CAM Area

This is an experimental feature. See Enable Experimental Features. The command appears in the CAM  Area menu and on the Helpful Tools toolbar only when experimental features are enabled.

CAM Area CAM Area

Menu location

CAM  Area

Workbenches

CAM

Default shortcut

None

Introduced in version

-

See also

CAM Area Workplane

Description

The Area command (tooltip: "Creates a feature area from the selected objects") creates a Path::FeatureArea object, a 2D geometry processor based on the libarea/Clipper2 engine that the Profile, Pocket and other Operations use internally. It performs boolean operations, offsets, pocket patterns and Z sections on planar faces or wires linked in its Sources property and exposes the result as a Part shape. It is a developer and debugging aid rather than a machining Operation: it produces no toolpath and is not post-processed.

Usage

  1. Select one or more planar objects, faces or edges in the 3D View or Tree View (edges are expanded to the wire containing them; 3D sub-shapes are rejected with "Selected shape is not 2D").

  2. Press the CAM Area Area button. A FeatureArea is created whose Sources property links the selected objects (sub-elements are first extracted into helper Part::Feature objects named <object>_<Face n>). The source objects are hidden; drag and drop in the Tree View adds or removes sources.

  3. Selecting a single existing FeatureArea and pressing the button instead creates a FeatureAreaView object showing individual sections of that area (Source; SectionIndex: start index of the section to show, negative for reverse index from bottom; SectionCount: number of sections to show, 0 for all).

Properties

Data

Area

  • Operation (Enumeration): Boolean operation: Union, Difference, Intersection, Xor, Compound (Compound = no operation, used for wire sorting).

  • Fill (Enumeration): None, Face, Auto — fill the output wires to make a face; Auto makes a face if any child has a face.

  • Coplanar (Enumeration): None, Check, Force — Force discards non-coplanar shapes, Check only warns.

  • Reorient (Bool): Re-orient closed wires so that inner wires become holes.

  • Outline (Bool): Remove all inner wires (holes) before output.

  • Explode (Bool): Explode the first shape into open edges so that Difference behaves like wire cutting.

  • OpenMode (Enumeration): None, Union, Edges — how open wires are handled.

  • Deflection (Precision): Deflection for non-circular curve discretization.

  • SubjectFill (Enumeration) and ClipFill (Enumeration): Clipper2 fill rules EvenOdd, NonZero, Positive, Negative.

Base

  • Sources (LinkList): The input shapes.

  • WorkPlane (PartShape): The workplane shape, set by Area Workplane.

  • Placement, Label: generic properties.

Offset

  • Offset (Distance): Offset value, positive for expansion, negative for shrinking.

  • ExtraPass (Integer): Number of extra offset passes to generate.

  • Stepover (Length): Cutter diameter to step over on each pass; 0 uses Offset.

  • JoinType (Enumeration): Round, Square, Miter.

  • EndType (Enumeration): Round, Polygon, Joined, Square, Butt.

  • MiterLimit (Float): Miter limit for join type Miter.

  • RoundPrecision (Precision): Round joint precision; 0 defaults to Accuracy.

Pocket

  • PocketMode (Enumeration): None, ZigZag, Offset, Spiral, ZigZagOffset, Line, Grid, Triangle — pocket toolpath pattern.

  • ToolRadius (Length): Tool radius for pocketing.

  • PocketExtraOffset (Distance): Extra offset for pocketing.

  • PocketStepover (Length): Cutter diameter to step over on each pass; 0 uses ToolRadius.

  • FromCenter (Bool): Start pocketing from center.

  • Angle (Angle): Pattern angle in degrees.

  • AngleShift (Angle): Pattern angle shift for each section.

  • Shift (Distance): Pattern shift distance for each section (Offset, Grid and Triangle only).

  • ForceMaxStepover (Bool): Force maximum stepover even if not all area is cleared; otherwise large stepovers are reduced to ensure full coverage. introduced in 26.3

  • Thicken (Bool): Thicken the resulting wires with ToolRadius.

Section

  • SectionCount (Integer): Number of sections to generate; -1 means full sections.

  • Stepdown (Distance): Step down distance for each section; positive from top down, negative upward.

  • SectionOffset (Distance): Offset for the first section.

  • SectionTolerance (Precision): Offset added when hitting the boundary.

  • SectionMode (Enumeration): Absolute, BoundBox, Workplane — section offset coordinate mode.

  • Project (Bool): Produce the section by projecting the outline of all shapes to the section plane instead of slicing.

libarea

  • Tolerance (Precision): Point coincidence tolerance.

  • FitArcs (Bool): Enable arc fitting.

  • Simplify (Bool): Simplify polygons after operation.

  • CleanDistance (Length): Clean polygons smaller than this distance.

  • Accuracy (Precision): Arc fitting accuracy.

  • Unit (Float): Scaling factor for conversion to inch.

  • MinArcPoints (Integer): Minimum segments for arc discretization.

  • MaxArcPoints (Integer): Maximum segments for arc discretization (currently ignored).

  • ClipperScale (Float): Scale factor to convert floating points to Clipper integers.

1.1 and earlier: The LastStepover (Offset group) and PocketLastStepover (Pocket group) properties were removed in 26.3.

View

The view provider hides the source objects while they are linked, claims them as children in the Tree View, and shows them again when the FeatureArea is deleted. A FeatureAreaView uses the icon CAM Area View.

Scripting

See also: FreeCAD Scripting Basics.

The same parameters listed above are the keyword arguments of Path.Area.setParams(), and the defaults can be set with Path.Area.setDefaultParams().

Example:

import Path, Part

area = Path.Area()
area.add(FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.Sketch.Shape)
area.setParams(Offset=-2.0)
shape = area.getShape()
Part.show(shape)