Installing CadQuery¶

CadQuery is based on FreeCAD, which is turn based on the open-source OpenCascade modelling kernel.

Prerequisites–FreeCAD and Python 2.6 or 2.7¶

CadQuery requires FreeCAD and Python version 2.6.x or 2.7.x Python 3.x is NOT supported

Ubuntu Command Line Installation¶

On Ubuntu, you can type:

sudo apt-get install -y freecad freecad-doc
pip install cadquery

This Unix Installation Video will walk you through the installation

Installation: Other Platforms¶

Install FreeCAD using the appropriate installer for your platform, on www.freecadweb.org

pip install cadquery

This Windows Installation video will walk you through the installation on Windows

Test Your Installation¶

If all has gone well, you can open a command line/prompt, and type:

$python
$import cadquery
$cadquery.Workplane('XY').box(1,2,3).toSvg()

Adding a Nicer GUI via the cadquery-freecad-module¶

If you prefer to have a GUI available, your best option is to use The CadQuery Freecad Module.

Simply extract cadquery-freecad-module into your FreeCAD installation. You’ll end up with a cadquery workbench that allows you to interactively run scripts, and then see the results in the FreeCAD GUI

If you are using Ubuntu, you can also install it via this ppa:

https://code.launchpad.net/~freecad-community/+archive/ubuntu/ppa/+packages

Zero Step Install¶

If you would like to use cadquery with no installation all, you can use ParametricParts.com, a web-based platform that runs cadquery scripts

It is free, and allows running and viewing cadquery scripts in your web browser or mobile phone