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Tutorials PartCraft

PartCraft help

Parametric parts & assemblies. Start at the top if you are new; jump to a walkthrough if you know what you need.

Written for PartCraft 0.3. The same help is inside the app: press F1. Open PartCraft

Getting started

  • What's new in 0.3

    PartCraft 0.3 adds accurate tetrahedral meshes with automatic refinement, heat, thermal stress, buckling and laminar flow studies, body tools, Gordon surfaces, a preview of scripting, the view cube and movable panels, with an experimental turbulence model.

  • Get started with PartCraft

    What PartCraft does today, what your browser needs, and a first part in ten minutes, from sketch to saved file.

  • The PartCraft screen

    A tour of every bar and panel: the toolbar and how it changes, the history, the part facts, the 3D view, the properties panel and the status bar.

  • Files: open, save and export

    The part and assembly files PartCraft opens and saves, every export format and what it keeps, where files go, and what changes offline or between browsers.

  • The exact kernel and the mesh kernel

    PartCraft builds solids with two geometry kernels: a small mesh kernel that is ready at once, and the exact OpenCascade kernel that loads in the background. What each one can do, how to tell which is working, and what changes offline.

Walkthroughs

  • Draw your first sketch

    Open a sketch on a plane or a flat face, draw lines, rectangles, circles, arcs, points and centerlines, round a corner, select, drag and delete.

  • The view cube

    Click a face, edge or corner of the cube in the corner of the view to look from there, drag it to orbit, turn the compass ring, step around a face-on view, and go home.

  • Splines, trim, offset and other sketch tools

    Draw fit-point and control-point splines, trim and extend curves, offset a chain, mirror about a centerline, add polygons and slots, pattern sketch geometry and project model edges.

  • Fully define a sketch with relations and dimensions

    Add relations from the right panel and dimensions with the Dimension tool, read the under, fully and over defined colors, and fix a sketch that is over defined.

  • Add sketch geometry by typing coordinates

    Use Add by coordinates in the sketch panel to place lines, centerlines, rectangles, circles and points at exact positions, with the keyboard only.

  • Extrude a boss and cut through it

    Turn a sketch into a solid with Extrude, set blind, mid-plane, up-to or two-direction depths, a taper, or one contour of the sketch, then sketch on a face and Cut a pocket or a through slot.

  • Revolve a turned part

    Sketch half a profile beside a centerline, revolve it into a round part, choose the axis and angle, and use a revolved cut for grooves.

  • Drill holes and counterbores at sketch points

    Put points in a sketch on a face, make simple, counterbored, countersunk or tapped (ISO metric) holes at every point, set diameter and depth, and fix holes that drill the wrong way.

  • Reference planes, axes and points

    Make planes offset from a face, at an angle, through three points, midway, tangent to a cylinder, square to an edge or through an edge and a point; axes; points at edge middles, crossings and plane corners; sketch on them and use them as revolve axes, pattern directions and mirror planes.

  • Pattern and mirror features

    Repeat features in a row with Linear, round an axis with Circular, and copy features or the whole body across a plane with Mirror.

  • Combine, move and scale bodies; path patterns

    Make separate bodies, then join, cut or intersect them after the fact, move, turn, align or copy them, scale them evenly or by X, Y and Z, and copy features or bodies along a curve.

  • Sweep, loft and draft

    Sweep a closed profile along a path of sketch curves or model edges, loft through sections on different planes, and add draft to faces; with the options, the exact results, and the messages.

  • Round, bevel and hollow with Fillet, Chamfer and Shell

    Pick edges and add constant or variable-radius fillets and equal, two-distance or distance-angle chamfers, hollow a part with Shell by picking the faces to open, change which edges or faces a feature uses, and fix the usual failures.

  • Open a STEP file and build on it

    Bring a supplier's or another CAD program's STEP solid into PartCraft, as a new part or added to the current one, set which way is up, and add sketches and features to it.

  • Move parts to and from other part modelers

    Send a part to another part modeler as a macro that rebuilds it with a live feature tree, or as a named STEP, and open the feature list another modeler wrote out with the CadCraft export macro.

  • Change a part through its history

    Edit features and sketches after the fact, suppress, roll back, insert features earlier, reorder, rename and delete, and undo any of it.

  • Freeform shapes with Form, and surface features

    Push and pull a smooth control cage in the Form workspace, crease edges, use symmetry, check and finish it into an exact solid or surface, then patch, loft, stitch, thicken, offset, extend and trim surfaces in Design. What is exact and what is approximated.

  • Roll back and forward through the history

    Step the rollback bar up and down one feature at a time to watch the part being built, insert features in the middle, and return to the end.

  • Surfaces through a curve network (Gordon surface)

    Make one smooth surface through a grid of profile and guide curves drawn in sketches or taken from model edges, close it to a solid when the profiles are closed, and what is exact, what is fitted, and the messages when a network does not fit.

  • Copy, paste and duplicate

    Copy sketch geometry, features and assembly parts; paste where you click or in place; duplicate in one step; and what comes along with a copy and what does not.

  • Change sizes without opening the sketch

    Drive a part from the numbers in the right panel: sketch dimensions, depths, counts and angles, how to plan a part so the right numbers drive it, and where parameters and equations take over.

  • Drive a part with parameters

    Name the sizes that matter (width, thickness, bolt size), link any feature number or sketch dimension to them with =, and change the whole part from one table.

  • Equations both ways

    Change a parameter and the part follows; type a new size into a driven number and PartCraft works out the parameter behind it, asking which one when several could change.

  • Design tables

    Keep several sizes of one part in a CSV file, one row per configuration, and switch between them with one click or build them all from the command line.

  • Build an assembly with joints

    Start an assembly from a part, insert copies and other part files, join them with rigid, revolute and slider joints on flat faces, center joints on axes, edit a part in place and save the assembly.

  • Parts list, exploded views and moving parts

    Give assembly parts a number, description and material, read and download the bill of materials, make exploded views with steps or automatically, move parts that are not joined by hand, set joint limits, and export the whole assembly as STEP, STL, 3MF or a drawing.

  • Check an assembly for clashes and motion

    Find parts that overlap with Clash, drag revolute and slider joints to watch the motion, and sweep a joint through its range to find where parts collide.

  • Measure distances, angles and mass

    Click two things in the view for the exact minimum distance, angle and ΔX ΔY ΔZ; read an edge's length, a hole's diameter, a face's area or a point's coordinates; get volume, mass, centre of mass and inertia of a part or an assembly.

  • Export for printing, STEP and DXF

    Export the part as STL or 3MF for 3D printing, as an exact STEP solid (AP242 or AP214) for other CAD programs, and a sketch or a flat face as DXF for laser and waterjet cutting.

  • Make a drawing with views, a section and GD&T

    Open the drawing sheet, add a section and a detail view, place datums, feature control frames and surface finish symbols, and export the A3 sheet as a PDF.

  • Make toolpaths and G-code (Manufacture)

    Set up stock and a work origin, choose tools, add face, pocket, contour, drill and chamfer operations by picking faces, simulate the stock for gouges and cycle time, and download G-code for Fanuc-style, GRBL or LinuxCNC controls.

  • Check stress and deflection (Simulation)

    Pick a material, fix faces, add forces, pressures or the part's own weight, solve, and read von Mises stress, displacement, safety factor, reactions and natural frequencies on the model, with what the method can and cannot tell you.

  • Heat, thermal stress and buckling

    Find the temperatures in a part from fixed temperatures, heat flux, heat power, convection and radiation (steady or over time), load a stress study with a temperature rise, and find the load at which a slender part buckles, with what each method can and cannot tell you.

  • Grow a shape from loads (Generative)

    Pick the faces that are held and loaded, regions to keep and to keep clear, target volumes and materials, and generate outcomes: the stiffest shapes found for each volume, checked again as solids, compared in a table and downloaded as STL, STEP or a new part.

  • Simulate fluid flow (Flow study)

    Flow through the channels inside a part or around it in a box: inlets, outlets, air, water or your own fluid, then speed and pressure on a movable cut plane, streamlines, surface pressure, pressure drop, mass balance, drag and lift, with what the laminar method can and cannot tell you.

  • Write and run scripts (Script workspace)

    The Script workspace step by step: write a CraftScript or Lua script, run it with F5, read the console, keep results in the variables for the next script, show meshes, fields and plots, stop a run, and save scripts with the part.

  • The analysis library

    The library of readable analysis scripts in the Script workspace: what is in each group, opening a function read-only, its header with method, references and a check, making your own copy, and how a copy takes over from the library function.

  • Write your own analysis

    Build an analysis as scripts in the Script workspace: mesh the part, assemble and solve, show the field and a convergence plot, check the result against a hand calculation, and keep the steps as separate scripts that share variables.

  • Save, reopen and keep working

    Save parts and assemblies to your computer, name them, reopen them by button, key or drag, keep versions, and avoid losing work in a browser tab.

Coming from other software

Reference

  • Keys and mouse

    Every keyboard shortcut and mouse action in PartCraft, grouped by where it works: everywhere, copy and paste, on the part, in the 3D view, in a sketch, in the history and in an assembly.

  • PartCraft settings

    Choose which mouse button turns the view, make a trackpad swipe turn and pan the part, turn automatic relations while sketching on or off, and set how many threads the simulation solvers use.

  • Sketch relations and dimensions

    Every relation and dimension a PartCraft sketch has, what to select for each, its symbol, and how it behaves when solving.

  • Features and their options

    Every feature in the toolbar with its settings, defaults and limits, from extrude to fillet, shell and imported STEP solids, the actions every feature shares, and the part settings.

  • File formats

    Every file PartCraft reads and writes, with extensions, units, axes and what each one keeps or loses.

  • Trackpad, touch and small screens

    How to turn, pan and zoom with a Mac or laptop trackpad, what works on a touch screen and what still needs a keyboard, and how the screen rearranges on a phone or narrow window.

  • Scripts and the command line

    The PartCraft script format (.pcscript) that writes a whole part as readable text, and the partcraft command line tool that builds, changes, rolls back and checks parts without the screen.

  • The CraftScript language

    CraftScript in one page: matrices, ranges and indexing, operators, control flow, functions, structs and cells, comments, echo, errors and the step budget, and how it differs from MATLAB.

  • Scripts in Lua

    Write Script workspace scripts in Lua 5.4: the cs table of built-in functions, arrays as values with indexing and arithmetic, the shared ws workspace, printing and showing results, and what is switched off.

Troubleshooting and limits

  • Troubleshooting

    Problems you may meet in PartCraft, from the app not starting to features failing, sketches that will not solve, files that will not open and joints that misbehave, with the message you see and the fix.

  • What is not built yet

    Everything this PartCraft build does not do yet, from twisting sweeps to inch display, drawing dimensions and sub-assemblies, with what to do instead today.

All tutorials