Skip to main content

About FreeCAD

What's FreeCAD?​

Originally started as a parametric 3D Computer-aided Design (CAD) modeling tool, FreeCAD has grown to include many other capabilities like:

  • Building Information Modeling (BIM)
  • Finite Element Method(FEM)
  • Computer Aided Machining (CAM)

FreeCAD uses open-source libraries for much of it's functionality. Here are the notable ones:

  • Open CASCADE Technology is the CAD kernel
  • Coin3D for the scene graph
  • Qt for the GUI framework
  • Python for much of the user-facing logic and UI automation as well as FreeCAD's macro system

FreeCAD has a healthy community with many contributors and many 3rd-party workbenches that extend the core functionality into many other areas.

What's the FreeCAD Project Association?​

FreeCAD has its own legal personality through and AISBL incorporated in Brussels, Belgium. The FPA is made up of core developers and other community members and is tasked with advancing and protecting the FreeCAD project.

FreeCAD license​

The source code of FreeCAD is available under the terms of LGPL 2.0 or later.