FreeCAD-manual

An experiment at reorganizing the contents of the FreeCAD wiki in an easier, friendlier book-like manner. The manual is now hosted on the FreeCAD wiki

View the Project on GitHub yorikvanhavre/FreeCAD-manual

Import and export to other file formats

FreeCAD can import and export from/to many file formats. Here is a list of the most important ones with a short description of the available features:

Format Import Export Notes
STEP Yes Yes This is the most faithful import/export format available, since it supports solid geometry and NURBS. It is widely used in the engineering world. Use it whenever possible.
IGES Yes Yes An older solid-based format, also very well supported. Some older applications don’t support STEP but still do IGES.
BREP Yes Yes The native format of OpenCasCade, FreeCAD’s geometry kernel. This format allows 100% compatibility with other OpenCasCade-based applications
IFC Yes Yes Industry Foundation Classes, the standard format for BIM models. Requires the installation of IfcOpenShell. FreeCAD has excellent compatibility with that format, both at import and export.
SVG Yes Yes An excellent, widespread 2D graphics format. Mostly used as an output format by the TechDraw workbench, but FreeCAD can also directly import SVG files and let you use their elements in your models
DXF Yes Yes An open format maintained by Autodesk. Since the 3D data inside a DXF file is encoded in a proprietary format, FreeCAD can at the moment only import/export 2D data to/from this format.
DWG Yes Yes A proprietary file format. Requires the installation of the Teigha File Converter utility. This format suffers from the same proprietary limitations as DXF.
OBJ Yes Yes A mesh-based format (can only contain triangle- or polygon-based meshes). All solid and NURBS-based objects of FreeCAD will then be converted to mesh on export. An alternative exporter is provided by the Arch workbench, more suited to the export of architectural models.
DAE Yes Yes Also called Collada. Can only contain meshes. All solid and NURBS-based objects of FreeCAD will be converted to mesh on export.
STL Yes Yes Another mesh-based format, commonly used for 3D printing. Can only contain triangulated meshes. All solid and NURBS-based objects of FreeCAD will be converted to mesh on export.
PLY Yes Yes An older mesh-based format. Can only contain triangulated meshes. All solid and NURBS-based objects of FreeCAD will be converted to mesh on export.
VRML Yes Yes A rather old mesh-based web format.
GCODE Yes Yes FreeCAD can import and export to/from several flavors of GCode, (aka RS-274) but only a small number of machines are supported at the moment.
CSG Yes No OpenSCAD’s CSG (Constructive Solid Geometry) format.

FreeCAD supports many more file formats. Menu File → Import and File → Export dialogs will show you all the available options.

Some of these file formats have options. These can be configured from menu Edit → Preferences → Import/export: Import/export preferences

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