As a complete Newbie,I have just laboured through the Dr Vax youtube “basics” and completed the drawing but then tried to start a new file, I managed to get to “Body” and I get a blank screen with the coordinates X, Y, Z in the bottom right hand corner of the screen and the view block in the top right hand corner. All of the tool bars are greyed out when I select “part design” workbench, also no drawing tools available not even greyed out. When I select " sketcher" the drawing tools are there but greyed out along with constraints etc. Then nothing more is possible! What am I doing incorrectly? It is so easy when Dr Vax shows the procedure!!!
Did you see the getting started video DrVax made? He showed how to setup FreeCAD, so it looks like in his videos.
You cannot use sketcher alone. Sketcher requires the part design (an other) workbench to sit on. If you see just the 3d view, go to the menu and under “view” (if my back translation is correct) at the bottom there should be “combo view” hidden in a “panel” sub menu. Make sure that is enabled. Now on the left hand side the control panel should appear. Same goes for the icon tool bar. FreeCAD is highly customizable. I just wonder why everything is missing on your installation as by default you can work with it right away.
Thanks for your response. “combo view” is enabled. I do not see control panel to the left only Model and Tasks. If I click on start above the Combo View I get what must be the control panel, listing arch , drg etc then I can commence drawing. Thank you great help.
Further question, how do you make two lines coincident? For example I find that when I draw a line on the x, y or z axis they are not necessarily exactly on the axis1 Is there some way of making them coincident?
Beside the red “draw” icons, there is another panel with set of red icons. Those are the constrains. There is one dot and two line icons at first. one horizontal and one vertical. If you select a line and then click on those icons you set a constrain in that orientation. The other icons are for parallel, equal, h and v dimensions, radius, diameter and so on.