freecad-meshtocad

MIT Early

FreeCAD workbench front-end for the mesh-to-cad pipeline. Bring a mesh in — scan, download, or AI-generated — and run intake, quality gate, geometry analysis, and deviation check from inside FreeCAD.

Muninn the raven working at a CAD workstation

What it is

Four toolbar buttons, in pipeline order: import → quality gate → analyze → deviation check. The buttons themselves won't let you run stages out of order. Each project lives in a folder with a manifest — the same format the mesh-to-cad CLI writes, so CLI and workbench projects are interchangeable.

AI-generated meshes are a first-class source type: intake treats them as unitless (you set the intended size), and every result reminds you the mesh carries no real dimensions.

Honest limits

The pipeline's honest limits carry over unchanged: no one-click scan-to-CAD, no magic buttons, no invented geometry. A needs-rescan verdict is a feature, not a bug. Until a stage is automated, the task panels explain themselves — the directions are the automation.

Install

In FreeCAD: Tools → Addon Manager → search "MeshToCAD" → Install, then restart and switch to the MeshToCAD workbench. CloudCompare is an optional soft dependency for the deviation check — everything else works without it, and the panel tells you exactly what's missing instead of failing silently.

Status

Early — MVP scope. Real-device testing is still ahead. Post-MVP roadmap: rebuild guidance panel, verification report, and STEP/STL/TechDraw export — the stages the MVP deliberately leaves manual.

Built with

Standing on the shoulders of FreeCAD and CloudCompare (optional — only needed for the deviation check).

Get it

github.com/GruntAndMuse/freecad-meshtocad