Migrating to FreeCAD from SolidWorks
This documentation is a work in progress. Please don't mark it as translatable since it will change in the next hours and days.
Overview
The intention of this page is to serve as a guide for users that are accustomed to the Solidworks CAD/CAM workflow and want to use try or perhaps migrate to FreeCAD.
History
Understanding a little of the history of FreeCAD potentially help users comprehend and orient better to it.
- FreeCAD was initially designed to behave parametrically using the Constructive solid geometry method (see also Part Workbench).
- Later it incorporated the feature editing method within the PartDesign Workbench.
- Solidworks utilizes the latter approach, feature editing.
Tips
The Part Design Workbench has many equivalent functions to SolidWorks. See images below:
Tutorials
List of helpful tutorials
Joko Engineering
There are many video tutorials online. One of the most popular (at the time this was written) is by a Youtuber calling himself Joko Engineering (he also participates on the FreeCAD Forum as Celica_Supra (profile link).
Related
Forum Threads
- Anyone willing to collaborate on writing guides for users coming from other CAD/CAM solutions to FreeCAD?
- Extreme Difficulty coming from Autodesk Inventor 2019.
User documentation
- Getting started
- Installation: Download, Windows, Linux, Mac, Additional components, Docker, AppImage, Ubuntu Snap
- Basics: About FreeCAD, Interface, Mouse navigation, Selection methods, Object name, Preferences, Workbenches, Document structure, Properties, Help FreeCAD, Donate
- Help: Tutorials, Video tutorials
- Workbenches: Std Base, Assembly, BIM, CAM, Draft, FEM, Inspection, Mesh, OpenSCAD, Part, PartDesign, Points, Reverse Engineering, Robot, Sketcher, Spreadsheet, Surface, TechDraw, Test Framework
- Hubs: User hub, Power users hub, Developer hub