Please welcome the new release of FreeCAD, version 0.20! Installers and images available for Windows, MacOS and Linux on the FreeCAD website and on GitHub. https://www.youtube.com/embed/-Mqh4-irSO4 This version is pretty much a “stable version”, and a continuation of the work done on the 0.19 version. It is backwards-compatible with it, which means the files you produce with 0.20 are still openable with 0.19. ...
JJ_Nelson shares an initiative in open sourcing the architectural design process in his studio, Studio GIB. He is working on designing a table and open air workshop, with an open source design under a CC-BY 4.0 licence. ...
Topologic has a new milestone release! One of the biggest hurdles for testing and adopting Topologic has been its relative difficult installation. This was due to the particular method we used to create python bindings for the C++ code. To ease the installation process, we had to completely re-write the python bindings using pybind11. This was a laborious process, and bugs may still exist. However, this new release of Topologic can be installed for Blender with Sverchok just as any other add-on: You download the ZIP file (and you do NOT unzip it), you launch Blender (with Sverchok pre-installed), you go to Preferences -> Add-ons and you install the ZIP file as usual. This release of Topologic is compatible with both Windows and Linux and with python 3.7, 3.8, and 3.9. ...
OpenCAx is a group of open source projects that applied to participate in Google Summer of Code 2021 (GSoC). Led by BRL-CAD, this group includes FreeCAD, IfcOpenShell and OpenSCAD. The application was successful, and this program will enable students to work in AEC open source projects. ...
The Epic MegaGrants programme is a financial grant to support projects doing amazing things with the Unreal Engine or enhancing open-source capabilities for the 3D graphics community. We are incredibly honoured to present that the BlenderBIM Add-on has been awarded an Epic MegaGrant. ...
One of the most expected releases is finally here. FreeCAD 0.19 has been released with a lot of improvements and new features in all workbenches. The list is long, so let’s go. First, some general highlights. There area a few UI improvements such as the inclusion of more dark themes, new icon themes and few retouches in the navigation cube. Furthermore, an option was added to display a checkbox for every item in the document tree, so it’s easier to use with a touchscreen. ...
In the last February 6th and 7th, took place the FOSDEM 2021, an event organized to promote the use of free and open source software. Usually based in Brussels, the event happened online this year due to the pandemic. FOSDEM features a wide range of subjects and one of the Devrooms was about Computer Aided Modeling and Design, which held some interesting talks that gave us the state of the art of FOSS development for the AEC industry. ...
LibreDWG 0.12 is released. LibreDWG is a free C library to handle DWG files, the native file format from AutoCAD. This library aims to create an API to support softwares to work with DWG. It is currently in the beta stage, so it doesn’t have all the features implemented. However, it already handles reading, converting and writing files from scratch. It also features “SVG and Postscript conversion, converters from and to DXF and JSON, dwggrep to search for text, and dwglayer to print the list of layers.” ...
The Krita team released the first beta of their new version 4.4.2. It comes with a lot of bug fixes but also with a few new interesting features. Krita is a software for digital painting, but its features make it a good alternative to work with architectural visualization. ...
Archipack has now a new release which is compatible with Blender 2.91! Archipack 2.3.3 brings a few bug fixes and enhancements. According to its developer, Stephen Leger, the highlights of this new version are: “Auto-synchro” feature now is a global parameter so you are able to disable once for all objects. Triangular top shape for windows through “top circle” and 2 segments. Archipack is an add-on that focus on creating archviz solutions to fasten architectural modeling inside Blender. With Archipack you have access to a set of parametric tools for modeling architectural elements. Instead of creating a plane, scale it and then extrude it to create a wall, you can simply use the wall tool from Archipack. It’s not only faster to create, but the most powerful feature is the editing capability. For that, you can type in the wall dimensions, create new segments and automatically join them. All of this in a non-destructive way. The same logic applies to other tools like slab, door, window, fence, stair, roof and so on. ...