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FreeShape 2.0.0 is the biggest update yet. It adds version history, Python plugins, configurations, a standard parts library, section views and nesting for cutting, along with a lot of everyday modelling improvements.
What's new
Modelling
- Sketch splines, ellipses and text. Text uses real letter outlines, so you can extrude it, cut it or engrave it.
- Sketch on a part like in Onshape. The corners, midpoints and edges of the face you're sketching on are snap targets. You can also dimension from them.
- "Up to" ends for Extrude and Revolve: up to the next part, a face, a part or a vertex.
- Feature patterns and mirror. You can repeat a hole or a pocket, not just whole parts.
- Split with any surface, several at once (#20). Split with planes, curved faces or sketch curves. Each one either keeps both sides or keeps only the side its arrow points to. For example, two crossing planes through a cube give four pieces, or just the one quarter you choose.
- Configurations. One Part Studio can make many sizes (M5 × 20, M6 × 30 …) from a table of variables.
- Derived parts. Bring parts in from another Part Studio, and they stay linked.
Assemblies
- Standard parts library. ISO screws, nuts, washers, dowel pins, bearings and heat-set inserts, M2 to M20. They're made on the spot and work offline.
- Exploded views. Auto explode, or add your own steps. You can make a drawing of an exploded view.
- Relations. Gear, rack and pinion, and screw.
- Instance patterns. Linear and circular.
Drawings
- Section views with hatching.
- Detail views.
- Parts lists and balloons.
Sheet metal
- Hems, jogs and tabs.
- Convert a plate to sheet metal.
- Nest for cutting. Lays parts out on stock sheets and shows material use, weight and cost. Exports a DXF.
Version history (new)
- Named versions are saved in the file. A Save also keeps a version whenever something has changed.
- Readable "what changed" between any two versions. For example: "Depth: 10 mm → 16 mm", "Added a distance dimension (40 mm)", "#wall: 3 → 4", plus each part's volume before and after.
- Show in 3D draws added material in green and removed material in red. You can restore any version or open it in a new tab.
Python plugins (new)
- Add your own parametric features with a proper dialog, live preview and
#variables. - Add your own commands.
- Two examples come with FreeShape: a Spur gear feature (real involute teeth) and a Part weights command.
- Files open without the plugin. A document keeps a copy of what each plugin feature made.
- How to write one is in PLUGINS.md.
Navigation and export
- Mouse styles: Onshape, Touchpad, and FreeCAD's CAD, Gesture, Blender, SolidWorks, OpenInventor, Revit and OpenSCAD styles.
- Zoom speed setting, and smoother wheel zoom.
- N squares the view up to a face (#13). Ctrl+Shift+arrows pan the view.
- Shift+E / Shift+W extrude or revolve straight from a sketch.
- Dialogs remember the last folder you used.
- Binary STL files, about a fifth of the size.
- Portable Windows zip: unzip it and run, with nothing to install.
Fixes
- Making a sketch line horizontal or vertical no longer squashes it to a dot.
- A centre rectangle's helper diagonal no longer shows outside its sketch.
- Sweep can now follow sketch splines.
- Plus many smaller fixes. The full list is in CHANGES.md.
Download
- Windows: FreeShape-Setup-2.0.0.exe (installer) or FreeShape-portable-2.0.0.zip (no install)
- Mac / Linux: see the assets below
Files from 1.8.x open in 2.0. Files saved in 2.0 may not open in older versions.