SimpleCAD

FreeCAD made simple. Sketch → solid with one big button, then ask: will it break? how does the water flow? does it fit together?

v0.12.0 · tested in FreeCAD 1.1.4

View on GitHub Releases SimpleCAD in FreeCAD on a 1366 pixel wide laptop screen: the control deck and one row of tools

One big button

Sketch, finish sketch and confirm a tool, all on one button (Ctrl+Enter).

Only what you use

Everyday Part Design and Sketcher tools; everything else is one menu away.

See what's active

Rainbow faces, a swirl on the selected face and an ACTIVE badge.

Trackpad navigation

Two-finger pan, orbit around screen centre, pinch to zoom.

Luminous mode

High-contrast view for long sessions.

Whole solids

New body, Duplicate, Move, Combine, Subtract, Intersect, with plain-English refusals.

Sketch on a solid

Its edges come into the sketch by themselves, so lines snap to them.

Safe

Hides toolbars, never your model; a restart restores everything.

Three step-by-step simulations in the same pack

SimpleStress

Will my part break? Tap a material (PLA, PETG, steel, oak...), say which way up it was printed, bolt parts together with virtual M3-M6 bolts, glue a face, click where it gets pushed (in N, kg or lb), press RUN. STRONG / RISKY / WILL BREAK, with the stress in colour.

SimpleFlow

How does air or water move? A wind tunnel round the part, or water through a hole in it: click the rims, say IN or OUT, and the water inside is worked out for you. One RUN button builds the case, meshes it and runs OpenFOAM, with a STOP button.

SimpleSnap

Put it together. Like Lego: click a peg, pick the hole that fits, STUCK / SPINS / SLIDES, SNAP IT.
SimpleStress result: a beam coloured by stress from blue to red, glued at one end, with a red sparkling spot where it is pushed SimpleFlow: a block with a drilled hole, blue disc on the inlet and orange disc on the outlet

Install

  1. Install FreeCAD 1.0 or newer, start it once, close it.
  2. Download and unzip, then double-click SimpleCAD-Linux.sh, SimpleCAD-Windows.bat or SimpleCAD-Mac.command.
  3. Tick what you want, press INSTALL, START FREECAD, then CHECK. Green means FreeCAD really loaded it.
  4. Pick SimpleCAD, SimpleStress, SimpleFlow or SimpleSnap from FreeCAD's workbench list.

Or clone the repository into Mod as SimpleCAD, or use Addon Manager → Preferences → Custom repositories with the repository URL above. Full steps and troubleshooting are in the README.

SimpleFlow also needs the CfdOF add-on and OpenFOAM; its solve step, Windows and Mac are not tested yet (see RESEARCH.md). A quick stress check is not a substitute for an engineer.

Rainbow swirl on the selected face