Italy
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Anyone using Freecad to design new 3d models with colors or textures?
Dears, i have a stupid question, anyone has used freecad to create new models?
I can't find a way to create new furnitures including textures and/or colors applied on surfaces. It seems the only way to export something usable by SH3D is to use obj format, which is loosing any color.
France
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Re: Anyone using Freecad to design new 3d models with colors or textures?
The colors of a 3D model at OBJ format are stored in a second MTL file. Doesn't Freecad generate such a file?
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Emmanuel Puybaret, Sweet Home 3D creator
Italy
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Re: Anyone using Freecad to design new 3d models with colors or textures?
Unfortunately not, and there is also a problem because there are no ways to group several objects making a unique furniture without having them fused (so exported as a unique element).
I will try to contribute to Freecad in order to remove some of these limits.
In the mean time I found a way to use objects created by Freecad: 1) simply export them as raw elements in obj, one by one as freecad is not able to export more than one object at a time 2) import each part of the item in SH3d 3) assign the right color/texture to each part 4) select all the items in SH3D and select the menu "Export as obj" from the 3d view 5) after that I have obtained a unique furniture made up of several parts, each one customizable after having placed it on a plan
France
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Re: Anyone using Freecad to design new 3d models with colors or textures?
Thanks for the tip, even if it must be quite painful after a while...
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Emmanuel Puybaret, Sweet Home 3D creator
Finland
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Re: Anyone using Freecad to design new 3d models with colors or textures?
Hi,
Old thread I know, but this came up by search when I was looking for tips working with FreeCAD and Sweet Home 3D, among other things.
I've noticed something useful: export to Collada (.dae) from FreeCAD. It has the benefit that all color information will be imported by Sweet Home 3D. Also, seems that with .obj everything will be multiplied by 10 when imported. That's easy to fix, but with .dae dimensions are right OOTB.
Furthermore, I've noticed that fcaponi78's point 1) is not actually true (but kind of is???). I can easily export several objects simultaneously. However, when exporting to .obj, as all color information is lost, Sweet Home 3D will treat them as one (i.e. no way to re-define colors except for one default element). Exporting as .dae has the additional benefit, that all solids will be named us such in the furniture imported, and re-defineable individually!
This can be worked around in .obj, too (if you can not export as .dae). If I insert usemtl statements (see the FAQ) in the .obj file, Sweet Home 3D will de-group accordingly and label the parts with the color you chose.
Hope this helps!
P.s. It worthwhile to note, that in Linux, you will need pycollada to enable export to Collada from FreeCAD. Not sure about other OSes, if it works OOTB or some additional python trickery / libraries need to be installed
Switzerland
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Re: Anyone using Freecad to design new 3d models with colors or textures?
FreeCAD export only one color per solid in .dae files. So if you have colored multiple surfaces of a single solid in FreeCad, this information will not be exported. But the ability to export multiple solids in one file is a true pro point for the Collada format. So thanks a lot for this hint!
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Pascal
Joined: Apr 11, 2019
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Re: Anyone using Freecad to design new 3d models with colors or textures?
I had same problem with exporting models from freecad in a way that material textures could be changed for each sub model separately.
I solved it by exporting models in "Wavefrom Obj - archive module" obj format. And manually removing all lines "d 0" from mtl file. Without deleting this line, imported model was just empty/blank.
Joined: Mar 31, 2019
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Re: Anyone using Freecad to design new 3d models with colors or textures?
In a similar situation I resorted to Blender but its not for the faint hearted I think even Blender fans and experts admit its not the easiest to use for CADCAM purposes - not a Blender expert myself - functionality and capability great but interface is not the most intuitive.
In my case I wanted to do a chop job on a free model for a block of kitchen units including sink and so on - very intricate model someone had spent hours on it - I did not want to spend 3 days re-inventing the wheel so in the end I chopped off the unwanted last 2 cabinets in the long top and bottom cabinet rows using a block as a tool in a Boolean and then healed the wounds so that the cupboards had ends again - fiddly and frustrating but essential. At least Blender tends to hold onto textures and you can re-apply them if they get lost in the modelling. I found FreeCad did not hold onto the textures and re-applying them by hand would have been tedious in the extreme.
For simple models it is indeed sometimes easiest to use your text editor and to try and understand the OBJ and MTL format but you might not wish to do this for complex models or cases where you need to position and scale textures on each face - the knowledge will still often get you out of a fix and solve something that would take ages otherwise.
