COMPUTER-AIDED

DRAFTING
LABORATORY
A Laboratory Manual
on FreeCAD 0.19

Compiled by:
Kresil Joy P. Jimenez
MSU-IIT
LABORATORY 2
ORTHOGRAPHIC PROJECTION
INTERPRETATION
This tutorial introduces the new user to some of the tools and techniques used in the Part
Design Workbench. This tutorial is not a complete and comprehensive guide to the Part
Design Workbench and many of the tools and capabilities are not covered. This tutorial
will take user through the steps needed to model the part shown in the image below using
sketches.

Before You Begin

The Task
In this tutorial, you will be using the Part Design Workbench to create a 3D solid model of
the part shown in the Drawing below. All of the necessary dimensions to complete this
task are given. You will start by creating a core shape from a base Sketch and then build
on that shape, adding what is known as Features. These features will either add material
to, or remove material from the solid by use of additional sketches and accompanying
feature operations. This Tutorial will not use every feature and tool available within the
Part Design Workbench, but should use enough to give the user of this tutorial a basic
foundation upon which to build their knowledge and skills.
The Part

Constructing The Part

Startup
First begin by making sure you are in the Part Design Workbench. Once there, you will
want to create a new document if you have not done so already. It is a good habit to save
your work often, so before anything else save the new document, giving it any name you
might like.
All work in Part Design begins with a Body. Then we will build the solid inside the body
by starting with a sketch.

1. Click on Create new body to create and activate a new Body

Container. Note: this step can be omitted. When creating a sketch, if no
existing Body is found, a new one will be automatically created and
activated.

2. Click on Create new sketch. This will create the sketch within the just
created body.
 3. We need to define where the sketch will be attached. We will attach it to a
plane from the Body´s Origin.
4. In the Tasks tab from the Combo view, select YZ_Plane in the list and
press OK:

Note: it's possible that the OK button may not be visible if the side panel is not wide
enough. You can make it wider by dragging its right border. Place your mouse pointer
over the border; when the pointer changes to a two-way arrow, press and hold the left
mouse button and drag.
Once you click OK, FreeCAD automatically switches to the Sketcher workbench and
opens the sketch in editing mode:
Create the sketch

Next you will want to use the Polyline tool and make a shape roughly like that in the
next image. It does not need to be perfect as the final shape is done with constraints.
Once you have the basic shape, we will start applying the constraints. If you had Auto
constraints on, some of these constraints will have been applied automatically, if not, do
the following. But first make sure that you have exited the polyline tool by right-clicking or
pressing ESC twice; the mouse cursor should turn back from a cross-hair to the standard
arrow cursor. (Don't press ESC a third time or you will exit the sketch editing mode; if this
happens, click on the Model tab, then double-click the Sketch element in the tree, or right-
click and select Edit sketch in the contextual menu.)

1. Select the two horizontal lines with your mouse by clicking on them, and
once selected, click on the horizontal constraint.
2. Select the vertical line on the right and then click on the vertical constraint.
3. Select the start and end points of your polyline and click on
the coincident constraint to close the polyline.
4. Select the bottom horizontal line and the right vertical line and apply
and equal constraint.
5. Select either the horizontal or vertical line and apply either a
corresponding horizontal or vertical distance constraint and give it
a value of 26 mm.
6. Select the top horizontal line and apply the horizontal distance constraint
and give it a value of 5 mm
7. Select the lower right point (vertex) of the horizontal line Origin and then
the center point of the grid and apply the coincidence constraint to fix
your shape.
At this point you should have a fully constrained sketch as indicated by it changing color
and the message shown in the Combo View. It should now look just like the image below.
Now in the Combo View, click on the Close button to leave the sketch edit mode and
select Pad from the toolbar or from the Part Design menu. This will give you a Pad
dialog in the Combo View. Using that dialog, first using the Type pulldown menu, select
Two dimensions. Drawing presented at the beginning of this tutorial says the part is 53
mm long. We do it by Padding our sketch both ways from the center plane to make up
that distance i.e. make the pad symmetric in relation of sketch-plane. The reason for is
seen later when creating features. For now, given we want it to be 53 mm long in total we
will input 26.5 for Length, and 26.5 again for the Second length. Alternatively, you can
provide a single length of 53 mm and click the Symmetric to plane check box. Once that
is done we now have our base solid upon which we will add additional features to
construct our part.

Features with pocket and external geometry

Using the mouse or the view icons turn the model around so you can see its back. Once
the back of the part is visible, select the back face by clicking on it as seen in the next
image.
After the face is selected, click on the New sketch icon in the toolbar or from the Part
Design menu and that will map our next sketch to the back face of the part. Now
select rectangle tool and place a rectangle on the rear face of the part in a similar
fashion as shown below. Now following the steps listed, constrain the sketch.

1. Select one of the horizontal lines apply a horizontal distance constraint and
a value of 5 mm.
2. Select one of the vertical lines and give it a vertical distance constraint and
a value of 11 mm.

3. Select External geometry tool

4. Select the upper right vertex of the face and click it so you are provided a
point from the external geometry to link our sketch to.
5. Right click to end the External geometry mode
6. Select that point you just made available with the External geometry tool
and then select the upper right vertex of the rectangle and click on the
coincident constraint. At this point the sketch should be fully constrained
and look like the next image.
Once that is done, click the Close button at the top of the Tasks tab in the Combo View
window, then select Pocket tool from the toolbar or Part Design menu. Using this
tool is the opposite of the Pad tool. As the Pad tool adds material to the part, the Pocket
tool removes material from the part. Both operations are called features. In this Pocket
operation we want to select Through all from the type pulldown-menu and then click the
OK button.
For the next operation, make sure that “Pocket” is selected in the Model tree view and

once done, click on the Mirror feature on the toolbar or from the Part Design menu.
In the Mirror dialog in the Combo View, select Horizontal sketch axis from the Plane
pulldown menu. Then click OK. The Mirror feature works in this way because the base
feature of our model was Padded both ways from the horizontal plane in the first operation
with the base sketch.

If all has gone well, you should now have a part that looks like the image below after you
orbit it around to the front.
Features with pad and external geometry
After taking a look, orbit back around and once again select the back face of the part and
select that face to map the next sketch to.

Select New sketch and make a new rectangle in the manner similar to what is shown
below in the next image. Then proceed to add dimensional constraints to the rectangle.

1. Select a horizontal line and apply a horizontal distance constraint with a

value of 16.7.
2. Select a vertical line and apply a vertical distance constraint of 7 mm
3. Using the External geometry tool, select the upper left vertex of the part
face.
Now selecting the upper left vertex of the rectangle and the external geometry point, click
on the coincident constraint to fully constrain the sketch.
Close the Sketcher.
Next we will click on the Pad feature and in the Pad dialog in the Combo View we want a
length of 26 mm leaving the type as Dimension and then placing a check on the Reversed
checkbox. Using the Reversed checkbox will cause the Pad to go into the part instead of
away from the part. This operation provides with the following result.

Once again use the Mirror feature to get the second pad. First ensure that created Pad is
selected in the tree view, then click on Mirror in the toolbar or select it from the Part Design
menu. We will repeat the operation we did for Pocket above and select Horizontal sketch
axis from the Plane pulldown menu.
Feature with pocket and external geometry
At this point orbiting the part around to the front, we can see that our part is now starting
to look like the part in the dimensioned drawing at the beginning of this tutorial. Once you
have the view of the front, click on the sloped face with your mouse to select the face we
will use for the next sketch.

Here we will use the rectangle tool and place a rectangle in our sketch and once having
done so, apply the following constraints.

1. Select a horizontal line and a vertical line, and after both are selected, click
on the Equals constraint.
2. Select either a horizontal or vertical line and apply a corresponding
horizontal or vertical distance constraint with a value of 17 mm
3. Using the External geometry tool, select the top right vertex as shown in
the image below.
Now using the dimensions from the drawing, apply the following constraints.
1. Select the external geometry point and the upper right vertex of the now square
sketch and apply a horizontal distance constraint of 7 mm
2. Select the external geometry point and the upper right vertex of the now square
sketch and apply a vertical distance constraint of 11 mm
The result should be as follows.
At this point if we were to simply Pocket this sketch, the resulting hole would be
perpendicular to the sloped face that it is mapped to, and this is not what we want.

We want the hole to be perpendicular to the back face, but it's projected dimensions are
not the 17 mm x 17 mm dimensions that are given in the drawing. Now we could do the
math and calculate the dimensions needed, or we can use the tools provided in FreeCAD
to make that projection for us.

To create pocket which has the sloped rectangle as it´s outlet, we draw a new rectangle
on the rear side, using the projection of the sloped rectangle as an external reference.
Orbit the Solid around to see the rear face of the part once again and select the back face
to map the final sketch to.
Select New Sketch from the toolbar or Part Design menu. Now in sketch edit mode,
we do not see the sketched rectangle on the slope. To make it selectable , we switch the
combo view to model tab and select the last sketch made (Sketch003) on the sloped
plane. Then using the spacebar, make it visible. Next, select the mirror feature above
(mirrored001) and again using the spacebar, hide it. Then you should see the sloped
rectangle inside the 3D View. You may continue to work with the model tab visible, or
switch back to tasks tab. Using the External geometry tool, select the upper and
lower horizontal edges of the sloped rectangle. Then, add a new rectangle to the sketch
using the rectangle tool.

1. Select the upper left vertex of the new rectangle and the upper left point of
the external geometry and click on the coincident constraint.
2. Click on the lower right vertex of the new rectangle and the lower right point
of the external geometry and click on the coincident constraint.
And we should end up with this.

For the final step in this tutorial, close the sketcher window using close or finish editing
from the context menu of sketch004 and then select the Pocket feature from the
toolbar or from the Part Design menu. From the Type pulldown select Through all and
click the OK button.

At this point, you will see some lines which come from intersecting features. In this case
the side block intersects with the base profile letting it appear as a triangular block above
the profile (i.e., there is an extra line visible in the above picture on the right face of the
model). To remove these lines, you can either switch on "refine shape" in your Part Design
Settings or, to save some processing speed and still have these lines while constructing,
individually switch it on at each feature. The Setting on feature level can be done in the
"data" tab of the feature. Set the refine property to TRUE for the pocket feature
Pocket001 to invoke refining.

This tutorial and your model are complete.