The drawing tools are used to create and modify entities such as lines, circles, etc. in a drawing. Commands can be selected from the menu, toolbars or entered via the command line. Right-click anywhere in the drawing window to display a popup menu showing the history of commands launched from the menus or the toolbars with the latest command being on top of the list. Note that the command line input is not shown.
As for LibreCAD, a lot of work has gone into making various internal adjustments. The team made some important geometry improvements and added the anticipated advanced snapping. Unfortunately there are some issues as well. Judging by reports from users, LibreCAD has a problem working with large files, while QCAD handles them rather well.
Several drawing tools require additional parameters and will provide prompts on the Tool Options toolbar. This toolbar should always be enabled. If the tool options do not appear, from the menu select Widgets -> Toolbar -> and enable Tool Options. If using the command line, the same tool options are available via the toolbar or the command line. The tools that have options are shown in the table below.
Line¶
Tool | Icon | Command | Description |
---|---|---|---|
2 points | l, li, line | ||
Angle |
| ||
Horizontal | hor, horizontal |
| |
Vertical | ver, vertical |
| |
Rectangle | rec, rect, rectangle |
| |
Parallel through point | pp, ptp |
| |
Parallel | o, pa, offset, parallel |
| |
Bisector | bi, bisect |
| |
Tangent (P,C) | tanpc, tangentpc |
| |
Tangent (C,C) | |||
Tangent Orthogonal |
| ||
Orthogonal | ortho, perp |
| |
Relative Angle |
| ||
Polygon (Cen,Cor) | pl, polyline |
| |
Polygon (Cen,Tan) |
| ||
Polygon (Cor,Cor) | poly2, polygon2v |
|
Circle¶
Tool | Icon | Command | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Centre, Point | ci, circle |
| |
2 Points | c2, circle2 |
| |
2 Points, Radius |
| ||
3 Points | c3, circle3 |
| |
Centre, Radius |
| ||
Tangential, 2 Circles, 1 Point |
| ||
Tangential, 2 Points |
| ||
Tangential, 2 Circles, Radius |
| ||
Tangential, 3 Circles | ct3, tan3 |
|
Curve¶
Tool | Icon | Command | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Center, Point, Angles |
| ||
3 Points | a, ar, arc |
| |
Arc Tangential |
| ||
Spline | spl, spline |
| |
Spline through points | stp, spline2 |
| |
Ellipse Arc (Axis) | |||
Freehand Line | fhl, free |
Ellipse¶
Tool | Icon | Command | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Ellipse (Axis) |
| ||
Ellipse Foci Point |
| ||
Ellipse 4 Point |
| ||
Ellipse Center and 3 Points |
| ||
Ellipse Inscribed | ei, ie |
|
Polyline¶
Tool | Icon | Command | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Polyline | pl, polyline |
| |
Add node |
| ||
Append node |
| ||
Delete node | |||
Delete between two nodes |
| ||
Trim segments |
| ||
Create Equidistant Polylines |
| ||
Create Polyline from Existing Segments |
|
Select¶
Tool | Icon | Command | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Deselect all | tn |
| |
Select All | sa |
| |
Select Entity |
| ||
(De-)Select Contour |
| ||
Select Window |
| ||
Deselect Window |
| ||
Select Intersected Entities |
| ||
Deselect Intersected Entities |
| ||
(De-)Select Layer |
| ||
Invert Selection |
|
Dimension¶
Tool | Icon | Command | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Aligned | da |
| |
Linear | dr |
| |
Horizontal | dh |
| |
Vertical | dv |
| |
Radial | dimradial |
| |
Diametric | dimdiameter |
| |
Angular | dimangular |
| |
Leader | ld |
|
Modify¶
Tool | Icon | Command | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Order |
| ||
Move / Copy | mv |
| |
Rotate | ro |
| |
Scale | sz |
| |
Mirror | mi |
| |
Move and Rotate |
| ||
Rotate Two |
| ||
Revert direction | revert |
| |
Trim | tm, trim |
| |
Trim Two | t2, tm2 |
| |
Lengthen | le |
| |
Offset | o, pa, offset, parallel |
| |
Bevel | ch, bevel |
| |
Fillet | fi, fillet |
| |
Divide | di, div, cut |
| |
Stretch | ss |
| |
Properties | mp, prop |
| |
Attributes | ma, attr |
| |
Explode Text into Letters |
| ||
Explode | xp |
| |
Delete selected | [Del], er |
Info¶
Tool | Icon | Command | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Distance Point to Point | dpp, dist |
| |
Distance Entity to Point |
| ||
Angle between two lines | ang, angle |
| |
Total length of selected entities |
| ||
Polygonal Area | ar, area |
|
Others¶
Tool | Icon | Command | Description |
---|---|---|---|
MText | mtxt, mtext |
| |
Text | txt, text |
| |
Hatch | ha, hatch |
| |
Points | po, point |
Developer(s) | LibreCAD community |
---|---|
Initial release | 15December 2011;8 years ago |
Stable release | 2.1.3 / 23September 2016;3 years ago |
Preview release | 2.2.0 Release Candidate / February16, 2018;22 months ago |
Repository | |
Written in | C++ |
Operating system | Windows, macOS, Unix-like |
Type | Computer-aided design |
License | GPLv2 |
Website | librecad.org |
LibreCAD is a freecomputer-aided design (CAD) application for 2D design. It works on Linux, macOS, Unix and Windows operating systems.[1][2]
Contents
LibreCAD was developed as a fork of QCad Community Edition. The GUI of LibreCAD is based on Qt5 libraries, so it runs on several platforms in the same way.[3][4]
Most of the interface and handle concepts are analogous to AutoCAD, making it easier to use for users with experience of this type of commercial CAD application.
LibreCAD uses the AutoCAD DXF file format internally for import and save files, as well as allowing export to many other file formats.
GPLv3 vs GPLv2 controversy
As the GNU LibreDWG library is released under GPLv3 it can't be used by GPLv2 licensed LibreCAD (and FreeCAD)[5][6] as their licenses are incompatible.[7] A request also went to the FSF to relicense GNU LibreDWG as GPLv2, which was rejected.[8] This controversy has been resolved by writing a new GPLv2 licensed library called libdxfrw,[9] with more complete DWG support.
Related Research Articles
Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, not price: users—individually or in cooperation with computer programmers—are free to do what they want with their copies of a free software regardless of how much is paid to obtain the program. Computer programs are deemed free if they give users ultimate control over the software and, subsequently, over their devices.
The free software movement or free/open-source software movement or free/libre open-source software movement is a social movement with the goal of obtaining and guaranteeing certain freedoms for software users, namely the freedom to run the software, to study and change the software, and to redistribute copies with or without changes. Although drawing on traditions and philosophies among members of the 1970s hacker culture and academia, Richard Stallman formally founded the movement in 1983 by launching the GNU Project. Stallman later established the Free Software Foundation in 1985 to support the movement.
The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is a free-software license published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The license allows developers and companies to use and integrate a software component released under the LGPL into their own software without being required by the terms of a strong copyleft license to release the source code of their own components. However, any developer who modifies an LGPL-covered component is required to make their modified version available under the same LGPL license. For proprietary software, code under the LGPL is usually used in the form of a shared library, so that there is a clear separation between the proprietary and LGPL components. The LGPL is primarily used for software libraries, although it is also used by some stand-alone applications.
The GNU Project is a free software, mass collaboration project that Richard Stallman announced on September 27, 1983. Its goal is to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and computing devices by collaboratively developing and publishing software that gives everyone the rights to freely run the software, copy and distribute it, study it, and modify it. GNU software grants these rights in its license.
DWG is a proprietary binary file format used for storing two- and three- dimensional design data and metadata. It is the native format for several CAD packages including DraftSight, AutoCAD, BricsCAD, IntelliCAD, Caddie and Open Design Alliance compliant applications. In addition, DWG is supported non-natively by many other CAD applications. The .bak, .dws, .dwt and .sv$ files are also DWG files.
The Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) is a free and open-source software license, produced by Sun Microsystems, based on the Mozilla Public License (MPL). Files licensed under the CDDL can be combined with files licensed under other licenses, whether open source or proprietary. In 2005 the Open Source Initiative approved the license. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) considers it a free software license, but one which is incompatible with the GNU General Public License (GPL).
Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software that can be classified as both free software and open-source software. That is, anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source code is openly shared so that people are encouraged to voluntarily improve the design of the software. This is in contrast to proprietary software, where the software is under restrictive copyright licensing and the source code is usually hidden from the users.
Alternative terms for free software, such as open source, FOSS, and FLOSS, have been a controversial issue among free and open-source software users from the late 1990s onwards. These terms share almost identical licence criteria and development practices.
Tivoization is the creation of a system that incorporates software under the terms of a copyleft software license, but uses hardware restrictions to prevent users from running modified versions of the software on that hardware. Richard Stallman coined the term in reference to TiVo's use of GNU GPL licensed software on the TiVo brand digital video recorders (DVR), which actively blocks users from running modified software on its hardware by design. Stallman believes this practice denies users some of the freedom that the GNU General Public License was designed to protect. The Free Software Foundation refers to tivoized hardware as 'tyrant devices'.
This is a comparison of free and open-source software licenses. The comparison only covers software licenses with a linked article for details, approved by at least one expert group at the FSF, the OSI, the Debian project or the Fedora project. For a list of licenses not specifically intended for software, see List of free content licenses.
The Affero General Public License is a free software license. The first version of the Affero General Public License (AGPLv1), was published by Affero, Inc. in March 2002, and based on the GNU General Public License, version 2 (GPLv2). The second version (AGPLv2) was published in November 2007, as a transitional license to allow an upgrade path from AGPLv1 to the GNU Affero General Public License.
License compatibility is a legal framework that allows for pieces of software with different software licenses to be distributed together. The need for such a framework arises because the different licenses can contain contradictory requirements, rendering it impossible to legally combine source code from separately-licensed software in order to create and publish a new program. Proprietary licenses are generally program-specific and incompatible; authors must negotiate to combine code. Copyleft licenses are deliberately incompatible with proprietary licenses, in order to prevent copyleft software from being re-licensed under a proprietary license, turning it into proprietary software. Many copyleft licensese explicitly allow relicensing under some other copyleft licenses. Permissive licenses are compatible with everything, including proprietary licenses; there is thus no guarantee that all derived works will remain under a permissive license.
A free-software license is a notice that grants the recipient of a piece of software extensive rights to modify and redistribute that software. These actions are usually prohibited by copyright law, but the rights-holder of a piece of software can remove these restrictions by accompanying the software with a software license which grants the recipient these rights. Software using such a license is free software as conferred by the copyright holder. Free-software licenses are applied to software in source code and also binary object-code form, as the copyright law recognizes both forms.
The GNU General Public License is a widely-used free software license that guarantees end users the freedom to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was originally written by Richard Stallman, former head of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), for the GNU Project, and grants the recipients of a computer program the rights of the Free Software Definition. The GPL is a copyleft license, which means that derivative work must be open-source and distributed under the same or equivalent license terms. This is in distinction to permissive free software licenses, of which the BSD licenses and the MIT License are widely-used less-restrictive examples. GPL was the first copyleft license for general use.
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the free software movement, which promotes the universal freedom to study, distribute, create, and modify computer software, with the organization's preference for software being distributed under copyleft terms, such as with its own GNU General Public License. The FSF was incorporated in Massachusetts, US, where it is also based.
FreeCAD is a free and open-source general-purpose parametric 3D CAD modeler and a building information modeling (BIM) software with finite-element-method (FEM) support. FreeCAD is intended for mechanical engineering product design but also expands to a wider range of uses around engineering, such as architecture or electrical engineering. Users can not only interact with this software; because of the free and open-source nature of the software, users can also extend the functionality of the software using the Python programming language. FreeCAD is currently in a beta stage of development.
SolveSpace is a free (libre) and open-source 2D and 3D CAD program. It is a constraint-based parametric modeler with simple mechanical simulation capabilities. Version 2.1 onward runs on Windows, Linux and macOS. It is developed by Jonathan Westhues and a community of volunteers.
GNU LibreDWG is a software library programmed in C to manage DWG computer files, native proprietary format of computer-aided design software AutoCAD. It aims to be a free software replacement for the OpenDWG libraries. The project is managed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF).
Natron is a free and open-source node-based compositing software application. It has been influenced by digital compositing software such as Avid Media Illusion, Apple Shake, Blackmagic Fusion, Autodesk Flame and Nuke, from which its user interface and many of its concepts are derived.
Software relicensing is applied in open-source software development when software licenses of software modules are incompatible and are required to be compatible for a greater combined work. Licenses applied to software as copyrightable works, in source code as binary form, can contain contradictory clauses. These requirements can make it impossible to combine source code or content of several software works to create a new combined one.
References
- ↑ 'LibreCAD the only major free Computer Aided Design program'. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
- ↑ Dube, Ryan. '6 Tips To Get The Most Out of LibreCAD Free CAD Software'. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
- ↑ Wallen, Jack. 'DIY: LibreCAD offers basic CAD tools for free'. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
- ↑ 'Review about Linux LibreCAD and Linux Inkscape'. Archived from the original on 20 November 2012. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
- ↑ Prokoudine, Alexandre (26 January 2012). 'What's up with DWG adoption in free software?'. libregraphicsworld.org. Archived from the original on 9 November 2016. Retrieved 3 November 2013.
[Assimp's Alexander Gessler:] 'Personally, I'm extremely unhappy with their [LibreDWG's — LGW] GPL licensing. It prohibits its use in Assimp and for many other applications as well. I don't like dogmatic ideologies, and freeing software by force (as GPL/GNU does) is something I dislike in particular. It's fine for applications, because it doesn't hurt at this point, but, in my opinion, not for libraries that are designed to be used as freely as possible.' [Blender's Toni Roosendaal:] 'Blender is also still 'GPLv2 or later'. For the time being we stick to that, moving to GPL 3 has no evident benefits I know of. My advice for LibreDWG: if you make a library, choosing a widely compatible license (MIT, BSD, or LGPL) is a very positive choice.'
- ↑ Larabel, Michael (2013-01-24). 'FSF Wastes Away Another 'High Priority' Project'. Phoronix. Archived from the original on 2016-11-09. Retrieved 2013-08-22.
Both LibreCAD and FreeCAD both want to use LibreDWG and have patches available for supporting the DWG file format library, but can't integrate them. The programs have dependencies on the popular GPLv2 license while the Free Software Foundation will only let LibreDWG be licensed for GPLv3 use, not GPLv2.
- ↑ 'Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU Licenses – Is GPLv3 compatible with GPLv2?'. The official site. Retrieved 13 April 2011.
- ↑ Prokoudine, Alexandre (2012-12-27). 'LibreDWG drama: the end or the new beginning?'. libregraphicsworld.org. Archived from the original on 2016-11-09. Retrieved 2013-08-23.
[...]the unfortunate situation with support for DWG files in free CAD software via LibreDWG. We feel, by now it ought to be closed. We have the final answer from FSF. [...] 'We are not going to change the license.'
- ↑ libdxfrw on sourceforge.net
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to LibreCAD. |
- Official website
- LibreCAD on GitHub
- LibreCAD on SourceForge.net
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.