Thank you for this video. I finally figured it out, although not having narration explaining what's being done made it more difficult to understand. Both objects need to be in separate bodies because it's the bodies that move, not the objects. Select the body to be moved, right click and select Transform. The red, green and blue handles appear. Set the translation increment to the increments you want to move by. Trying to move an object 3 mm when the translation increment is 5 mm won't do anything so set the translation increment to 1 mm. Hold down the Ctrl key and left click on the arrow corresponding to the axis you want to drag the object along and move the mouse cursor while holding down the Ctrl key and the left mouse button. Holding down the Ctrl key was not obvious in the video. Moving objects is something that is done often in CAD and it shouldn't be this labor intensive. In earlier versions of FreeCAD, I could just use the Placement field in the window on the lower left. I can still enter the placement data there, but I need to do that for the body containing the object and not the object itself. It's significantly more complicated. If this was the price for fixing the topological naming problem, I'd rather have the topological naming problem! 😀 I just figured out that I can move objects and perform Boolean operations on them as in previous versions of FreeCAD, without worrying about Bodies, but I need to be in the Part workbench and not the Part Design workbench. If I want to use FreeCAD like TinkerCAD, I need to be in the Part workbench.
Thanks. I do see what you demonstrated. But I'm still having a mental block as to why FreeCAD behaves that way. There must be some simple paradigm that could be explained and then it would make sense. For example, Fusion has Components and Bodies. Components are containers for bodies. Bodies can be solids and surfaces. All bodies can be moved independently. Something like that.
In FreeCAD there is a Global and Local coordinate system. The Global does not change. Each object can have its own local coordinate system. Sometimes it seems confusing because FreeCAD can sometimes seem to misbehave from a peculiarity such as "order of multiple selections such as which item is selected first" or sometimes FreeCAD expects specific pre-existing conditions for something to work right. Often when I get stuck, I just delete what I'm doing and try it again and the problem often resolves.
@@andysly83 - When using FreeCAD two years ago, when I'd get stuck, I'd just delete what I was doing and try it again. I haven't had to do that in over a year. Now, with 1.0, we're back to that non-intuitive and seemingly non-deterministic behavior based on the order of operations hiding behind the user interface? Is this an artifact of the changes made to resolve the topological naming problem? I may need to downgrade until 1.1 or 1.2 so I can be productive again.
@@andysly83 Thank you. Another thing that is hanging me up is that FreeCAD is parametric. But there is not timeline. In Fusion, there is a timeline along the bottom from left to right. It's very clear the order of steps that have happened. And you can easily navigate back and forth through the timeline and the display updates accordingly. How does that work in FreeCAD ? Is there a timeline somewhere I am missing ? I don't think it's as simple as from top to bottom, or is it ? But then how do you traverse back and forth in the timeline. Or maybe it's that FreeCAD is parametric yes, but there's no notion of a timeline in FreeCAD, which again is something that I'm having difficulty with. There are so many great things about FreeCAD, I just with I could get through these sticking points.
I totally understand your frustration! FreeCAD is indeed parametric, but it doesn't have a timeline feature like Fusion 360. Instead, FreeCAD uses a dependency graph to manage the order of operations. Here's how it works: Dependency Graph: FreeCAD uses a tree structure to manage dependencies between objects. Each object in the tree depends on the objects above it. When you make a change to an object, all dependent objects are marked for recomputation. Recompute Button: You need to manually trigger recomputation by pressing the recompute button (or Ctrl + R) to update the model. This updates the entire chain of dependent objects. Undo/Redo: You can use the undo (Ctrl + Z) and redo (Ctrl + Shift + Z) commands to navigate through your actions, but this doesn't provide a visual timeline like Fusion 360. While it might not be as visually intuitive as a timeline, understanding the dependency graph can help you manage your workflow more effectively.
Thank you so much. Somehow I missed the whole notion of a dependency graph. You explained it well. I get it. Now I have to figure out .. given the dependency graph paradigm, can I approach design in such a way to ‘get along’ with FreeCAD and not get stuck. Fusion took awhile too but now it seems so efficient and like second nature. I almost never get stuck in a corner although it still does happen sometimes. I’m thinking in FreeCad be very aware of what is dependent on what. Minimize dependency’s if possible. Or depend on the origin or perhaps one piece of master geometry with a star like dependency graph not a long linear chain like I do in Fusion.
Thank you for this video. I finally figured it out, although not having narration explaining what's being done made it more difficult to understand. Both objects need to be in separate bodies because it's the bodies that move, not the objects. Select the body to be moved, right click and select Transform. The red, green and blue handles appear. Set the translation increment to the increments you want to move by. Trying to move an object 3 mm when the translation increment is 5 mm won't do anything so set the translation increment to 1 mm. Hold down the Ctrl key and left click on the arrow corresponding to the axis you want to drag the object along and move the mouse cursor while holding down the Ctrl key and the left mouse button. Holding down the Ctrl key was not obvious in the video.
Moving objects is something that is done often in CAD and it shouldn't be this labor intensive. In earlier versions of FreeCAD, I could just use the Placement field in the window on the lower left. I can still enter the placement data there, but I need to do that for the body containing the object and not the object itself. It's significantly more complicated. If this was the price for fixing the topological naming problem, I'd rather have the topological naming problem! 😀
I just figured out that I can move objects and perform Boolean operations on them as in previous versions of FreeCAD, without worrying about Bodies, but I need to be in the Part workbench and not the Part Design workbench. If I want to use FreeCAD like TinkerCAD, I need to be in the Part workbench.
Thanks. I do see what you demonstrated. But I'm still having a mental block as to why FreeCAD behaves that way. There must be some simple paradigm that could be explained and then it would make sense. For example, Fusion has Components and Bodies. Components are containers for bodies. Bodies can be solids and surfaces. All bodies can be moved independently. Something like that.
In FreeCAD there is a Global and Local coordinate system. The Global does not change. Each object can have its own local coordinate system. Sometimes it seems confusing because FreeCAD can sometimes seem to misbehave from a peculiarity such as "order of multiple selections such as which item is selected first" or sometimes FreeCAD expects specific pre-existing conditions for something to work right. Often when I get stuck, I just delete what I'm doing and try it again and the problem often resolves.
@@andysly83 - When using FreeCAD two years ago, when I'd get stuck, I'd just delete what I was doing and try it again. I haven't had to do that in over a year. Now, with 1.0, we're back to that non-intuitive and seemingly non-deterministic behavior based on the order of operations hiding behind the user interface? Is this an artifact of the changes made to resolve the topological naming problem? I may need to downgrade until 1.1 or 1.2 so I can be productive again.
@@andysly83 Thank you. Another thing that is hanging me up is that FreeCAD is parametric. But there is not timeline. In Fusion, there is a timeline along the bottom from left to right. It's very clear the order of steps that have happened. And you can easily navigate back and forth through the timeline and the display updates accordingly. How does that work in FreeCAD ? Is there a timeline somewhere I am missing ? I don't think it's as simple as from top to bottom, or is it ? But then how do you traverse back and forth in the timeline. Or maybe it's that FreeCAD is parametric yes, but there's no notion of a timeline in FreeCAD, which again is something that I'm having difficulty with. There are so many great things about FreeCAD, I just with I could get through these sticking points.
I totally understand your frustration! FreeCAD is indeed parametric, but it doesn't have a timeline feature like Fusion 360. Instead, FreeCAD uses a dependency graph to manage the order of operations. Here's how it works:
Dependency Graph: FreeCAD uses a tree structure to manage dependencies between objects. Each object in the tree depends on the objects above it. When you make a change to an object, all dependent objects are marked for recomputation.
Recompute Button: You need to manually trigger recomputation by pressing the recompute button (or Ctrl + R) to update the model. This updates the entire chain of dependent objects.
Undo/Redo: You can use the undo (Ctrl + Z) and redo (Ctrl + Shift + Z) commands to navigate through your actions, but this doesn't provide a visual timeline like Fusion 360.
While it might not be as visually intuitive as a timeline, understanding the dependency graph can help you manage your workflow more effectively.
Thank you so much. Somehow I missed the whole notion of a dependency graph. You explained it well. I get it. Now I have to figure out .. given the dependency graph paradigm, can I approach design in such a way to ‘get along’ with FreeCAD and not get stuck. Fusion took awhile too but now it seems so efficient and like second nature. I almost never get stuck in a corner although it still does happen sometimes. I’m thinking in FreeCad be very aware of what is dependent on what. Minimize dependency’s if possible. Or depend on the origin or perhaps one piece of master geometry with a star like dependency graph not a long linear chain like I do in Fusion.