It’s possibly one of the longest gestation periods in computing history, but after more than two decades of development, FreeCAD 1.0 finally gets its first official, stable release.
The open-source tool for product designers and mechanical engineers has long been used in production despite its lack of official release status, but the resolution of two outstanding issues cleared the way for it to officially reach the 1.0 milestone, complete with brand new logo.
Image credit: Libre Arts
FreeCAD 1.0 opens with a new built-in Assembly Workbench, which utilises the open-source Ondsel solver and was ported across from what the developers describe as "the other FreeCAD", another tool with a similar name (freeCAD). It supports a bottom-up design approach – once the motion of an assembly has been tested, users can then create exploded views of various components.
The release also resolves a long-standing topological naming problem that means users can safely delete geometry without the risk of breaking their model because of references from another part. Sadly, one of chief architects involved in fixing the problem, Bradley McLean (bgbsww), passed away a few weeks before the milestone release. Consequently, FreeCAD 1.0 has been dedicated to his memory.
Image credit: Libre Arts
The new release also includes other tweaks and improvements. The Sketcher gains significant new tools, including Scale, Offset, Move and Rotate. The user interface gains a new rotation centre indicator, which appears when users drag objects using the mouse. The feature can be disabled and its colour, transparency and size also customised.
Elsewhere, the Tasks pane becomes a new floating widget, which can be docked on top of the Combo view to preserve previous the compact layout from previous versions of the software.
A full set of highlights can be found in the program’s detailed release notes, including a new QTWidgets-based Start page and numerous renamed and retooled workbenches.
FreeCAD 1.0 is available now as a free open-source download for Windows, macOS and Linux.
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