How to make a nice drawing for BOLTS
Prerequisites
You need to have installed FreeCAD and BOLTS for FreeCAD and the free Vector Graphics Editor Inkscape.
If the part for which you want to create the drawing is not in BOLTS for FreeCAD, you also need OpenSCAD and BOLTS for OpenSCAD.
Follow this guide and contribute
There is a list of classes for which no drawing is available. You are invited to pick one, follow this guide and contribute the result.
Scope
The main purpose of drawings in BOLTS is to give a quick visual explanation of the meaning of the parameters of the class. It is not a full-fledged technical drawing, whose purpose is to provide all the information necessary to produce the part. Nevertheless we borrow some conventions and techniques from technical drawings.
Loading a part
Depending on whether the part for your drawing is available in BOLTS for FreeCAD or BOLTS for OpenSCAD, the first steps of this process differ.
It is a bit easier to work with parts from BOLTS for FreeCAD, because the drawing is mostly created in FreeCAD.
If your part is available in BOLTS for FreeCAD, you have to start with the next step.
If your part is only in BOLTS for OpenSCAD, you have to skip the next step and continue at "Loading a part from BOLTS for OpenSCAD".
Loading a part from BOLTS for FreeCAD
You can skip this step if you want to create a drawing for a part that is only in BOLTS for OpenSCAD.
Start FreeCAD. Add a part of the class for which you want to create the drawing, as described here. The value of the parameters does not matter too much, the default values will be usually fine.
Exporting a part from BOLTS for OpenSCAD
You can skip this step if you have executed the previous step.
FreeCAD has the ability to load a part from a CSG file created by OpenSCAD. To create such a file, fire up OpenSCAD, and type in the following short piece of code
include <BOLTS.scad>
ISO7089();
The first line includes the BOLTS library. The second line creates a part, in this case a washer.
If you hit F5, or select Design->Compile, the part should appear in the preview window. You can now export the part to a CSG file by choosing Design->Export as CSG....
Save the file to some place where you can find it again, it is only temporary and you can remove it afterwards.
You can close OpenSCAD now.
Loading a CSG file into FreeCAD
Start FreeCAD. Then select File->Open and select the CSG file that you created in the previous step.
The part should now be visible in the preview window.
Create a drawing
You should now have a document with the part for which you want to create the drawing, and this should be the active object in this document (the one shown in boldface letters in the combo view).
Now we can use the python console in FreeCAD to create a drawing:
import BOLTS
obj = FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.ActiveObject
BOLTS.make_drawing(4.5,obj)
The first line starts BOLTS for FreeCAD (see also here, the second one creates a variable containing the part and the third line calls a helper function from the BOLTS module.
This helper function has two parameters, a scaling factor and the object, and it creates a new drawing from the BOLTS template and inserts various views on the object.
Now an additional object should have vanished in the combo view, a page.
You can open it in a new drawing viewer by double clicking on it. There will be nothing visible, because the drawing needs to be recomputed, which you can do by pressing the keys Ctrl-r.
Now you should see a page with the BOLTS logo in the lower right corner, and different views on the object. If the scaling factor that you used was too big or too small, you notice now. It is good to have a bit of space between the different views to add dimensions, but the part should be not too tiny.
If the scaling factor was not good, you can close the Drawing Viewer, delete the Page Object from the Combo View and type the last line again, with an adjusted scaling factor.
When you are happy with the drawing, change to the Drawing Workbench, make sure the page object is selected in the Combo View and then choose Drawing->Export Page (or use the button in the Drawing toolbar).
Save it somewhere where you can find it again.
Post processing in Inkscape
Now we need to add dimensions to the drawing, this is best done in Inkscape. Open the svg file from the previous step in Inkscape.
In the case of the washer, there are three dimensions: the inner and outer diameters and the thickness.
Now it is convenient to add a few guidelines by left-clicking on the rulers at the sides and dragging into the picture. Depending on where you click you can get horizontal (top), vertical (left) and diagonal (corner) guidelines.
The guidelines are added in such way that they are convenient for the dimensions. The image below shows a possible choice: The inner diameter will be indicated on the left side of the front view, the outer below. The thickness will be indicated on the left side view.
Select the bezier line tool (Shift-F6 or the corresponding icon). Then click on one of the guidelines, press Ctrl to lock in the angle to vertical or horizontal and then click on the other guideline. The cursor should snap to the guideline. Now finish the path by pressing Enter. Repeat for all dimensions.
To convert these lines into nice dimensions open the fill and stroke dialog using Object->Fill and Stroke and select the Stroke Style tab. Change to the selection cursor (arrow icon in the toolbar), select one of your lines and do the following three things:
- Change the width to 0.4 px
- For Start Markers select DistanceStart
- For End Markers select DistanceEnd
If the Markers go in the wrong direction (away from the object), choose Object->Flip Horizontal or Object->Flip Vertical, depending on the orientation of your dimension.
If the dimension is very small (like the thickness of the washer), put DistanceEnd as Start Marker and DistanceStart as End Marker.
Repeat for all lines.
Then choose the text tool in the toolbar on the left and add the dimension names. You can look them up on the Specification page by following the source url or by checking the blt file.
In the case of the washer we have inner diameter d1, outer diameter d2 and thickness s.
Now remove the guidelines by hovering over them until they change color and then pressing delete.
Filenames and PNG export
Now we can save-as the svg to its final destination. The filename is arbitrary in principle, but follows a few conventions:
- The drawing goes in the drawings directory, in a subfolder named like the id of the collection to which the part belongs. If the same drawing can be used for parts from different collections, save the same file multiple times.
- If the drawing applies to more than one class, then the filename should follow the (function/file/module) name of the base. This can be looked up in the base files. Be careful that also the parameter names have to be the same across all classes.
- Otherwise the filename should follow the class id, which can be looked up on the specification page.
For the washer, the collection id is washer, and the drawing applies to
multiple classes of the collection, so we choose the name of the base, which is
washer1.
So the filename for the svg file is drawings/washer/washer1.svg.
We also want a png version of the drawing, so we choose File->Export Bitmap,
select Page for the export area and set the resolution to 300dpi. The filename
is the same as the one for the svg, just with extension .png. Clicking on
export exports the file, but does not close the dialog, which must be closed
manually.
Now we are done and can close Inkscape again.
update the base file
The last step is to tell BOLTS about the drawing in the base file of the drawing directory by adding an entry of the form:
- filename: washer1
author: Johannes Reinhardt <jreinhardt@ist-dein-freund.de>
license: CC0 1.0 <http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/>
type: drawing-dimensions
source: own work
classids: [plainwasher1, plainwasher2, plainwasherforcheesehead, heavydutyplainwasher]
where classids is a list of classes that are covered by this drawing. The filename is relative to the subdirectory of the collection and given without extension to cover both svg and png versions. The type field distinguishes drawings that explain the parameters and dimensions of a part from other images that e.g. show the location of connectors