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Third Party Tools

From FreeCAD Documentation

Tool Page[edit | edit source]

For every serious software development you need tools. Here is a list of tools we use to develop FreeCAD:

Platform independent tools[edit | edit source]

Qt-Toolkit[edit | edit source]

The Qt-toolkit is a state of the art, platform independent user interface design tool. It is contained in the LibPack of FreeCAD, but can also be downloaded at Qt project.

Inkscape[edit | edit source]

This is a great vector drawing program. It adheres to the SVG standard and is used to draw Icons and Pictures. Inkscape is Free and Open Source Software licensed under the GPL. Get it at www.inkscape.org.

Doxygen[edit | edit source]

A very good and stable tool to generate source documentation from the .h and .cpp files.

Gimp[edit | edit source]

Not much to say about the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It can manipulate .xpm files which is a very convenient way to handle Icons in QT programs. XPM is basically C-Code which can be compiled into a program. Gimp supports the free .png file format used in the wiki.

Get the GIMP here: www.gimp.org

Gitkraken[edit | edit source]

This is a proprietary git GUI that is very helpful to learn how git works if you're interested in wanting to contribute to FreeCAD. Relevant pages to research:

OBS Studio[edit | edit source]

Free and open source software for video recording and live streaming. More details on official website: obsproject.com

OpenCamLib[edit | edit source]

OpenCamLib (OCL) is an open source library aiming to provide computer aided manufacturing (CAM) algorithms. FreeCAD uses OCL in the experimental 3D surface path operations and other experimental features.

StarUML[edit | edit source]

A full featured but proprietary UML program. It has a lot of major features, including reverse engineering C++ source code.

Download here: staruml.io

Tools on Windows[edit | edit source]

Visual Studio Community[edit | edit source]

Visual Studio Community is free for open source projects and small structures. Installation is modular. You can add support for a large number of languages including C++ and Python.

It can be downloaded at Visual Studio Community.

CamStudio[edit | edit source]

Is an Open Source tool to record Screen-casts (Webcasts). It is a very good tool to create tutorials by recording them. Its far not so boring as writing documentation.

See camstudio.org for details.

Tools on Linux[edit | edit source]

TODO