Migrating to FreeCAD from Fusion360/pt-br

Background

This page is intended for users who are interested in migrating to FreeCAD from the Fusion 360 world.

The first thing that you want to do is to get your files out of proprietary formats and storage. Start by exporting your models from the cloud to your local machine.
- A popular method is using a Python script added into Fusion 360 which exports all your models. The following scripts are available on Github:
  - Fusion360 total exporter script. At June 2026, this does not work for accounts which are 'Not for Commercial Use' as the script exports in IGES format.
  - A different version of the Fusion 360 total exporter script. This version allows the user to select whether to export STEP, STL and IGES files (by changing lines 15-17 in the script). If downloading, please check the link in the README file as at June 2026 this links to the original version above.
  - Fusion 360 Exporter script.
We recommend exporting to STEP format.

Please also reference the ongoing work in progress CAD Rosetta Stone project to learn the analogous names that popular proprietary CADs use

Reference the Glossary page in general but here is a short list of specific terms that F360 folks may find specifically helpful:

Tangent constraint - FreeCAD's form of Collinear Constraint. See Sketcher ConstrainTangent.
Pad - The extrude function in FreeCAD. Read the PartDesign Pad documentation to learn more.
Toponaming - Short for Topological naming problem. Covered very well in Brodie Fairhall's youtube clip].

What formats do you support in FreeCAD?
- The native file format in FreeCAD is BREP, boundary representation, provided by the internal OpenCASCADE (OCCT) geometry kernel.
- FreeCAD supports all formats that OCCT supports, so STEP and IGES at least.
What formats should I use to migrate to FreeCAD?
- STEP is the best format because it is a solid Shape format, as opposed to a Mesh (STL, OBJ, DAE). Example, Importing Step with Colors.
- Importing an STL is possible, but this mesh format will be difficult to modify further. We recommend converting imported meshes to solid Shapes using Part ShapeFromMesh. Remodelling the object in FreeCAD, while using the mesh as reference, is the best advice.

@MPetrika (twitter) recommends installing HakanSeven12's ModernUI Workbench
Export scripts may hang indefinitely while exporting certain files. The only solution is to alter the Python script to exclude these files and then rerun.

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