What are the differences between FreeCAD's Clone and Link tools?

we're going to look at the differences between freecads clone and link tools in this video stick around [Music] [Applause] [Music] hi i'm jeff and i'm here to help you learn freecad so you can design the things that you've imagined a viewer asked what the differences between the clone and the link tools were let's find out we'll start with the clone tool first i'm using freecad version 0.19 built on the 15th of april 2021 for this demonstration and i'm running it on kubuntu linux version 20.04 lts the clone tool is part of freecad's part design workbench and is used to create an exact replica of a body or part of a body within the model when you create a clone is placed over the top of the original and you need to use the transform tool in order to move it you cannot modify the clone so you have to modify the original and the clone updates accordingly let's show how this works so i'm going to create a simple body that we can use for the entire demonstration so create the body create sketch put it on the xy plane it's just going to be a rectangle with a couple of holes in it i'm not going to bother constraining it because for the sake of this demonstration it doesn't really matter then what we're going to do is we're going to pat it out to oh not a pocket we're going to pat it out to be 10 mil then we're going to come across to the combo view and we're going to rename that body to be original [Music] just zoom out a little bit so the first thing we're going to do is we're just going to clone the whole body so we make sure that the body is the active body and then we click the clone tool as you can see in the combo view we have the original body and we also have a second body called body one which i'm going to rename to be clone body one and you can't see it on the screen then that's because it's simply overlaid on top of the original so i'm going to right click on clone body one and use the transform tool and i'm just going to move it out a bit make it different and click ok fit the screen so you can see we have two bodies that are the same different colors in this case just simply because i've got brickhead set up to use random colors for parts now if we then come back to the original which is the purple one and we make some modifications to it you'll see that they flow straight through into the clone so to do this and avoid the topological naming problem for more information on the topological problem see my video that's linked up in the top right corner so create a datum plane and we're just going to detach it from that face and then we'll create a sketch on that and simply just place oh let's go with a hexagon and we will use a pocket and pocket that the whole way through and as you can see even though it's just started and is not complete yet it's showing up in the clone as well so we'll change the type to be through all and click ok and you can see the clone has updated as well and we'll hide the datum plane now please note i use datum plane and datum plane interchangeably so if i say one or the other it means the same thing now the other thing you do with a clone is that you can clone up to a point in the body and then it doesn't clone any further so let's go with the pocket and we'll start cloning at the pocket so we select the pocket in the original and then we click the clone tool again you'll see that it is on top of the original i'm just going to rename that we're going to call it clone feature pocket 1 and i'm going to transform that just out of the way so that we can see the original as well like so fit it to the screen this particular clone is not a clone of the full body if i go back to the original body and add some new features to it the second clone will not show those features so let me show you what i mean again we will create a datum plane and detach it and on top of this plane we'll create another sketch and i'll just put another rectangle on and i'm going to pad that out now as you can see i've added the feature on the original the feature is shown on the first clone because that's the clone of the whole body and it's not shown in the second clone because that was cloned at the point where we created the pocket for the hexagon hide the datum plane so you can see that's how the the clone tool works there are a few limitations of it you can only clone a body with a single solid so this means you cannot clone compound solids such as part containers part compounds and draft arrays you cannot clone a body or a part of a body into another body i've just demonstrated this with bodies that are created in the part design workbench but it does also work in a part workbench so if we switch to part and we'll just create a solid or a cube sorry and we'll set its size to be [Music] 100 by 100 by 100 and oops 100 and we will change its y position to be 150 and it's x position to be the same just so it's way out of the way so if i switch back to the part design workbench and then clone the cube and rename the clone q1 and transform it away you can see that it also works on objects created in the part workbench now we're going to have a brief look at the link tool if you're interested in learning more about the link tool i have a more complete video linked above so like the clone tool the link tool allows us to link to a full body or part of a body and unlike the clone tool it also allows us to link to an external body but for the purposes of this video we're just going to look at how it works with bodies that are in the same model so like the clone tool linked bodies are created on top of the original and need to be moved using the transform tool so let's have a look at that so we'll select the original in the combo view and we'll click on the link tool and you can see in the combo view we now have another one called original 01 and you'll also notice that there is a link icon on it so i'm just going to rename that to be linked original one and as you can see it's sitting on top of the original so we'll just use the transform tool to move it out of the way now one of the things you'll notice is the color is the same that's because inside the model it's not actually a separate body it's actually just a link to the original whereas with the clones you can see they're all different colors this is because they are actually different entities within the model now we cannot modify the link it will always go back to the original so i'll just delete that datum plane for the minute so if i was to add another feature to the original again we'll just use a datum plane just to avoid the topological naming problem create a sketch on top of it select the datum plane create the sketch and we will just place a slot [Music] so then we'll create a pocket using the slot and we will just make it five mil deep and turn off or hide the datum plane so as you can see the clone has also updated along with the link so like the clone tool you can also link to part of a body so let's do that now and we will link to this pad here create a link and again you can see that it's lying on top of the original i'll just rename that to be had one and when i go to move it you'll see that i don't have the option to transform it and that's because it's not an attached body now what do i mean by that we go into the details view down the bottom you will see that it only has a placement point now talk about placement points and attachment points in my video about local and global coordinate systems and i'll link to that above as well so the only way that you can move this linked body is to actually manipulate the placement point itself so we have to go into the position within the placement point and then we can simply move the x and y coordinates or z coordinates whichever way you want to go so you can also see that it is the same color as the original which means it's just a link to the original not a separate object and now if we were to place a another feature on top of say this feature here which we'll do again we'll just create a sketch on top of it oops that's what i wanted it on and we'll just create a small circle which will represent like a chimney or something like that so you can see that as soon as i've created that extra feature in the original the clone has got it and also the link has got it but the link to the partial body does not so it works in much the same way that the clone tool does in that regard so there you have it the clone and link tools are very similar in nature the clone tool clones bodies or parts of bodies that are treated as individual bodies within the model the link tool on the other hand creates links to bodies or parts of bodies that are treated as the same body within the model that's a bit of a mouthful i've really only used the link tool in my work because i like to store common components as bodies in external models and then link them in as they're required i hope you found the video interesting if you did please click the like button and if you haven't already done so please consider subscribing to the channel please leave comments questions and topic suggestions down below if you'd like to support the channel you could buy me a cup of coffee through the link in the description below thanks for watching and we'll see you next time

Channel: Glasson Design Studio

Views: 2,372

Keywords: freecad, freecad part design, freecad 19, freecad 0.19, freecad part design workbench tutorial, freecad part design workbench, freecad 19 ubuntu, freecad part design tutorial, freecad 19 tutorial, freecad drawing, freecad tutorial, part design freecad tutorial, part design freecad, furniture design using freecad, freecad tutorial 2021, freecad 0.19 tutorials for beginners, freecad clone tool, freecad link tool, compare freecad clone and link tool

Id: Y1cifndxxkY

Length: 12min 34sec (754 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 26 2021