FCB Lounge Blog

Open CAD Studio development does not seem to be slowing down. During the past month, several important features were added and many bugs were fixed. Thanks to the weekly release schedule,  Open CAD Studio  moves forward very fast. Some of the new features introduced last month include: First implementation of DGN support added. First implementation of DWF support added. Moved parametric modeling tools to independent ribbon tab. These tools enable users to constrain the geometry to create parametric models. New external reference attachment dialogue. This enables complex setup of XREF during the first insertion. New PDF attach dialogue, with all the needed import options setup. PDF is now imported as a vector geometry and enables snapping and turning PDF layers on and off. New XCLIP tool for clipping external references, PDF and raster image attachments. Introduction of the table tool. Basic node based graph added. This is a tool similar to Dynamo in Revit. Improvements to the...

It is September 2026 and FCB Lounge channel has released another of its world renowned FreeCAD BIM courses . This time the course covers creation of a small interior design project, a modern bedroom.  The course provides more than 3 hours of content. Attendees will learn how to create a 3D model of a room, create custom furniture from scratch and use furniture from the FreeCAD BIM Library . A big part of the course is dedicated to creation of 2D deliverables - sheets with a floor plan and elevations, which include all the necessary annotation. Attendees will learn how to export sheets to PDF for print and also how to export the 3D model to IFC file format for data exchange. The course is divided into 11 lessons: 1. Introduction to the course 2. Setup of FreeCAD for working on a BIM project 3. Modelling the room including walls, floor, ceiling, french window and doors 4. Creation of custom furniture from scratch 5. Using furniture from the FreeCAD BIM Library to equip the room 6. C...

You may have heard that Yorik van Havre, the maintainer and creator of the FreeCAD BIM Workbench , has stepped down from maintaining FreeCAD. This is huge news as Yorik has been part of the FreeCAD development team since 2008. You may read the reasons behind his departure in his statement , the main reason being the new AI policies of the FreeCAD project. Even though Yorik is not burning bridges behind him and stated that he will still be active in the community, it is clear that this marks a milestone in FreeCAD BIM development. So what will FreeCAD BIM future look like after the departure of the founder? First, let's take a look at the history. Yorik is an architect, so he mostly worked on features that enable using FreeCAD in the AEC industry. This included the creation of the Draft Workbench , which is mostly used as a drafting tool. He later started with the development of the Arch Workbench, which aimed to be a solution for creating 3D architectural models. During the release...

As Open CAD Studio is slowly maturing, the release schedule will change to one release per week, with Sunday as the designated release date. Version numbering is changing too, now it starts with year and is followed by the week number, so this week's version has 2026.36 number. Users are informed about the release of a new version by popup in the application. New releases can be downloaded from Open CAD Studio GitHub release page . As you can see from the release schedule, the application is still under heavy development, but the schedule means new releases will not rain down on users unexpectedly. New Open CAD Studio logo Open CAD Studio also got updated branding featuring a new logo (depicted above). The logo was selected from over ten community proposals in the new logo competition. This is accompanied by new landing page . Additionally, a  Reddit group has been established to provide Open CAD Studio users with a place for discussions. A very positive development is regis...

FreeCAD North America 2026 Meetup was held in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA on August 7-9. This yearly gathering brings developers, users, translators and other members of the community together to meet and discuss FreeCAD and related topics. It is a rare chance for active members of the community to meet face to face, as they are mostly spread around the world and thus communication is mainly online. Three presentation from the meeting have been released on Youtube, you can watch them here. FreeCAD 26.3: What's New by Chris Hennes This is probably the most interesting presentation for wide audiences of the three, as it covers some of the most interesting new features, that will be in the next FreeCAD 26.3 release, which should be hopefully out before the end of 2026. Chris Hennes is one of the lead people of the project and his energetic presentation made all who were listening excited for the new release. Chris also explained, why the new version number is 26.3 and how the new vers...

FCB Lounge has created a free video course for those who are interested in utilizing FreeCAD to create complex 2D drawings: The FreeCAD Draft Intermediate Course . This course covers the basics and intermediate workflows in FreeCAD Draft workbench. The course will guide attendees through the creation of a floor plan of a building from the first line to creation of sheets and export to PDF. After completing the course, users will be able to create an architectural floor plan drawing with appropriate line thickness, line styles, hatch patterns, annotations, room schedule, and all of this will be placed on a sheet with a title block. Users will handle selection of objects, working with layers, setup for print and other important skills needed to use FreeCAD as a drafting software. The final result of the course: floor plan drawing of a garage building The course is divided into 9 video parts: The first part is the introduction to the course with basic information about it. The second part...