This week in FreeCAD development:
Sketcher
- matthiasdanner added the angle constraint to the Polygon tool (PR#31180).
- flaviut fixed a memory leak (PR#32005)
Part and PartDesign
- chennes fixed a regression where files from FreeCAD 0.15 and earlier with Part Design features outside a PD Body could not be loaded (PR#30996).
- bwross sped up work with the vertices element map multifold in certain scenarios (PR#31329).
- maxwxyz improved the default shapebinder and subshapebinder contrast (PR#31912).
CAM
- davidgilkaufman patched the adaptive operation to skip finishing passes in pre-cleared regions (PR#31053). He also fixed the slicer (PR#31056) and an edge-splitting freeze (PR#31890).
- TD-4242 fixed the postprocessor override priority (PR#31508).
- tarman3 added the ability to use modifier keys (Shift, Ctrl, Alt) to force specific methods of the Select Loop tool (PR#31095) and improved the G‑code editor dialog: added line enumeration and optional syntax highlighting (PR#31330).
- Connor added a command to sync tool presets from the library into embedded job tools (PR#31300).
Other changes
- chennes pushed part 1 of 3 of a new crash reporting system (PR#30951).
- zkasuran fixed an incorrect reference in DXF exports (PR#31896).
- kevenwyld improved SpaceMouse support: restored the functionality of middle-click to force rotational center at point when in “Drag at cursor” mode and made Z movement of SpaceMouse related to zoom in the perspective mode (PR#30615).
- WandererFan fixed incorrect B‑spline representation in another part of the TechDraw following a recent fix (PR#29648) and exposed an overlapping edge “fixer” method to Python (PR#29009).
Additional improvements and fixes were contributed by awgrover, chennes, dkleszyk, Gaurang-2005, jlewin, krissrex, Lgt2x, marioalexis84, maxwxyz, PaddleStroke, Roy-043, tmendes13, tritao, and xtemp09.
The latest weekly build was broken for Linux and macOS. The bug has been fixed, and there will likely be a rebuild soon.
Activity stats
PR stats: since the previous report, 42 pull requests have been merged, and 52 new pull requests have been opened.
Issue stats: overall, there are 3517 open issues in the tracker, up by 5 from last week.
Elsewhere in the community
Sliptonic, the CAM maintainer, posted an article on his blog that explores the growing gap between increasingly affordable multi-axis CNC machines and the software to create toolpaths for them.
4 responses to “WIP Wednesday, 19 August 2026”
@Sliptonic, excellent blog post. I noticed this issue a while back when I built the MPCNC, and later again when I bought a 3080 for PCB work. Luckily neither of those has more than 3 axis. The MPCNC could take a rotary axis, but at that point I was not thrilled by the prospect of having to figure out more than 3 axis with the available tools on my first CNC. I used bCNC and FlatCAM for PCB work on the 3080. They all work well enough, but I found myself having to move back and forth between the tools to be able to accomplish what I needed. I currently don’t have space to use my CNC tools due to apartment living, but I will eventually be in a position to pick it back up, and it’s wonderful seeing FreeCAD picking up CAM functionality. When I eventually get back into it, you can expect to see me in the forums and at the very least submitting bug reports. Thanks for your effort and hard work.
good write up. everyone is trying to push cloud-based slop, and people will swallow it. I am sure someone will take FreeCAD and bundle it and rebrand it — the same way Bambu f***ed prusa. Just a matter of time. And with GPL, you can hide it behind a cloud — and GPL no longer applies.
If the FreeCAD developers (or at least founders) cared about this it would actually be GPL or AGPL and not LGPLv2.1. But it’s not a concern for them so it is LGPL.
Have you already forgotten Ondsel so completely? They bundled and rebranded FreeCAD, and we have all reaped the benefits. They have funded many advancements and contributed to FreeCAD main. Open source doesn’t have to be viral to work.