FreeCAD Tutorial 0: The FreeCAD User Interface
Link to: CAD Main Page
Link to: Tutorial 1a (next)
Introduction
FreeCAD is a free, open-source CAD package that was under development for years; and recently it has produced a "release" version. By attracting developers from all over the design community, FreeCAD has assembled an impressive collection of features and add-ons.
Download FreeCAD
To get started, please visit the FreeCAD download site if you haven't already done so. When you click on the link it takes you to the FreeCAD download page.
Most of the FreeCAD user support is done through a Wiki. If you go to the installation instructions you will find more information on downloading and installing FreeCAD. This link also takes you to a large online user manual.
Load FreeCAD From the Desktop
Double-click on the 
FreeCAD icon (or shortcut) on the desktop. The window will show a startup dialog as shown below. Click on New File - Parametric Part to create a new part.
Workbenches and Tool Bars
FreeCAD divides up its many features into segments called "Workbenches." THey are documented in Wiki format on the FreeCAD website. In the tutorials that follow, we will be concerned only with the Part Design and Sketcher workbenches. These are analogous to the "Features" and "Sketch" tabs in SolidWorks.
The normal practice of deigning a part is to open a sketch on some plane, sketch a closed figure on the plane, and then extrude it into a third dimension.
When a particular workbench is active, no operations are possible outside it. A toolbar will be displayed characteristic of the workbench. Below is a view of the "Sketcher" toolbar.
There are no titles on the tools. This can be a little bit confusing at the start, but it saves a lot of real estate in the window. Throughout this tutorial, the icon for a tool will be displayed along with its name when it is mentioned.
FreeCAD is available on a variety of computer brands and operating systems, including Windows, MacOS, and Linux. For this tutorial, we focus on the PC interface which uses a three-button mouse.
On the PC, the LEFT mouse button is used for selection.
The MIDDLE button (actually a wheel) is used to move the part rendering around in the graphical space. The wheel functions as BOTH a button and a track-wheel, so there is a lot you can do with it.
If you spin the wheel, that causes the image to zoom in and out.
If you click down on the wheel and drag the mouse, this causes the image to pan around the window.
Rotating the image is done through the (
) orientation icon in the upper-right corner of the window. The faces of the solid are controls that deliver the orientation indicated. The arrow buttons in the margins cause the image to rotate by an increment.
