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FreeCAD Version 1.0 Released

Published by

Jo Hinchliffe

on

After more than twen­ty years of intense and sus­tained devel­op­ment, the FreeCAD com­mu­ni­ty is proud to announce the release of ver­sion 1.0. FreeCAD 1.0 is now avail­able for down­load on all plat­forms.

In soft­ware devel­op­ment, ver­sion 1 usu­al­ly means: our soft­ware is now sta­ble and ready for “real work”. If you are a FreeCAD user, you know that FreeCAD has been ready for real work for years, and is used in pro­duc­tive, pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ty all over the world already. We in fact were tempt­ed many times in the past to cut to the chase, and call the next ver­sion 1.0 already!

But we did­n’t. Since the very begin­nings, the FreeCAD com­mu­ni­ty had a clear view of what 1.0 rep­re­sent­ed for us. What we want­ed in it. FreeCAD matured over the years, and that list nar­rowed down to just two major remain­ing pieces: fix­ing the topon­am­ing prob­lem, and hav­ing a built-in assem­bly module.

Well, I’m very proud to say those two issues are now solved. Not fin­ished, mind you, not the per­fect, bug-free, fault­less fea­tures we all want, but reach­ing that lev­el takes time and effort. That will be our job from now on. What we have now is a sol­id, work­ing, reli­able topon­am­ing solu­tion, that is already in action in the Sketch­er and Part­De­sign, and is being pro­gres­sive­ly extend­ed to every­thing else. And we have a good and fair­ly com­plete assem­bly work­bench that has a shiny new solver that comes, if you can believe it, from “the oth­er FreeCAD”. Read the full release notes to learn more about all this.

This ver­sion 1.0 is not a fin­ished prod­uct, sim­ply because FreeCAD is not a prod­uct. It’s our project, our baby, our pas­sion, our tool. Ver­sion 1.0 is our achieve­ment. All of us who worked on it, from the ones who helped raise the project on its feet and are not par­tic­i­pat­ing any­more to peo­ple who just came to help fin­ish­ing trans­la­tions for this release, we worked hard for this, we deserved this, and this 1.0 means: we’ve done it.

I hope you’ll enjoy using this new ver­sion! If this is your first con­tact with FreeCAD, be sure to check the doc­u­men­ta­tion, the man­u­al, the tuto­ri­als and every­thing the com­mu­ni­ty has pre­pared to help you get start­ed! ~ Yorik

With the release of ver­sion 1.0 we want­ed to pro­vide an exec­u­tive sum­ma­ry as a quick­er read of the Ver­sion 1.0 release notes. The full Ver­sion 1.0 release notes are avail­able on the FreeCAD Wiki, and a nice, illus­trat­ed blog post writ­ten by Alex.

High­lights:

  • Fol­low­ing a long devel­op­ment process, Realthun­ders Topo­log­i­cal nam­ing prob­lem mit­i­ga­tion algo­rithm has been incor­po­rat­ed into FreeCAD Ver­sion 1.0. This algo­rithm offers resilien­cy against topol­o­gy changes in a para­met­ric chain and a vast improve­ment of a mod­el’s stability.
  • FreeCAD has a new includ­ed Assem­bly work­bench which uses the brand-new Ond­sel solver.
  • A new logo was cho­sen by the com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, from com­mu­ni­ty con­tributed proposals.
  • The user inter­face has received huge improvements.These include rota­tion­al cen­tre indi­ca­tors, selec­tion item fil­ters, on-mod­el task pan­el and com­bo view modes, uni­ver­sal mea­sur­ing tools, brand-new dark and light themes and much more.

Oth­er key improvements:

  • There are mul­ti­ple changes and improve­ments to the Core sys­tem. The vec­tor API can now be used in expres­sions, the new prop­er­ty con­tain­er App::VarSet allows the user to cre­ate design vari­a­tions, along with many more improve­ments to the Python edi­tor and Python API.
  • A new, stream­lined and faster start page replaces the Start Workbench.
  • The Arch work­bench has been merged with BIM and is now the BIM work­bench with lots of new fea­tures and improve­ments added includ­ing native sup­port for IFC documents.
  • The Path work­bench has been renamed the CAM work­bench with lots of new fea­tures includ­ing a new CAM simulator.
  • The Draft work­bench has a long list of improve­ments. Grid behav­iour has been opti­mised and appear­ance options have been increased with many of the Draft work­bench tools and approach­es receiv­ing extra functionality.
  • The FEM work­bench has had a large over­haul with many small but use­ful changes to tools and func­tions. The lan­guage used on the FEM work­bench has been devel­oped to be clos­er to indus­tri­al stan­dard terms.
  • The mate­r­i­al han­dling sys­tem has been com­plete­ly over­hauled and a stan­dard sys­tem is now in place for fur­ther development.
  • The Part work­bench has numer­ous improve­ments with the Part Scale and Part Mir­ror tools being two obvi­ous improved tools.
  • The Part Design work­bench has received many fix­es and addi­tion­al func­tion­al­i­ty with­in the rev­o­lu­tion and groove fea­tures, as well as sig­nif­i­cant changes to the Pad tool mak­ing it pos­si­ble to end extru­sions at mul­ti­ple faces and more.
  • The Sketch­er work­bench has a huge amount of changes and increased func­tion­al­i­ty and UI improve­ments. These include “dimen­sion­ing on the go”, con­tex­tu­al Dimen­sion con­straint tools, a new Off­set tool and more. Cut and Paste includ­ing con­straints is now avail­able with­in and across sketches.
  • The Tech­Draw work­bench has numer­ous new tools: Snap­ping, a Cos­met­ic­Cir­cle tool, an Add­Off­setVer­tex tool and many others.

47 responses to “FreeCAD Version 1.0 Released”

  1. generouslyserene2af9b5c633 Avatar
    generouslyserene2af9b5c633

    Con­grats, I’m very hap­py with this news.
    Keep on doing the good work.

    Best Regards,

    Dirk Roggeveen

  2. Michiel Bruijn Avatar
    Michiel Bruijn

    Wow, what a great milestone.
    I’ve been using freecad increas­ing­ly since 15 years or so.
    Great work peo­ple. Thanks a lot🙏

    1. Mark Avatar
      Mark

      Absolute­ly look­ing for­ward to down­load­ing the new release and con­tin­u­ing the cre­ative design journey!

  3. Martin P Avatar
    Martin P

    Guys, I am absolute­ly thrilled with your work. I have no words. I use FreeCAD from ver­sion 0.14 and was look­ing for­ward to releas­ing next ver­sion and always was excit­ed. I admire you all tremen­dous­ly. Thank you. Great job!

  4. Dylan Avatar
    Dylan

    Let’s go, con­grats to every­one who has worked on this project, and got­ten it where it is now.

  5. alexander j mckenzie Avatar
    alexander j mckenzie

    Awe­some!

  6. Craig Marshall Avatar
    Craig Marshall

    Con­grat­u­la­tions 🎉 This is major news. Very hap­py for the team and all end users 🤓

  7. linusio Avatar
    linusio

    awe­some news! thx for all hard work!

  8. Cyberraph Avatar
    Cyberraph

    I am real­ly excited.
    Thank you very much to every­body work­ing with this passion
    to bring some­thing good like FreeCAD to everybody
    and make it even bet­ter over the long time.

  9. K.R. O'Connell Avatar
    K.R. O'Connell

    About bloody time!
    LOL
    Thank you for all the fun
    did you release any more Tutorials?
    I learned a lot from the previous
    But now I need to know more about CAM

  10. Andrey Avatar
    Andrey

    Не скачивается установщик для Windows

    1. Jo Hinchliffe Avatar
      Jo Hinchliffe

      It’s down­load­ing for me here in the UK.

  11. FreeCAD Version 1.0 Released | FreeCAD News – Dropsafe

    […] https://blog.freecad.org/2024/11/19/freecad-version‑1–0‑released/ […]

  12. AVTech Engineering LLC Avatar
    AVTech Engineering LLC

    Con­grat­u­la­tions are in order. Time for the future to take flight.

  13. Cool Beans Avatar
    Cool Beans

    Grats indeed, but to me v. 1.0 just means “fea­ture com­plete” and “API sta­ble” until the next major release. 😛 Sta­bil­i­ty and reli­a­bil­i­ty aren’t the same thing.

  14. D Avatar
    D

    I use FreeCAD every day for work and play when doing any­thing 3D. While there are plen­ty of issues I could nit­pick, over­all it’s just amaz­ing that this lev­el of qual­i­ty and per­for­mance is free. Many thanks and con­grats to the devs for this invalu­able tool and your tire­less efforts.

  15. home Avatar
    home

    Con­grats! home here from irc lol, If you guys get this more work­ing I can talk about it on red­dit, par­tic­u­lar­ly if there is a demo of using free cad with the steamdeck 🙂

  16. Ian F Bardsley Avatar
    Ian F Bardsley

    Well Done to all who have laboured to bring this great tool to fruition.
    I have just com­plet­ed my sim­ple first release 1.0.0 mod­el from design to cam man­u­fac­ture with­out a prob­lem. Very happy

  17. ali ihsan aksoy Avatar
    ali ihsan aksoy

    Thanks to every­body who has con­tri­bu­tion to this project, FreeCad Com­mu­ni­ty is con­tribut­ing to the whole soc­i­ti­ety more than many com­mer­cial tech giants, FreeCAD com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers and devel­op­ers are unknown heros in this noisy world. I hope soon or late peo­ple fig­ure out impor­tance and impact of this com­mu­ni­ty more than ever. As a mec­ah­ni­cal design­er i sin­cere­ly thank to every per­son in this com­mu­ni­ty. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

  18. LWN.net – FreeCAD 1.0 released – The Death of the Mind

    […] It took more than 20 years, but the FreeCAD com­put­er-aid­ed design project has just made its 1.0 release. […]

  19. Patrick Avatar
    Patrick

    Ver­sion 1.0 is such a tremen­dous increase in usabil­i­ty, espe­cial­ly fix­ing the nam­ing prob­lem. Thank you so much for all the effort you put into releas­ing it.

  20. Wang Guoliang Avatar
    Wang Guoliang

    Con­grat­u­la­tions 🎉

  21. Warren Pegley Avatar
    Warren Pegley

    This project is sec­ond only in impor­tance to cli­mate change, with col­lege stu­dents free to hone there new skill with­out coop­er­a­tion fees effec­tive­ly stop­ping the very evo­lu­tion that might actu­al­ly pre­vent cli­mate change. Well Done FC — The mojo lives!

  22. Desmond Elliott Avatar
    Desmond Elliott

    Wow! I start­ed with Freecad dur­ing COVID19, was look­ing for a rea­son to live?
    Onya, guys, I have pro­gressed to aver­age user stan­dard? The Freecad com­mu­ni­ty is amazing….anything and every­thing is pos­si­ble now in ver­sion 1.0, spe­cial thanks to Realthunder!
    At 74 years of age (with 35 years in Auto­cad), it is an amaz­ing program….I am design­ing UAV’s and robot­ics at warp speed?

    Thank you for giv­ing me a new life, all the best for the future!

  23. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    Thank for all the hard work and to sup­port it on this aus­pi­cious occa­sion I have made a dona­tion. I hope oth­ers will do the same.

  24. Adrian Nicol Avatar
    Adrian Nicol

    Great news! Many thanks to all involved in this stu­pen­dous effort.

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  26. Usuario Avatar
    Usuario

    FreeCAD es un pro­gra­ma exce­lente que me ha per­mi­ti­do hac­er muchas cosas en los pocos meses que lle­vo usán­do­lo. Quiero dar las gra­cias a todas las per­sonas que han con­tribui­do a lo largo de los años para hac­er de FreeCAD lo que hoy es.

    ¡Muchas gra­cias a todos!

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  29. Rourke Avatar
    Rourke

    This will have a huge impact on the mak­er com­mu­ni­ty. With func­tion­al assem­blies and improved CAM work­bench you are going to see a huge influx of users who have want­ed to get away from Fusion360 for years. Con­grat­u­la­tions on 1.0, FreeCAD team!

  30. gastom8 Avatar
    gastom8

    Con­grat­u­la­tions, great job.

  31. Ola Peter Avatar
    Ola Peter

    Con­grat­u­la­tions from Africa. This is amaz­ing and a wel­come devel­op­ment. we will duly start get­ting peo­ple to know more about this

  32. GeneM Avatar
    GeneM

    Well done! You have solved many issues and made the pro­gram more fun to use. I’m look­ing for­ward to future improve­ments. Thank you!

  33. Stefan Avatar
    Stefan

    Ein großes Dankeschön an das Entwick­lerteam. FreeCAD 1.0 ist ein mod­ernes und geniales Entwick­lungswerkzeug gewor­den, das mit kom­merzieller CAD Soft­ware nicht nur mithal­ten kann, vielle­icht sog­ar bess­er ist, weil sehr intu­itiv und nutzer­fre­undlich, gle­ichzeit­ig skript­fähig und über die Add-Ons nahezu unbe­gren­zt erweit­er­bar. Ich bin ges­pan­nt, wie die Entwick­lung weitergeht.

  34. Grzegorz Madelski Avatar
    Grzegorz Madelski

    Grat­u­la­tions!
    This is a very use­ful tool, much improved over pre­vi­ous releases.
    I look for­ward for more new fea­tures in the future. Great job!

  35. Attila Kovacs Avatar
    Attila Kovacs

    I love your FreeCAD. I start­ed with 0.21.2 and made some- for me — very use­ful designs For CNC, 3d prints and wood­en staffs. Real­ly enjoyed and I guess it will the same with FC1.0. I appre­ci­ate your work, very much. Thanks

  36. Joe Beach Avatar
    Joe Beach

    Thank you all very much. This is wonderful!
    Joe

  37. DDB Avatar
    DDB

    Thanks guys, I’m not invest­ed in FreeCad as such, but I can appre­ci­ate what goes into a labour of love and inge­nu­ity like this. I hope you’re sat­is­fied and ready for a beer.

  38. Apps novos e atualizados ⁄ Manual do Usuário

    […] anos, mas a primeira ver­são estáv­el do FreeCAD, um mod­e­lador CAD em 3D. / Lin­ux, macOS, Win­dows / blog.freecad.org (em […]

  39. John Doe Avatar
    John Doe

    Thank you all that have con­tributed to this mile­stone! For me it is one of the most impor­tant open source soft­ware mile­stones ever. Lin­ux may well have changed com­put­ers — but FreeCAD will change the world.

  40. nightdecoder Avatar
    nightdecoder

    Con­grat­u­la­tion!

  41. Tomasz Barwiński Avatar
    Tomasz Barwiński

    I’m glad there’s ver­sion 1.0 but I still can’t under­stand the phi­los­o­phy behind it — it’s so far from what Fusion 360 and Inven­tor offer that doing any­thing in Freecad is like a torture.
    I don’t know, in the case of anoth­er open source project Kicad I can freely use it inter­change­ably with Altium, in the case of Freecad it does­n’t work.

  42. Esteban Lemos Avatar
    Esteban Lemos

    Very Hap­py with this tool, i real­ly love to make things with your freecad congrats!!!!!

  43. eMPee584 Avatar
    eMPee584

    There’s a FREE miss­ing in the 1st sen­tence: »In *FREE* soft­ware devel­op­ment, ver­sion 1 usu­al­ly means: our soft­ware is now sta­ble and ready for »real work«.
    Because with pro­pri­etary soft­ware, ver­stion 1.0 rather means “we’ll fix it later”..

  44. Ric Avatar
    Ric

    I have just down­loaded the lat­est release of freecad, ver­sion 1.0 in my opin­ion it is the worst ver­sion in the his­to­ry of freecad. The faces nav­i­ga­tion but­tons are gone. The restraints for ver­ti­cal and hor­i­zon­tal dis­tance are buried so deep, its not worth work­ing with. I can’t place a sketch with 2 com­po­nent draw­ings on the same plane because the pad will only pick up 1 of them. After a pad is cre­at­ed, the sketch is hid­den in the tree view. Now it takes way longer to back step pre­vi­ous sketch­es to make any real dif­fer­ence. I will go back to the old ver­sion. Its way more sta­ble than this new version.

  45. Kris Couvreur Avatar
    Kris Couvreur

    Well done FreeCAD devel­op­ment team.
    Thank you very much.
    Will you also release the portable app ver­sion of 1.0 so it can be used on any computer ?

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