FreeCAD BIM weekly update 12

Hi all!

Here is the twelfth weekly update showing what I ham doing this week with FreeCAD, specifically on the BIM and NativeIFC fronts. Sorry about the missed update last week, and the few novelties in this update, but we're now all pretty busy with the approaching FreeCAD release, I ended up having less yummy stuff to report. Nevertheless, here are the news for this week:

  • FreeCAD: release 0.21: As you might have seen in the mass media on social networks, we are preparing a new release of FreeCAD, which will be labeled 0.21. Hopefully, that's the last one before the big 1.0. We wanted this one to be 1.0 already, but it's better to do this the right way and given things the time they need than trying to stick to a predefined plan. After this 0.21 release, we will start merging toponaming code that can affect FreeCAD performance too, so it also makes sense to have a stable version now. The release date will depend on many factors, but we estimate it should be ready in about one month from now. announcement - help us!

  • NativeIFC: support for doors and windows: You can now create windows and doors from scratch in FreeCAD and add them to a NativeIFC project. The workflow is the same as other NativeIFC-ready objects, you create a window or a door using usual BIM or Arch tools, then you drag and drop it onto a wall. Simple as that! An opening will be generated automatically and the necessary relationships added to the IFC document. If you use other tools than Arch/BIM to model your window, make sure it has a "Subvolume" property pointing to a shape object that defines the opening volume otherwise no opening will be created in the host object. commit

  • NativeIFC: editing openings: When expanding individual IFC objects, windows and doors are shown embedded into their parent object (typically a wall). When expanding the children of that wall, both the opening element (which creates the "subtraction" in the wall) and the window or door that fits ito it get revealed. So we now have a possibility to edit the opening too, by moving it together with the window, or changing its extrusion parameters if it is extruded. commit

  • FreeCAD: Misc fixes: I also did a couple more BIM-related fixes in FreeCAD:

That's it for this week! Thanks again to everybody who sponsors me on Patreon, LiberaPay or GitHub!