CfdOF — The Complete Guide: OpenFOAM Simulations Inside FreeCAD with a Graphical Interface
CfdOF is an open-source (LGPL-3.0) workbench for FreeCAD that links the geometric model to the OpenFOAM flow solver. The biggest hurdle in OpenFOAM is its complex case folder; CfdOF builds it for you from graphical dialogs, so you reach a first result much faster.
CfdOF
Oliver Oxtoby, Johan Heyns and contributors
A FreeCAD workbench that sets up, meshes and runs OpenFOAM CFD cases from a graphical interface — without hand-writing configuration files.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- Graphical setup — picking faces on the model and defining inlets, outlets, walls and symmetry.
- Physics — incompressible and compressible flow, turbulence models and heat transfer.
- Meshing — generating a computational mesh with refinement near surfaces.
- Run and monitor — launching the solver and tracking convergence from inside FreeCAD.
- Easy installation — from the FreeCAD Addon Manager, with a dependency checker.
Tip before you start
CfdOF is an interface, not a solver: OpenFOAM must be installed too, and for advanced viewing of results ParaView is the usual choice. Start with the examples bundled with the workbench, make sure they run, and only then move to your own model. A trustworthy result still needs basic CFD understanding — mesh quality, boundary conditions and convergence checks.
Related tools
For a standalone graphical front end to OpenFOAM — BARAM. For building complex meshes — Gmsh. For analysing and displaying flow fields — ParaView.
OpenFOAM
OpenFOAM Foundation
Comprehensive CFD solvers — flow, turbulence, heat transfer and multiphase. Text-file driven, no GUI.
Get it from the vendor
BARAM
NEXTFOAM
A graphical front-end for OpenFOAM — meshing, case set-up, running and results, without editing text files.
Get it from the vendor
Gmsh
Gmsh Project
FEA mesh generator with built-in geometry and scripting — standard infrastructure for open numerical work.
Get it from the vendor
ParaView
Kitware / Sandia / Los Alamos
Large-scale simulation post-processing — slices, streamlines and animation.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
CfdOF is the most convenient way to run OpenFOAM straight from FreeCAD. Open source and completely free, including for commercial use.