For designers looking to quickly produce small items for printing, setting up sketches and constraints in standard CAD software can be a major hurdle. The maker addressed this issue by developing a direct modeling workbench for FreeCAD. This tool allows users to draw directly onto any surface and then push or pull that geometry to create a solid object, significantly speeding up the workflow for 3D printing projects.
The project is built atop FreeCAD's Part module and utilizes the OCC kernel, ensuring all created geometry remains regular OpenCascade BREP. A remarkable feature is its capability to take imported polygonal mesh components and convert them into fully editable CAD bodies. For instance, a mechanical component started with an 80 by 50 mm rectangle, which was then extruded 12 mm upward to form a solid block. Other detailed operations included pulling a cylindrical post up 30 mm and filing the four vertical corners of the base with a 6 mm radius.
Furthermore, the workbench successfully integrates flat and curved regions from an STL file into real, editable surfaces. A demonstration showed the maker using this functionality to sketch a circle onto a curved exterior surface and offsetting it inward by -5 mm. It is worth noting that surface editing, specifically drawing on curved faces, is currently noted as a work in progress. The maker intends to expand these capabilities, inspired by Plasticity, offering more advanced surface editing features in the future!