FreeCrafter

Status: Pre-alpha. Most roadmap features are missing and the application is not yet usable for real work.

FreeCrafter is an experimental 3D modeling sandbox built with Qt and OpenGL. At this stage it only offers a minimal interface and a few prototype tools; many menu items are placeholders and the program may crash.

About FreeCrafter

FreeCrafter is a versatile 3D modeling tool designed for designers, engineers, and creative professionals. With an intuitive, user-friendly interface and a range of powerful modeling tools, FreeCrafter enables you to create 3D models for a wide array of applications—whether you're working on product prototypes, building designs, or creative projects. FreeCrafter is designed for users of all experience levels, offering the flexibility to turn ideas into detailed 3D models. Key Features:

Intuitive 3D Modeling: Use simple tools to draw, shape, and modify 3D objects, making it easy to bring your designs to life, regardless of your experience with 3D software.

Customizable Models: Build your own models from scratch or modify existing ones to suit your needs, giving you complete control over your design process.

Precision Tools: Access tools for accurate measurement and alignment, ensuring your models meet exact specifications.

Multi-Platform Support: FreeCrafter is available for Windows, macOS, and likely Linux, providing compatibility across major desktop operating systems.

Use Cases:

Building & Architecture: Design 3D models of buildings and architectural elements. While FreeCrafter doesn't have a dedicated floor plan feature, it's perfect for creating detailed models of structures, facades, and interiors.

Product Design: Quickly prototype and visualize products, from small objects to complex designs, for testing, manufacturing, or presentation.

Engineering & Manufacturing: Model mechanical components, assemblies, or other engineering designs, ideal for analysis, simulation, or prototyping.

Creative Projects: Bring your artistic ideas to life, whether for visual arts, conceptual designs, or other creative pursuits.

FreeCrafter provides an approachable yet powerful environment for creating 3D models, offering flexibility for a variety of projects while maintaining simplicity in its design and workflow.

Current Capabilities

For a breakdown of planned milestones and features, see the ROADMAP.

Features

• Qt-based desktop interface with a custom OpenGL viewport
• Camera controller supporting orbit, pan, and zoom
• Minimal geometry kernel that stores curves and extruded solids
• Prototype tools for selection and freehand sketching on the ground plane with basic extrusion

Planned Features

• Robust sketching and constraint tools
• File operations (new, open, save) and persistent projects
• Packaging into ready-to-run installers or app bundles
• Undo/redo, layers, and many other modeling functions

Building

The repository ships with a helper script that fetches a minimal Qt runtime and builds the project for you. After cloning, simply run the bootstrap script:

python scripts/bootstrap.py

If you already have Qt 6 installed, set the CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH or Qt6_DIR environment variable so the script can use it:

export CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/path/to/Qt/6.5.3/gcc_64
# or
export Qt6_DIR=/path/to/Qt/6.5.3/gcc_64/lib/cmake/Qt6
python scripts/bootstrap.py

The script also searches common install locations such as ~/Qt on Unix systems or C:/Qt on Windows and falls back to downloading Qt if none is found.

If you prefer a graphical installer, launch:

python scripts/gui_bootstrap.py

This GUI streams progress from bootstrap.py and provides an "Install" button to start the build. To create a standalone executable that users can double‑click, run:

python scripts/package_gui_bootstrap.py

The command uses PyInstaller and writes the bundled executable to the dist directory.

Note: IDEs or language servers may report Import "aqtinstall" could not be resolved until the packages listed in scripts/requirements.txt are installed for the Python interpreter they use. Creating a virtual environment and ensuring pip points to that interpreter usually resolves the warning.

The script installs its Python dependencies (including aqtinstall) from PyPI if they are missing, downloads the necessary Qt libraries from the official Qt servers, configures CMake with that Qt, compiles FreeCrafter, and runs the appropriate deployment utility so the resulting executable already includes the Qt runtime.

The built program can be found in the build directory and should run on a machine without any additional setup.

Though we hope to skip even this step in future.

Installing or Packaging

Official releases ship ready-to-run installers for each platform. Download the appropriate package from the project's GitHub Releases page and double-click to run:

Platform	File
Windows	FreeCrafter-<version>.exe
macOS	FreeCrafter-<version>.dmg
Linux	FreeCrafter-<version>.AppImage

The <version> placeholder should match the release version number you're downloading (for example, FreeCrafter-0.1.0.dmg).

• FreeCrafter-<version>.exe for Windows
• FreeCrafter-<version>.dmg for macOS
• FreeCrafter-<version>.AppImage for Linux

After configuring and building locally, the project can be staged for distribution.

To copy the app bundle into a separate directory, run:

cmake --install build --prefix dist
# or just
cmake --install build

The install step writes the executable or bundle into the chosen prefix. For example, using the dist prefix above yields dist/FreeCrafter.exe on Windows or dist/FreeCrafter.app on macOS.

From within the build directory you can also create an installer with cpack:

cpack

On Windows this generates an NSIS .exe installer; on macOS it creates a Drag’n’Drop .dmg containing the app bundle. The resulting package is written to the build directory.

Resources

Icon assets are stored under resources/icons and bundled using Qt's resource system. They are currently only dummy assets.

License

This project is released under the terms of the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.