Configuration Tables and Variant Links | Mastering FreeCAD 4
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 ม.ค. 2024
- Leverage the power of configuration / design tables in your FreeCAD modelling to automate the creation of multiple parametric configurations supplied from a spreadsheet. FreeCAD configuration tables allow you to specify specific values as a config for your model, for example we can have size configurations of small, medium and large which will control the constraints in a sketch from a custom drop-down that will appear on the parent body.
We also take a look at variant links to turn your model into a factory allowing you to create copies of your model using the configuration table to size and modify each variant. Want to make custom fixtures and fittings of different sizes but just from one model? Then this workflow will help you achieve that goal.
#FreeCAD , #CAD , #3DPrinting
Journey with me and
Patreon
/ mangojellysolutions
Donate:
ko-fi.com/mang0
www.paypal.com/paypalme/darre...
Subscribe:
/ @mangojellysolutions
Browse my Redbubble Shop:
MangojellyLabs.redbubble.com
Blog:
mangojellysolutions.blogspot.... - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
Thank you for helping me free myself from the corporate overlords of CAD.
Thank you so much for the donation. Glad your able to make that disconnecting and follow the true path to freedom and be able to buy an infinite supply of jelly babies with the money you save. This is the way 😁
This video is the first I've seen of manually changing a Body's base feature. That's a handy trick all by itself but added to the configuration table and sub-shape binder trick for creating template bodies it becomes a powerful pattern.
Glad you enjoyed, I hope you can find a use for it, sure you will 😊😁👍
Super helpful interesting topic. Greatly appreciated.
I've used FreeCAD for years and had no idea Configuration Tables existed (even though I've used spreadsheets many times)!
As a nice side-effect, you managed to explain how the sub-shape binder is used (I've use the shape binder before, but never understood the function of the sub-shape binder, I think it needs another name).
Funny thing, I actually had a use for this just a few months back after watching your video on using the Link tool. :) I was banging my head against the wall trying to figure out how to model one part and have several with minor additions to them in the same file.
So thank you for yet another extremely helpful video!
Configuration tables are fairly new, like only in the last year or two. I have an industrial fuse holder (the big cartridge type) on Printables that uses configuration tables to allow the user to select both the fuse size and the number of holes to customize the fuse holder they want to then export as a STL or STEP to import into their slicer. I'm a novice cad modeler at best so my workflow might be a bit messy, but it seems to work.
Excellent 😊😊 Great to see that this helped. I want to try to cover the more unknown elements of freecad as finding documentation on some tools is near on impossible. But once I find and figure it out the next step is what can you use it for as real world examples go a long way. A video that I am realising soon has this as a real world example in an assembly workflow. Both these videos were bought in existence by two seperate patreon request which got smashed together. So have to also thank them for the problems that they had which will be appearing in the next video. It's a great feedback loop.
I love seeing real world examples, thanks for sharing that 👍👍
FreeCAD is an amazing tool. Thank you Darren, your tutorials are of great help!
I second the emotion of the previous commenters. Another very good video by Mango Jelly that illustrates the power of FreeCAD.
Thatch you so much 😊
Where would we all be without you? Going to send you some more coffee as you earned it.
Thank you so much 😊😊 so much more to share and always learning something new 😊
Enjoy your content as always Darren! You have some of the best instructional content on the "Tube" for using FreeCAD. I am glad to have found your content. Please! keep up the content creation. Always excited to see what is next in your instruction. Wishing your family and you many great years of health and wealth. Long time follower. Martin.
Thank you so much. Enjoy learning 🙂
Nice to hear 😊
That's a very interesting and powerful concept. Learned something new and would like to hear more on different ways of building parametric models. Somehow that feels more natural to me than working with dimensions directly, but that's probably my programmer's blood talking
Your programmer's blood is based. 😉
Thank you. You do a fine job of helping me confirm that I can always learn something new when it is explained in way that I can follow. Your videos are very consistent in this regard. Best to you.
Excellent video
Again, another incredibly helpful video from MangoJelly - I never would have figured this out on my own in getting the shape binder to work, between having to save the file and getting an error if the master body is part of a part, in which case a sub-object shape binder can't be created. Thanks again!
Glad it was useful, thank you for the kind comment,, great to see the videos are being useful
Another excellent video highlighting your deep knowledge of FreeCAD and all its little intricacies.
Whoa, some good new knowledge here! So far I had only vaguest sense what BaseFeature is, now I almost understand it.
Thanks
Thank you 😊😊👍👍
Great explanation, as always!
Great to learn and make use of this methodology. I discovered a severe drawback, however. If the body is a bit more complex than a washer, and you have say 4 variants in the workspace, simple changes to the template body (or other simple edits generally) can result in grindingly slow UI response times. Not only this but the dreaded topological naming problem arises if, for example you try to fillet an edge in the template body.
By slow UI response times, I'm talking 60 to 90 seconds of waiting after each operation. I got the job done, but I won't repeat this approach.
Excellent video! Nice work.
Hi Darren, as usual very informative. Obviously useful for someone modifying given object. Bit Brain Drained and not sure how I'll use it if at all in Rc Aircraft Design.
I saw "mastering FreeCAD 4" and thought, hang on, have I just woken up from a 10 year coma?
10 yrs are still too little lol FC is like more than 20yrs old and we still don't have 1.0 . You'll have to sleep a little more
I've been using spreadsheets as configuration in the past. But I must say, that you've explained this topic very well. Learning spreadsheet configurations would have been much easier, if I had know this video before. But I still have one question and I very much hope, you have an idea for that. I set up a model for ER collets as work holding devices. ER comes in different sizes, such as ER-16, ER-25, ER-32, ... to name a few of them. I am able, to choose the confguration of my bodies just as you showed in your example. BUT: ER-16 can hold round stock from 2.5 mm up to 12 mm in steps of 0.5 mm, whilst ER-32 offers ranges from 3 mm to 22 mm in steps of 1 mm. Therefore I'd love to have a second configuration drop down list (as you showed in your video for the height of the pad) for the bore size. But this configuration depends on the first drop down. So, when I choos ER-16, the second config list offers hole sizes from 2,5 up to 12 mm in steps of 0.5 mm, but when choosing ER-32, the list of holes starts at 3 mm and goes to 22 in increments of 1 mm. Any idea on how to do that?
🎉Huge job!
I find it an interesting option to have 3D models with different configurations (e.g. DIN 912 screw with different metrics and lengths). I have done a test in A2Plus workbench, but, for several copies of the same model, with different configurations, once I update it, it saves all of them with the last configuration. Any assembly workbench where you can have different configurations of the same 3D model?
Damn, this feature is so well hidden - bodies don't even show the configuration row if you've never made a configuration table! (or if you don't follow these unintuitive steps _exactly)_ 😖 And it is so similar to other patterns I've concocted for myself regarding shared base resources and sketch-based assemblies.
But what the heck is FreeCAD _4?_
Thank you very much Darren. Your videos are of great help. My freecad 0.21 Arch and bim workbench is not showing lines, walls and other objects. Can you pls do me a video solving this problem
Is it happening with Draft workbench too?
The Dynamic Data Workbench also has configuration tables. Any chance of a video paralleling this one, using these instead of spreadsheets?
Have you tried the ondsel branch?
I have had a little play with the new assembly workbench which is coming on. I have been using 0.22 Dev version which is very similar.
I want this exact functionality, but then not with an enum value referencing to a set of values, but by being able to provide these values directly. So Part of Body is reusable with some custom values.
So imagine having created a parametric shape and reuse it it another FreeCAD document with different values altogether. Is this possible too without coding in Python? (Because starting to code in FreeCAD kind of defeats the purpose of having this UI to work in) for bespoke shapes (for gears etc of course it is very useful). I think functionally speaking it would be similar to OpenSCAD's modules that can be reused in other OpenSCAD files.
So I imagine having created some Body which exposes some parameters which can be altered in a cloned, linked of subshapebinded instance without applying these values to the original.
Is this possible with FreeCAD in anyway?
Thanks for your great videos, very informative.
HI, I am getting an error following the steps shown in the video. It does not have to do with configuration tables, but using a binder as a base feature. In essence, if I set the base feature of a body to the binder while it is under the body, I get a out of scope error, saying "link to object 'N/A' is out of scope of 'Body', instead linked object resides in 'N/A'", but it works if the binder is not under the body. Does this error come up in your build? I am using the latest 0.21.2 release.
same for me
Is this the only way to make multiple objects that can each individually choose which of the options they want from a config table?
I am facing an issue; when I created the second body, I cannot move it (transform). It looks like the second body has its own coordinate system, and moving it doesn't take effect in the global view. How can I move the second body away from the first?
I've just watched your video about the ShapeBinder tool, and now I know what was happening to me. I had to change the Bind Mode field to 'Value Detached' in ShapeBinder. Thank you. Your content on TH-cam is so great
Ohhhh nooo... when I changed the bind mode, I lost my variants options :(
I resolved it, maybe it will help someone. [ Movable body independently, and variants available ]
Relative: false,
Bind Mode: Synchronized,
Bind Copy On Change: Muted.
FreeCAD 0.22dev
Thanks for feeding back with that information. Great for helping others
Hi Darren, or anyone fluent in FreeCAD. I do some design work on this platform, but i have run into an issue. I export files after I color coded them, in STEP 214 format, for a customer of mine, but there seems to show small blue spheres where all the vertices sit on the step file if he opens them on his program. I do not know what platform he uses, but i will find out. is there any way to hide them or remove them. i can send photos of this to show how it looks. Any help or advice will be greatly appreciated.
he uses SolidEdge, and opens the file as a part, not as an assembly
I have never heard of this problem but I have never used the format. One thought though could it be the point colour in freecad for the model?