give this one a try... Thanks for the video.

[@ernestlane]

excellent -- do more!

[@itzkatzu]

Very helpfull video with great tips. Greetings fom Costa Rica

[@walterrodriguesdasilva177]

boa tarde, estou usado o Freecad, e quando uso a bancad techdraw e gero os desenhos 2d e exporto em dxf para abrir no libre cad ou no nanocad, ele exporta o desenho mas não exporta as cotas, gostaria de saber se tem que fazer alguma configuração ou realmente o freecad não exporta as cotas, já tentei de tudo, já perguntei no forum e não tive resposta, falei com varias pessoas no youtube e nada que me falarm deum certo, já reinstalei o freecad e o windows, não resolvel, se puder me orientar , eu agradeço.

[@AnaOrtega-uk4zp]

Awesome job! Congratulations!

[@juanrafael1969]

I liked. Good job with this intro video. It shows the posibilites of FreeCad. Me gusta que usaste el español en tus dibujos. Saludos amigo.

[@MdMozammelHossain]

I think freeCAD has a huge potential to be come a CAD all in one software ( 2D, 3D, BIM etc), like Blender. I love this software, but I'm still waiting it to be a industry standard..hehe

[@WolfgangGoebl]

thank you for this great video, it helps me a lot!!

[@Z-add]

will the upcoming v0.19 release have any improvements regarding BIM

[@charlonpalaya26]

Awesome job! thanks for this introduction video

[@djskate9183]

Thank you, this a good intro video.

[@BudoReflex]

Thankyou so much Yorik. 😊

[@nickogden9947]

Thank you . Very useful start for me.

[@joaopc21]

Qual aplicativo DWG você usa, Yorik? Ps.: ótimo vídeo!

[@YorikvanHavre]

Atualmente faço pouco DWG, uso a versão pro do qcad. Custa uns 30 dolares por ano, mas se você não quiser atualizar a cada ano a versão que vc compra vale para sempre. E o FreeCAD pode usar como exportador/nmportador de dwg

[@hansisbrucker813]

Could you export those BIM models in formats that game engines use so you can make buildings for games?

[@fossbimtw]

太好了的BIM免費軟體，應該可以大力推廣！

[@joaowiciuk]

Such a great video! I hope you keep producing more like this :) Do you know if there is a module or a workbench for electrical system design (ESD) in FreeCAD? And do you understand brazilian portuguese? I notice the files you're using in the video was written in it (I'm brazilian :D).

[@YorikvanHavre]

Not yet, but why not start thinking about it, join the freecad forum at forum.freecadweb.org and start a discussion about it! Yes, I live in São Paulo since many years

[@lmattas]

u are the greatest !! pls keep going !!!

[@irtoantoniocrocetti8634]

Excellent.Many thanks!

[@EmmettConrecode]

My city is requiring Plot/Site plans for most permanits. Is there a DIY video using Google Earth photo?

[@YorikvanHavre]

Not really, but it's not really complicated... You can import an image using the Image workbench and trace on it using Draft tools. Note that if there is public GIS data available in your city (many big cities in the whole world have a GIS portal), then you can do much more interesting things such as importing GIS data directly in FreeCAD. Blender also has a BlenderGIS add-on that can connect and import OpenStreetMap data, that you can then transfer to FreeCAD.

[@eviltux65]

Bien hecho!

[@cekuhnen]

Hey Yorik - I would love to learn more about FreeCAD vs Revit. Would you be open to have a chat via Skype or similar? Let me know.

[@YorikvanHavre]

Hi Claas, sure, nytime!

[@cekuhnen]

Do you have a skype account? my email also is [e-mail]

[@Canalillo]

Cool, thank you for this introduction video, many times i miss this kind of videos with general explanation to see the possibilities of the program ... suscribed ;-)

[@sharonsipocz7594]

Thank you for this great work! God Bless

[@emekaibeh1582]

Great intro video :) ; could not find ifc++ for linux, ubuntu specifically...

[@YorikvanHavre]

At the moment I'm afraid you still need to compile it yourself (instructions at github.com/ifcquery/ifcplusplus )

[@ar_man8572]

Great video+clear explanation=more freecad for BIM, plz 😁...start to learn freecad +blender...auto subscribe 😄 two thumbs up

[@edgarm7353]

Thanks for this useful video.

[@nadademais3154]

Fantástico. Você é brasileiro?

[@judegraham463]

Excuse me but I cant make heads or tails of this 'arch' system in free cad works. I'm new to this relatively speaking but have already spent many dozens of hours, weeks and weeks trying to work out how to do a simple line drawing in arch, but have barely made any progress. Well actually, I haven't made any progress at all. Every step of the way something flaws me. one example is when I attach walls via the 'icon tool' upon a wire frame, each corner of the wall 'overlaps halfway', so that only half the wall overlaps leaving the outside corner with a step if looking down at it as a plan. I have tried using the tool in the combo view that allows the walls to either be shifted off centre, to the left or right' of the wire line but that means that opposing corners shift and overlap in opposite ways to each other; its not uniform. Anyway, now, today, I can't find that tool in the combo view or tree view or property view or anywhere. I have also tried using the rectangle to start and shape the floor plan I need to draw but it appears that those lines of the rectangle can not be changed so that makes no sense to me; the rectangle only appears to be useful if you want a simple cube. If you know how to get around any of these problems I have mentioned, and believe me, this is only one or two, I have mentioned. I would much prefer to use a pen and paper as rudimentary as that may sound, but this is not allowed these days. No one accepts pen drawings anymore. So any real independence has actually been taken away from people who dont have an inclination towards digital technology. its very frustrating to say the least. Any help you can offer in understanding how to get around this problem in the corner of the walls. thanks. please excuse my frustration as I have spent hours today trying to solve the same problem I have had for weeks now.

[@YorikvanHavre]

Hello Jude, sorry to hear about your struggling with FreeCAD. I am also a fan of pen and paper, and indeed doing the transition to a complex 3D parametric modelling environment like FreeCAD can represent a pretty steep learning curve. I would suggest to not try to solve all problems at once, and either concentrate on 3D modelling only, or start with pure 2D drafting. You'll get much less frustration and more enjoyable results. Both can be done in FreeCAD, but also in other free and open-source applications such as Blender (3D) or QCAD and LibreCAD (2D). Exploring other applications could help finding something that suits you best. Sorry about not being able to address each of your issues here (I would suggest posting on the forum at forum.freecad.org ) so more people can help. FreeCAD also has a proper, more paced, step-by-step user manual at wiki.freecad.org/Manual , I would suggest to have a look, it should help to get you on tracks

[@cmorait]

Is there a way to do Energy Performance with freecad and BIM ?

[@satoshinakamoto9416]

When I try to export certain ifc elements as ifc I get the following error message, does anyone know what could be the reason? "cannot create polygon because less than two vertices are given"

[@YorikvanHavre]

There is likely a problem in some of your objects. Make sure all have valid solid shape, and none has an exclamation mark in the FreeCAD tree. If nothing helps, post your file on the FreeCAD forum so others can have a look

[@wearevr8700]

Great thank you! Keep up the good work

[@ludwigchristiankaempffer7932]

Great, you know your program. Thank you.

[@dennisverschoor]

Very nice! Thanks.

[@whatsyourface7358]

Thank you! This is awesome!!

[@emekaibeh1582]

How do i import dwg file into freecad. I have tried it severally with no result. I am using version 0.18

[@daniellopes2754]

o que é BIM? faço apenas alguns rascunhos; não sou da área, mas CAD me ajuda bastante com algumas coisinhas! vou testar !

[@joaocamacho8810]

Building Information Model, modelo que pode ser utilizado por outras aplicações como engenharia, ambiente, energia, clima, etc. Formato de intercâmbio baseado no *.ifc ou no *.gbxml, tal como o *.dxf ou o ª.dwg para os formatos 2d/3d de CAd. Os objectos têm informação muito detalhada sobre materiais, dimensões, tipologia, grupos, camadas, disposição, transparência, etc.

[@treich1234]

Most Excellent

[@golfodevizcaya769]

Very good intro to Freecad for Bim and willing to see more videos on use real world use cases! unfortunately the link to the files of the video don't seem to work anymore

[@YorikvanHavre]

thanks for notifying! I fixed the link.

[@golfodevizcaya769]

Thank you Yorik, this way we are allowed to inspect the files and learn even more

[@stevenkamga]

Thank?s Sr I want to start use freecad . Can we do structure inside

[@YorikvanHavre]

Not sure what you mean? Inside structure is like outside structure (columns, beams...) you basically do them the same way. Interior furniture is a bit more complex, but you can easily import from sites like sketchup warehouse or grabcad library

[@seraosmont]

Yorik... Make videos for the brasilian comunity...

[@YorikvanHavre]

Esta na minha lista ;)

[@saragadamsuresh]

Thank you

[@weendwijler770]

BIM doesn't work in Freecad 2023-08-18 Ifcopenshell can't be installed. Tried everything I could find on the web.

[@YorikvanHavre]

Have you looked here? wiki.freecad.org/IfcOpenShell

[@weendwijler770]

@@YorikvanHavre Yeah, I did. No help from that. I eventually found it somewhere and solved it.

[@kaloyankrastev1227]

Excellent!

[@trisnom.2198]

Great, thanks!

[@caca0604]

very cool

[@thomasneemann5618]

very good, thank you very much :-)

[@nilanshashinthab.a.5867]

Thanks

[@And_Rec]

Hero!