Once you have installed the module and started FreeCAD, you should see a CadQuery entry in the Workbenches pull down list.
After selecting the CadQuery workbench, a CadQuery menu will appear in the menu bar.
The menu items are as follows, and many of them have associated shortcut keys listed.
- Clear Output (Alt+Shift+C) - Clears all output from the Report View. This comes in handy during a heavy script debugging session.
- Help - Opens a help dialog with version information and documentation links.
Selecting the CadQuery workbench does one additional thing that makes CadQuery usable in FreeCAD. It temporarily (not preserved between restarts) adds a method called show to the Python globals. This allows FreeCAD's built-in Macro Editor to display and update CadQuery models by calling show and passing it a CadQuery Workplane object. This workbench does not yet support CadQuery Assembly objects.
First open the Macro Editor by clicking Macro->Macros... in the menu bar. Doing so will oepn the Execute macro dialog box. You can then click the Create button and give your script a name. CadQuery files typically end in .py, so it is best to use that rather than the .FCMacro extension.
Clicking the OK button will create the macro/script and open it in a document tab.
As a start, you can enter the following script in the macro document tab.
from CadQuery import Workplane , show
# Create the model that we want to display
box = Workplane().box(10, 10, 5)
# You can output a message to FreeCAD's Report view
print("I want to display something in the Report view")
# You can set a custom name for for the part object in FreeCAD's model tree
box.val().label = "My_Box"
# Display the object in a new document tab
show(box)Save the macro (Ctrl+S) and then click the green Execute macro button (Ctrl+F6).
The model should be displayed in a new document tab, and any subsequent executions after change the script should cause the model to update, assuming that you do not change the label name.
NOTE: The first model execution after opening FreeCAD will likely be a little slow because CadQuery and all of its dependencies have to be loaded. However, after the first execution, model updates should be displayed more quickly.
An options parameter is used with the show method which allows the color and alpha (transparency) of the model to be changed. Below is a code example.
show(box, options={"color": (64, 164, 223), "alpha": 0.8})Notice that these options follow the pattern used in CQ-editor, which is done to ensure compatibility across CadQuery environments, but may not follow FreeCAD standards for color and transparency.
This feature is not currently implemented, but is planned for the future.
- Found a bug while using this workbench? You can open an issue here
- Need help using this workbench? Join the CadQuery Google Group and ask your question there. Alternatively, you can join CadQuery's Discord community and ask your question in the
#other-guischannel.