About FreeCAD/sk



FreeCAD univerzálny parametrický 3D CAD nástroj, ktorého vývoj prebieha kompletne open source (LGPL licencia). FreeCAD sa zameriava na strojné inžinierstvo a produktový dizajn, ale takisto nájde využitie v ďalších oblastiach inžinierstva, ako napríklad v architektúre, pri analýze konečných prvkov (angl. FEA), 3D tlači a iných.

FreeCAD obsahuje nástroje podobné systémom CATIA, SolidWorks alebo Solid Edge, a preto sa tiež radí do katégorie produktov tzpu CAD, Manažment životného cyklu (angl. PLM), Počítačom podporované technológie (angl. CAx), Inžinierstvo pomocou počítača (angl. CAE). Je to parametrický modelovací nástroj s modulárnou programovou štruktúrou, vďaka ktorej je možné pridávať dodatočné vlastnosti a funkcie bez úpravy základného systému.

As with many CAD modelers it has many 2D components in order to sketch planar shapes or create production drawings. However, direct 2D drawing (like Inkscape or AutoCAD LT) is not the focus, neither are animation or mesh editing (like Blender, Maya, 3ds Max, or Cinema 4D). Nevertheless, thanks to its wide adaptability, FreeCAD might become useful in a much broader area than its current focus.

FreeCAD makes heavy use of open-source libraries that exist in the field of scientific computing. Among them are Open Cascade Technology (OCCT), a powerful CAD kernel; Coin3D, a toolkit for 3D graphics development compatible with Open Inventor; Qt, the world-famous user interface framework; and Python, a modern scripting language. FreeCAD itself can also be used as a library by other programs.

FreeCAD is also multi-platform, and currently runs on Linux/Unix, Windows, and Mac OSX systems with the same look and functionality on all platforms.

For more information about FreeCAD's capabilities, take a look at the feature list, the latest release notes, and the getting started articles, or see more screenshots.

About the FreeCAD project
The FreeCAD project was started as far back as 2001, as described in its history page.

FreeCAD is maintained and developed by a community of enthusiastic developers and users (see the contributors page). They work on FreeCAD voluntarily, in their free time. They cannot guarantee that FreeCAD contains everything you might wish, but they will do their best! The community gathers on the FreeCAD forum, where most of the ideas and decisions are discussed. Feel free to join us there!