Printable drawings of component parts of furniture design showing dimensions for workbench use

[namekia]

Motivation / Existing Problem
As a hobbyist woodworker, I use CAD for creating dimensioned workshop drawings and for visualization renderings of my furniture designs. Previously, I had been taking advantage of the generous hobbyist license that Autodesk once offered for Fusion 360. At the time, Fusion 360 had the capability of generating highly detailed working drawings showing dimensions of components which make up an assembly. The drawing tools were solid, flexible and reliable. Edge lengths, radii, angles and hole dimensions were generated simply by clicking on the appropriate part in the drawing space. When components were modified in the modeling space dimensions were automatically updated in the drawing space.

Unfortunately, Autodesk decided to severely neuter the Fusion 360 capabilities provided by the free hobbyist license. Fusion 360 is no longer useful to me without purchasing an expensive annual subscription. SketchUp also requires an expensive annual subscription to access their drawing-generation tools. I have been searching for a viable CAD solution for quite some time.

I have no problem paying a reasonable price for software that is useful to me. However, as an occasional user with no profit motive, I can't justify an expensive annual subscription for an application bloated with features that I'll never use.

Description
I need to generate drawings for use at the workbench which show dimensions and placement of components that make up an assembly such as a piece of furniture. I'd like a flexible tool to generate shop drawings which display (or hide) length, width, thickness, angles, radii and position of holes in components which make up a furniture design. The tool would include an automatic method to produce multiple pages showing each component displayed in front, top and side views. Each of these views would display appropriate dimensions. Dimensions would be displayed (or hidden) by clicking on an edge, two edges of an angle, distance between an edge and a vector, or diameter of a circle.

Ability to edit font size, arrowhead type, line weight and insert notes would be nice.

Output to PDF format for desktop printing.

Alternative Solutions
Perhaps what I'm describing needs to be a seperate add-on or module of CAD Sketcher? In any case there must be tight integration between CAD Sketcher modeling space and the drawing generation space. Updates or changes in one space must automatically update the other.

A sweet bonus would be the ability to generate a detailed cut list or list of materials for the assembly.

Mockup
Here is an image of a random page to illustrate what I'm describing.

[FunkTank]

The PDF thing is a solvable problem with tools like PDF24 or the endless list of free PDF editors out there.
As for the dims and notes and such, we could probably get somewhere useful with greasepencil or meshtext, but the really critical feature here is rendered dimensions. If you could, say, have an ortho cam render out dims, then all you need to do is make as many linked duplicates as you need views (or possibly have the addon handle this) and then use meshtext/greasepencil to handle callouts and view titles.

This alone would make the tool viable in my industry, AV consulting, in which we put out renders of new communication equipment (cameras, TVs, speakers) to communicate how big things are and how they will fit into a given space. Honestly, if I could get feedback that the developer was interested in such a toolset, I imagine many companies would glady pay a $500/year or $2-3,000 lifetime license for this kind of tool, since autodesk charges a similar amount for a yearly subscription to revit (with all the addons you really need). For small projects / advertising projects / projects where the client isn't expecting an IFC or RVT file - this could genuinely become a real tool in industry.

Edit - also calling out #137 for a similar discussion

[FunkTank]

While I typed that, I also realised - the colour of the walls and such being flat in elevations and such is also kinda vital, but would be nice to have handled by the addon. What would need to happen is the material would need to have an addressable parameter (probably a mix shader) that would switch from a cartoon solid colour style to a realistic render based on that parameter. Because you would want different parts of a page to render in different styles, you would probably have to rely on the compositor editor in order to place the views on the same page.

[Voleybot]

I agree - rendered dimensions would be cool (using measureit is good, but... When i work with Palletecad, which is for woodworkers, had really smooth measurement's tool - i even make models in blender, and just for dimensions and documentation i use it Palletecad).

I work with blender for technical documentations - and i make simple script which can generate cut list (i should make video about it one day...).

I can help - with designing that stuff - i am not programmer, but can help with "how it can look and work".

[awschult002]

Although what I am going to suggest is not a solution to your overall problem, it might still be helpful advice to limp you along, or get developers looking for more options. Blender has an export utility for similar drawings. You don't get the multi view/dimensions and drawing editing functions; but you get the rendered images. check out freestyle_svg.

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/2.91/addons/render/render_freestyle_svg.html

this will get you line drawings that you can then place into your own PDF. I know that it is more manual than you would like; but perhaps this can provide path to quick solutions on the development side of the house.