Manipulator Workbench/en

Introduction
The Manipulator Workbench is an external workbench aimed to help FreeCAD users with Aligning, Moving, Rotating and Measuring 3D objects through a friendly GUI. These series of tools help to Transform the placement and Measure objects and STEP models in FreeCAD.

Features
Aligner: a set of tools to move and align 3D parts; it can also align an object (face, edge, point) to the origin in FreeCAD.

Mover: a set of tools to move and rotate 3D parts on different Axis

Caliper: a set of tools to measure 3D parts, with some Snap facility and Radius, Length, Angle measurements.

These helpers work with Part, App::Part and Body objects.

The Tools can be Floating or Docked Left or Right.

Each Tool has a Help Button to get some useful tips

Mover






Caliper










Automatic Installation
The recommended way to install the Manipulator Workbench is via the Addon Manager under the  menu.

Manual Installation
If a manual install is necessary please follow the following instructions:


 * Copying the Manipulator source in to the sub-directory of the FreeCAD application.


 * Restart FreeCAD

Supports

 * FreeCAD v0.15 4671
 * FreeCAD v0.16 >= 6712
 * FreeCAD v0.17 >= 11707
 * FreeCAD v0.18+
 * FreeCAD v0.19+

History
The workbench evolved out of the Center Align Objects with Faces or Edges macro

External workbenches
FreeCAD workbenches are easy to program in Python, there are therefore many people developing additional workbenches outside of the FreeCAD main developers.

The external workbenches page has some information and tutorials on some of them, and the FreeCAD Addons project aims at gathering them and making them easily installable from within FreeCAD.

New workbenches are in development, stay tuned!